Saturday, November 9, 2013

How To Be A Super Villain: Six Tips For Ruling The World

 This trying to take over the world business isn't as easy as it seems.  Even with legions of henchmen and all kinds of super toys available to you, there's always some superhero out there to thwart your plans just when you're on the verge of success.

If world domination is your goal, here's a list of the top six essentials you'll need for a career as a super villain.

Persian Cat (or equally sinister animal adornment)
Why It's Necessary:  A super villain needs to be holding the cat when he makes his grand entrance.  The Persian breed says you're wealthy and that mankind's most aloof creature is no match for your icy resolve.
Who Did It Best:  Ernst Stavro Blofeld, possibly James Bond's greatest enemy, was the trendsetter for many super villain staples.

Bald Head
Why It's Necessary:  Any super villain worthy of the name has a spectacular chrome dome holding his genius brain.
Who Did It Best:  Lex Luthor immediately leaps to mind.

Minions
Why It's Essential:  The truth about super villains can be summed up as why have dogs around you if you're going to end up doing your own barking.  The true super villain is too busy creating super plots to take over the world to have time for the minor interruptions such as kidnapping enemies and making Starbucks runs.
Who Did It Best:  Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader had an army of Stormtroopers to send after the Rebel Alliance.  Of course, that didn't help them win in the end.

Inventive Death Traps
Why It's Essential:  A super villain can't simply kill his adversary, he has to come up with an ingenious method of doing away with him that offers maximum dramatic impact.  Of course, the downside of this is that it gives the hero ample opportunity to escape.
Who Did It Best:  From Blofeld's piranha pool to all the torturous devices Indiana Jones encountered, there are just too many to try to pick only one.

Secret Hideaway
Why It's Essential:  In order to have a dramatic showdown you need to have a suitably impressive backdrop and a secret hideaway is just the place.
Who Did It Best:  Austin Powers' nemesis, Dr. Evil may have been inept in many areas, but he definitely had an eye for impressive lairs.

Evil Plan
Why It's Essential:  Anyone with a genius IQ can built a super weapon and rain havoc on the population.  However, a true super villain has to do more than just destroy stuff.  He needs an evil plan to justify all the destruction and there needs to be something for the hero to thwart.
Who Did It Best:  The history of villainy give us a wealth of truly moronic evil plans.  But for a scheme we can all believe in, we need to look at Magneto, the metal-molding mutant from X-Men.  He can show us how an evil plan is done.

Who are your favorite super villains?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I liked the Kingpin from the daredevil movie. Duncan was great. he made me feel that if I ran into him a dark alley. My first thought would be. "Oh Lord let me die a quick death."
G W Pickle

Shawna Delacorte said...

LOL...oh, yes! I think if a fictional villain can evoke that "let me die a quick death" response, they the creator/writer/actor has done a good job with the character.

Thanks for your comment.

Anonymous said...

T Y. I patterned my main villain in my space opera "SENTI" after Duncan's roll as Kingpin in the movie "Daredevil".
Another villain I loved was Baltar, From the original TV series Battlestar Galactia". Talk about having minions he was in charge of several thousands Ceylons, and a basestar made a great lair and transportation. His reward for selling out the 12 human colonies and almost entirely killing them off.
G W Pickle