#it’s just inherently comica

[bibleofficial]

drug addiction is so fucking funny to me bc it just fundamentally is. so silly ? like oh u want the chemical ? u want the cute happy chemical that makes u stare at a wall for hours ? & if u don’t get it u turn into a massive bitch ? aww. hope u don’t get too itchy stupid !

[tyrantisterror]

An Incomplete List of Supervillain Archetypes

Ok, so my first attempt to brainstorm some supervillain prompts was derailed in a very perplexing way, but I am undeterred! Let's try this again in a way that's honestly a bit more fitting with my usual process - namely, by looking at the genre in question ans figuring out what archetypes are there, as well as what kind of... well, the words "theme" ad "motif" seemed to confuse people last time, so let's use the word "flavor" here for. So yes, a list of archetypes and flavors.

An incomplete list, as you no doubt noticed from the title here, because 1. while I've consumed a fair amount of superhero media, I'm by no means an expert and 2. I'm purposely leaving out archetypes and motifs that are dependent on a pre-established hero. That means no Mirror Universe counterparts, evil doppelgangers, guys with the same powers as the hero but they're evil, evil living versions of the hero's costume, etc. This is a list to make a rogue's gallery that isn't necessarily based around a particular hero - rogues for the sake of having rogues, rather than to further one good guy's narrative. We're not trying to make Morlun the interdimensional vampire who only eats Spider-Men here.

And since this is an incomplete list, I am officially inviting you, the person reading this, to point out anything big you think I missed! Just don't start listing college majors, ok? I already have another post about supervillain archetypes that's gathering a list of college majors. Inexplicably.

Supervillain Archetypes

Ok, we're gonna start with a list of, like, personality and story roles supervillains tend to come in. The Archetypes, if you will.

The Bank Robber with a Gimmick - the Silver Age classic. You rob banks and do other naughty but not-necessarily lethal crimes, but more than that, you do it with a gimmick, and goddamn are you devoted to committing to the bit. The bit is more important than the crimes - in fact, the crimes are really just a means to make everyone pay attention to your gimmick.

The Evil Genius - you are extremely book smart and are making it everyone's problem. Again, no need to suggest what degree the mad scientist has, I have a whole post where people are inexplicably doing that already!

The Big Monstrous Guy - you're a big guy with some sort of hideous deformity/mutation that makes you look like a monster. It may also make you act like a monster, although it's just as likely you only act that way because everyone treated you as a monster first. You are often reduced to being the dumb muscle in a given scene, but might get moments of pathos that show how hard it is to be a big monster guy.

The Wildcard - you're an agent of chaos who doesn't really have a plan/goal beyond making everything escalate as quickly as possible, and that's why we love you. In-universe, though, almost everybody thinks you're very annoying.

The Copycat - your villainy hinges on imitation. You are adept at stealing other people's identities, disguising yourself as someone else, and/or even taking the super powers of another person outright. Ultimately, the threat you pose isn't inherent to you - it's something your victims brought to the table.

A Normal Businessman - you view all people and things as nothing more than resources to exploit in your pursuit of wealth and power. Love for anyone but yourself is a weakness to be exploited, and all other living beings are only worth whatever labor you can extract from them as quickly and cruelly as possible, and should be discarded ruthlessly and without mercy when they no longer provide you that utility. In the real world you'd be treated like royalty, but since this is a fictional world, you actually face... resistance? Somehow? As if someone wants people like you to actually face consequences. How unnatural.

The Foreign Tyrant - you rule some made-up country, planet, or plane of existence that doesn't exist in the real world and thus can be as comically awful and dystopian as the writer desires. Everything that's wrong with your foreign home is more or less your fault, because you rule it with an iron fist. You tend to be pretty theatrical about it, too.

The Mind Taker - you're a villain whose main scheme involves some form of mind control, brainwashing, or other methods of forcibly recruiting innocent people into serving you. You're often a seductive figure, and always a manipulative one.

The Mind Fucker - you screw with people's perception of reality in order to enact your schemes. Maybe you send their feelings into overdrive, maybe you dazzle their senses with magnificent illusions, but ultimately you make it that anyone who wants to oppose you has to fight their own mind in the process.

The Jekyll and Hyde - you're not a bad guy, really! But, well... sometimes a part of you takes over, something you bury deep inside, something you really want to keep caged inside you. And when that "other guy" comes out, well... they're pretty bad, actually.

The Anything But Retail - you approach super-villainy the way you would any other job. You're not here for the love of the game or because you're theatrical - this is just the only thing that pays the bills that you can see yourself doing.

The All-Time Hater - you are, quite literally, a hateful person, and by gum you are going to make everyone know it! None of your schemes serve any goal except making people you hate suffer - your only ambition is to make life worse for others.

The Super Mafia - you walked straight out of a gangster movie and into a Saturday morning cartoon, and somehow that transition wasn't nearly as difficult as it should have been. Time to make these costumed fucks sleep with the fishes, even if all your goons now carry harmless laser guns instead of actual pistols.

The Planet Eater - you are a villain whose threat is so great that you threaten the very narrative itself with destruction by way of raising the stakes so high that nothing will ever have any meaning ever again. If the writers aren't up to snuff, you will make everything that occurs after you feel like either an anticlimax, or a pathetic attempt to raise the stakes to an even more inconceivably high level. If you threaten to kill the planet, the next bad guy will threaten the universe. If you threaten the universe, then they'll threaten the multiverse. If you threaten that, then by god, I don't know how we'll raise the stakes from there, but a hack writer will definitely try. A good writer can avoid that terrible fate, but unfortunately you're far more popular with bad writers than good ones.

Supervillain Flavors

These are more surface-level ways to categorize supervillains, mostly concerned with, like, their aesthetic - i.e. the theme of their costume, weapons, lair, etc.

Clown (note to self: don't even try it. You'll never escape Harley Quinn's shadow. It's a fool's errand.)

Reptile

Spider

Insect

Shark

Other "scary" animals

Obscure Animal the writer got obsessed with and decided to theme a bad guy around

Cat-themed Cat Burglar (note to self: don't do this one either. We already have a good one with Catwoman and then also a less good one with Black Cat, who's just Catwoman but at Marvel. There

Space alien

Robot

Cyborg

Mutant (radioactive)

Mutant (toxic waste/pollution)

Mutant (genetically engineered)

Mutant (setting specific source of mutation)

A classic Gothic Horror monster but now they wear superhero tights. Werewolves, vampires, ghosts, etc.

Literally Satan

Satan but we're too cowardly to fully embrace that he's Satan so we're gonna, like, try to have plausible deniability and claim our Satan isn't literally Satan (but he's more or less Satan)

Wizard (fake)

Wizard (real)

Knight

Witch

Fantastical Monster (dragon, gorgon, etc.)

Adapted from/inspired by real world mythology

A god in an old world mythology sort of way

A god but in a cool 60's cosmic way

Anthropomorphic Personification of Abstract Concept

A normal businessman

Elemental Powers (Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Ice, Lightning, etc.)

Shapeshifter

Power Stealer

90's Extreme Radical Wanton Gun Violence

90's Extreme Radical Body Horror

Ninja

Caricature of Obnoxious Media Trend (shock jocks, reality TV, celebrity culture, etc.)

Alright, that's what I've got off the top of my head. What'd I miss?