I am a Supervillain, AMA: Pt. 2

Ok, so things have gotten a little out of hand. Honestly, I didn’t mean for this to happen. I seriously thought I had this all under control. Obviously, I misjudged the situation a little… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

This was supposed to be the event that really put me on the map. Every villain has a moment like this: a moment in which they go from being a nobody to a real somebody. A lot of guys manage to pull this off right out of the gate. I, on the other hand, had to work for it.

I had been busting my ass for years now, and I had this one, perfect chance to make my dreams become reality. I had been planning for months on end… put my entire life on hold. I even turned down a date with Madam Mayhem. She has been quite the catch ever since they reattached her left arm. You hardly notice the cyborg parts any more, but I digress. It took me seven weeks to get the power core for my weather machine calibrated just right. I spent another five trying to reassemble it after that little “incident” in Montana, which you may have heard of. No pain, no gain, after all.

It was a lot of hard work and I don’t even have any henchmen yet. Who in their right mind would hench for free. And do you have any idea what kind of union these guys have? I’d still be in contract negotiations. Although, in retrospect that might not have been so bad.

The device itself was absolutely beautiful. Remember how I said my grandfather used to build the classics? Well, I took a couple pages from his design book. My device is made from stainless steel, polished to a mirror finish, with all chrome controls. The central emitter is powered by two Van der Graaf generators with some awesome etchings that were done by yours truly. I’m a pretty good artist, if I do say so myself. I even threw on some laser emitters. They don’t actually do anything, but they just look so damn cool!

But I bet you’re wondering exactly what it does. Well it’s super technical and obviously, since you don’t have advanced degrees in evil science, you wouldn’t understand, but I’ll do my best to explain on your level. So weather is caused by cloud stuff. The more cloud stuff, the more weather. (I hope I’m not overloading you with details here.) Anyways, the device generates a cloud stuff modulation field. That field causes more cloud stuff to be produced, and make even more weather.

Once I have the more weather, that’s where the machine’s real genius comes into play. The gyro-locate-a-tron (I named that part myself) is capable of pinpointing any spot on the globe and then the matter translocator sends all the newly generated weather there in just a few seconds. I’ve even got a switch on there for hot weather, cold weather, wet weather, or end of world weather. I realize that last position is a bit extreme, but it’s really more about the threat. If you stand there and tell a superhero that the worst you can do is make them cold or wet, they tend not to take you very seriously. On the other hand, if you tell them you’re going to destroy the world, they’re inclined to believe you. So that’s exactly what I did.

It was a beautiful Saturday in May. One of those days where even the psychotic shut-ins think about coming out for a little sun. I know because my cousin Larry tried to break out of his cell. Those shock collars really do their job. Anyways, I decided that this would be the day. I figured that a clear and perfect day would be ideal for demonstrating my latest device. If I could generate a storm out of absolutely nothing, everyone would see how much of a weather control master I am. If the test was less than 100% successful, at least I ruined everyone’s day. That’s at least a little evil. It’s all about the little wins.

So I packed up the device into my minivan and drove to the best park I could find, which wasn’t all that hard. I like to go on long walks to help clear my mind, so I had already visited the perfect place. I parked somewhere that everyone could see me. I was so nervous I was shaking. I had to take several deep breaths and more than a couple deep gulps of whiskey. They might not have been helpful, in retrospect, but at the time they seemed like a great way to calm down. As soon as the shaking stopped, I put on my brand new lab coat. Life Pro Tip: if you’re going to do something as big as this, you simply must dress to impress. I went into the back of the van, flipped a switch and the whole back of the van folded open and the device and I began to rise up on a specially made platform. I’m usually not one for dramatics; I like to think my work speaks for itself. But on such an auspicious day as this, I don’t think anyone would argue with a little bit of flare.

In true, proper villain fashion I began my monologue. This was one of the most important things they taught us at school. If you do nothing else well, every villain must have a monologue prepared. Admittedly, I wasn’t very good in evil speech class. I passed, but it’s not like I was the captain of the evil debate team. Knowing that this was going to be the speech of my life, I had spent every spare moment preparing it. It was a beautiful speech. I choked myself up more than once when I was practicing in the mirror at home. It had real gravitas. I was about to usher in the next era in supervillainy. I cleared my throat, took a deep breath and began.

And then I got punched in the fucking face. I would love to know exactly how Colonel Courage found me. I had literally spent the last six months living and working out of some crackpot’s fallout bunker in the middle of nowhere. It took me four hours to get to the park and another hour to work up my courage. Yet somehow this jerk managed to find me, figure out my plan and then punch me in the face. I didn’t even get to use my speech. I was furious. I was also on my knees on the platform with a bloody nose. Thankfully my control panel broke my fall. Well that and my face. I knew I should have installed a guard rail. Well, there’s always next time.

I managed to get myself back to my feet. If there is one thing I have learned from my many years of getting beaten up, it’s that you’ve got to get back on your feet as soon as possible. Not because defiance is important or because bullies will respect you if you don’t back down. No, it’s because getting kicked in the ribs really, really hurts, so getting up quickly is really key. Also, it makes you look like more of a badass. If your enemy just hit you full force and you stand up and laugh at them, you look pretty tough. Though admittedly the effect would have been stronger if there hadn’t been a stream of blood ouring from what I was pretty sure was a broken nose. At least the union has a good benefits package.

My father always used to say that actions spoke louder than words and that if I really wanted my enemy’s attention, I should get out there and do things. For the first… and last time in my life, I took his advice. Now maybe I wasn’t thinking clearly because I was so angry about the good Colonel ruining my monologue (there is also a good chance it was also due to blood loss), but I reached out and smashed the BRB. You know, the Big Red Button. I was going to show him. I was going to show the whole world. There was a new supervillain in town and that I was not someone to be trifled with. I was going to rule the world and they would bow down before the awesome might of my machine.

I had no idea exactly how right I was. If only I had looked at the WEATHER TYPE selector switch before I pushed the button…