I’ve never said this in public before, but I’ve always felt this way.
I could always feel the desire burning inside me, the urge clawing to get free.
But I will out myself now.
I want to be a supervillain.
A few weeks ago I faced my fears and came out as supervillainous-curious.
Like many stories, this began at a VFW hall. I was called onstage during a burlesque show by the drag-queen host. The theme of the show was superheroes, and the host looked the part – poured into a black bodysuit with gold heeled boots, face in harlequin makeup like a twisted offspring of Ms. Marvel and Freakazoid.
I stood up there with two other contestants, ready to be ridiculed in some kind of comically risque behavior. One game had folks tying up half-naked show helpers.
The host picked me to go first.
And the words flew out with all the villainous might I could muster, my fist clenched in righteous fury: “And when I unleash my race of atomic supermen, THE WORLD WILL KNOW I REIGN SUPREME! BWAHAHAHAHAHA! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!”
The crowd roared and chanted my name as I laughed maniacally and flexed my arms in triumph. (Such irony that I was wearing a Superman shirt at the time.) When it was time to judge us contestants, one just pointed to me in acquiescence. When asked why he was already giving up, he pointed at me and said, “He said shit!” The crowd chanted my name again, rejoicing in my victory.
I knew would house this. I’d only been practicing for this moment since I was 5.
Growing up as a little blerd (that’s black and nerd together, for the uninitiated), I spent many an hour trying to copy the voices I’d hear on TV. And I liked the villains best for voices: there was nothing like screech of Cobra Commander in relief against Destro’s rumble, or Dr. Claw’s throat-rattler of a voice, and Riddler’s multi-pitched cackling courtesy of the late Frank Gorshin. Or that Halloween in grad school when I went as the Joker, dropping Mark Hamill-style peals of malevolent glee at a party. Even Batman, my favorite superhero, acts like a villain to do hero stuff.
There never were much in the way of black supervillains, though.
And the most prominent black supervillains have their blackness hidden. Black Manta? Wears a helmet covering his entire face. Tombstone? Albino, so he’s white-skinned on the page. Killer Croc? He’s a reptile man!
Even Wizard magazine’s top 100 villains across all pop culture media has two, Luther from The Warriors and Clubber Lang from Rocky III. Phooey.
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| Dead Meat |
Somedays I imagine my life like Zack Overkill in Incognito, an ex-villain stuck in witness protection. There he is, shuffling among the worker bees, knowing he isn’t one, sleepwalking through life trying to forget that everyone around him in the bank would be hostages or unconsidered collateral damage in a heist. Far easier to cry havoc and destroy them all, isn’t it?
I know I’m not alone in this. A friend of mine often talks about how he hated all the good guys on his childhood cartoons and rooted for every villain. They were just cooler. From Dracula to The Lost Boys, the White Witch to the Goblin King, Darth Vader to villains rule. The classic Disney films have Cruella DeVille, Scar and Maleficent to thank. Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is Broadway’s chaotic fiasco, but Wicked and Phantom of the Opera are all-time shows.
Why not be a supervillain?
They look like they have so much fun, doing whatever they want to whomever they want. Great villains get the best lines: “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”
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| Granted, he’s black, but Rocket Racer isn’t a villain that any ethnicity is looking to claim as one of their own |
This same friend would always lament how the villain never just effin’ killed the hero?
Always with the capturing and trapping. X-Men should have been one issue since Magneto could just rip all the iron out of each X-Man’s blood. Joker never slipped some laughing gas to Batman. And Mumm-Ra couldn’t just used his magic to stab the ThunderCats during one of the 3 million times Lion-O lost the Sword of Omens? Come on! Only Watchmen got it right, having Ozymandias win.
And I’d win, that’s for sure. I’d get the cool clothes, the secret base, some bubble jetpacks and a super-suit, tango with SWAT teams on rooftops and derail trains. Oh, and bombs. Lots and lots of bombs. Mmm, the delicious screams of terror as I crash through the skylight at some museum fund-raiser, shouting taunts at the superhero such as “You’ll never catch me!” and “I should have killed you when I had the chance!”
But I’d get better henchmen.
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