Create a Villain Theme Team!

[SKJAM!]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

"They laughed at me at university! Said evolution 'does not work that way!' Well, I showed them. I showed them all! Pity it didn't stick. Then they switched to saying that my evolutionary ray was unnatural and defied the laws of God and Nature, that it was evil! They're wrong, of course, but that's why I'm called the Evilutionist!"

 

Dr. (not really, he never completed his doctorate) Lysenko Redtree has some unorthodox theories regarding evolution. To prove them, he built an evolution ray. Exposure to that ray has turned him into a "future man" with a large head containing an oversized brain, long slender fingers, and a frail body. As a result, he's even more quick of thought than before, with all the usual "talents" associated with brainpower, including the ability to operate any device equipped to be controlled mentally, even if it isn't his. He generally gets about on a anti-gravity platform of his own design.

 

The evolution ray allows the Evilutionist to move any living being up and down "the evolutionary ladder" and sometimes sideways. At any given time, the Evilutionist will have a few goons who are either humans devolved to cavemen, or animals evolved to humanoids, and at least one monstrous evolved or devolved critter for amusement purposes. He will almost never evolve another human to "future" status, as he hates competition.

 

While the details of any given scheme vary, the goal of each remains the same--to get resources to build larger and more powerful evolution rays so that he can affect entire cities at a time, and impose his own ideas of what the human race should be like on the population.

[death tribble]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Dr Dark is one of the reasons police forces point to when considering the question why do so many supervillains think they are gods or could become gods ? One of the first flowering of paranormals in the 1960s, Dr Dark was your standard energy projector but over time his power has grown as has his control of it. He does not seem to have aged, most guesses would see mid 30s but he has been active for over 40 years. Nowadays he can project a force of darkness that can shatter the support of a skyscraper. Alternatively he can meticously craft dozens of spheres of darkness and hold them suspended in a grid around a skyscaper before unleashing them all at once to shatter the windows.

Psychiatrists say he is a meglamaniac and his schemes have grown to grandiose scale as he politely demands that the governments of the world surrender. The Dr is reasonable as he looks down on the world from orbit, which makes him difficult to engage in combat. All he wants is to be in charge. Naturally this has brought him into combat with the likes of other World Conquerors like Mechanon and Dr Destroyer.

The Dr employs agents and teams to do his bidding but will engage himself if needbe. Caeser is as Caeser does.

One of his odd quirks is his maintaining of standards. Good guys must be good so more like Superman and Spiderman rather than the Punisher and bad guys don't go Iron Age on the Hero's families and friends. Dr Dark has killed people who have broken this maxim or tried to.

So there you have it. Dr Dark, master of the night and our future ruler ? Only time will tell.

[Cygnia]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

"You...yes, you. You're the only one I can trust here. They will turn on me -- they ALWAYS turn on me! But this time, I will be ready! You will be my eyes and ears. You will watch and listen, hear their lies and their pathetic plans. And when the time is right, you will strike. My silent assassin, my phantom killer. Once my pawns have done their work, there's no more need for them to be on the chessboard," Locked up in his room at the sanatorium, Infernus chuckled darkly. "Go forth, CHECKMATE!"

 

 

Infernus believes he's summoned up an invisible air elemental who has the speed and the bloodlust of a dervish to spy on the other points of the Pentagram and eventually kill them once the world has been conquered and he doesn't have to share it with them. Nothing's there. Nothing can be detected by any magical, psionic or technical sensor. And yet, there's been some odd coincidences as of late. Accidents and near-misses that can't quite be explained or blamed on pesky heroes or worthless minions. It may be that Infernus' delusion of Checkmate has indeed taken on a life of its own...

 

[death tribble]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

That still leaves us with two as Infernus selected 5 candidates and was not one of them himself. But Checkmate is a nasty little surprise for the others.

 

And while I am at it, thanks to Bolo and Cygnia's efforts I think the rest of us then put more into the creations we posted.

Also for everyone else's forebearance as I hijacked the previous Masters idea posting four of them, put Dr Dark here and Japanese Schoolgirl Hero in the Hero thread.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

I've found that some of these team themes and their presentations have resonated well with me and really gotten the creative juices flowing. I've noticed the same thing with others (like you, DT). Several of the posters' creations have evoked an "Oh, WOW!" from me, making me wish I could see the full writeup.

 

Lots of very talented, creative, and oft entertaining folk on these boards.

[Cygnia]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Indeed. Between this and the Hero Theme thread, I've been having a lot of fun.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

"Oh, I was handsome...once."

Vincent Wainwright, better known to the world at large as Grendel, stared blankly at the psychologist interviewing him. The young doctor avoided his gaze.

"Of course," the massive man sighed, "that was before I found out I could withstand the equivalent of an atomic bomb...though not without a price."

Grendel glanced at his reflection in the window...heavy scarring on his weathered face, sunken yellowed eyes, places where his hair never grew back, and of course his ever present scowl where some shrapnel tore the flesh from his mouth.

"It's not that bad, you know." The psychologist told him.

Grendel sniffed. What did this kid know?

"So you're angry at the world and that's why you seek to conquer it?" The young man scribbled notes.

"That's a rather simplistic view of it." Grendel protested.

"Sure, handsome hero disfigured, turns on world that once adored him," the psychologist muttered, "it's a classic heel turn."

Grendel reached out and grabbed the young man. The inhibitor collar shrieked, bright lights along it's length flared, and his face contorted in pain. But pain he could handle. The unfortunate doctor was thrown through the window and traveled another thirty or so feet before he bounced and settled in the ground. The guards were there in seconds and Grendel was again restrained. As they herded him back to his cell, he looked out the window and for a moment stood awestruck.

 

The young man dusted himself off.

"Geez, Dr. Connors, I thought you were a dead man." Sergeant Krenshaw looked at the slim academic with awe.

"Nah," Dr. Allan Connors coughed and rolled his shoulder, "not every meta-human joins the game. Some of us get real jobs." Then he chuckled, "I seemed to have hit a nerve though."

 

Grendel was onetime hero, going by the name Apex, he was considered one of the toughest, if not strongest, heroes on Earth. A horrible encounter with Positron, an energy projector who's powers were contained in his steel-like skin, showed that if anything his toughness was underrated. However, the resulting destruction, the scarring, and loss of his good looks was too much for Apex to deal with. Believing he had become a monster, his natural arrogance and confidence shifted towards megalomania.

 

Though his body has healed his mind has not he sees a hideous man in the mirror where most others see a man with severe features and a few scars. Curiously enough, he seems to be more inclined to out-maneuver and think things through as a villain than he ever was as a hero.

[Badger]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

I count 5 now.

 

1. Supplier

2. Evilutionist

3. Dr. Dark

4. Checkmate

5. Grendel

 

So, I think Enforcer should get to pick a team.

[death tribble]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Checkmate is not a master villain and seems to spring from Infernus's psyche. So it is an addition rather than a part of the team.

[SKJAM!]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Mother

 

"I'm sorry, Dr. Frobisher, but the tests are conclusive. You don't have a womb, or ovaries. You have testes, but they're inert due to your condition. You can live as a woman, as you've been doing, but you will never be able to bear children."

 

And thus Anika Frobisher had doom pronounced upon her. Somehow, she had grown up without ever getting a full medical examination that revealed her androgen insensitivity (a rare medical condition where the patient is genetically male, but can't absorb testosterone and winds up looking on the outside like they're completely female.) She broached the subject of her infertility to her fiance (without giving the gory details), and he dumped her like radioactive waste. Ever since she'd been a little girl, Anika had wanted to be a mother and a scientist. One of those two was denied her now.

 

Or was it? Just because Dr. Frobisher couldn't make babies in her belly didn't mean she couldn't create "children." She steered her robotics research into new and disturbing territory, and has been building an army of nigh-human robots ever since.

 

"Mother" has no superhuman powers as such, just a brilliant mind for robotics and related fields. She is constantly turning out new "children", robots that can easily pass for human, but are utterly devoted to her. Most of her plots revolve around her robots infiltrating human communities, working their way into positions of power or influence, and slowly turning the community into a robot factory that will create more children for Mother. There are at least a half-dozen of these going at any given time, so it's hard to shut Mother down completely. In time, she hopes to replace all humans with her robot children.

 

 

New team:

 

Back to Teen Champions, and the Public Service Announcement subgenre of comics.

 

The Vice Squad: Six villains who want to induce kids (and grownups, but mostly kids) to indulge in bad behavior, such as smoking, littering, engaging in extramarital sex without protection, etc. Each represents a different "vice", but they've banded together because they kept getting beaten up seperately. Feel free to make their motivations/background serious, and their powers don't necessarily have to be based on the vice they're promoting.

[Cygnia]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Morris Philips aka Big Red just wants the kids to do what just feels right for them -- at least what HE tells them feels right for them! Specifically, tobacco. After all, if tobacco was REALLY dangerous, it'd be illegal like marijuana! Big Red is in the pocket of the tobacco lobbyists (and timber lobbyists indirectly). He can "blind" or enhance a target's senses (usually scent or taste) and suppress pain in himself or others. Big Red absolutely HATES marijuana, even the medical form. He doesn't even want to see hemp fiber products used (like clothing or paper).

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

The odd villain known as Tags supplies young urban teens with cans of spray paint and strongly encourages them to create graffiti all over the city. He claims to be all about personal expression and creativity, often tagging the scene of the Vice Squad's crimes with his own signature "artwork" as an example. However, with more expressive pieces of graffiti (those where the graffiti artist puts more of his heart and soul into it), Tags is able to establish a psychic link with the artist and control him. Tags is slowly establishing command of all the gangs in the campaign city, using their "graff" as his link to them. While he can only control one at a time, his control is nearly absolute and the target does not realize he is being controlled, even after the fact.

 

Note that Tags' powers would also work on any artist -- touching a sculpture or painting would suffice to control that artist -- but he prefers sharing and using the angst and anger of the inner city youths (having been one himself).

 

Other than his "graffiti touch," Tags is a skilled normal with decent B&E and street skills. He typically carries a pair of guns: a paintball gun for "tagging" targets (no real combat utility, at least yet) and a semi-normal pistol loaded with some high-speed AP rounds.

 

Edit to add...

Tags Plot Seed: One of the more artistic teen heroes is chosen, along with five other (NPC) teen artists, to paint murals on the school cafeteria walls. Shortly after the murals are completed, several of the aritsts begins performing criminal acts (mostly robberies and thefts). Since they made little or no attempt to conceal their identities, two of them are caught easily (but the money and goods are still missing). They don't deny doing the crimes, but for the life of them can't recall *why." Can the teen heroes figure out who and what is behind the thefts before their fellow student follows the same path?

[Enforcer84]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

*sigh* This one is tough to avoid going ALL OUT Scary and ...too stupid for words.

 

I apologize for going with Stupid.

 

 

Kevin Dupree was, is, and always will be a seething cauldron of hormonal energy. Whether this is a side effect of his powers or his powers are a manifestation of his overriding lusts it's not clear. As the Stallion, Kevin is allowed to assert his alpha-male syndrome, using his natural fighting ability and low level superhuman physical attributes to beat up authority figures (cops, superheroes, villains who try to tell him what to do without placating his ego) as well as find prime females to seduce. There is a possibility he has minor pheromone powers, as he's been shown to be able to fluster and perplex female opponents. However his rather poor track record of actually succeeding with women who don't find his self-absorbed, arrogant posturing appealing to begin with, points to the fact that they aren't strong. He follows all the social networking fads, and when he's not acting the supervillain (or on parole) he's at college (or High school) parties trying to score. Naturally he thinks birth control is the woman's responsibility and doesn't like condoms.

 

Stallion is photogenic, with a flawless physique...however he seems to take his cues from the lowest common denominator of male sex symbols, Fabio (who might be too high brow for him), the "Guidos" from Jersey Shore, Buff Bagwell, etc ...he has a fake tan, spikey black hair, eye liner, and ridiculously full lips.

[quozaxx]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Randy Threadous is secretly the villain Pill Popper. That's right, Randy has not only popped pills in the past, he encourages kids to go through their parents or grandparents medicine cabinets and try something new. After all they're just medication and can't be "that bad" for you. He figures if he can get kids hooked on a pill he can sell them his own brand of pill.

 

You see, Pill Popper doesn't have the "ordinary" pills to pop. He has Meta. The superhero making pill. In fact he is the prime supplier and often uses kids to sell his pills. He stays on the sidelines and is surprisingly hard to find. He has a network of Meta users spread throughout the city. So, he always seems to know when the police or resident super is looking for him. So, if you ever wanted to be stronger and beat up those bullies bothering you or ever wanted to really fly; One of the Meta users can set you up.

 

Granted, they may have set you up in the first place, and side effect of the pills can be worse than the pills themselves. But as long as Pill Popper gets kids hooked he's in heaven. And if he ever does get cornered. He just pops some pills and he's ready to go. He's already developed a resistance to the side effect, and he stays super powered longer than "normal" clients. That, combined with the fact the heroes never know what they will end up against, makes Pill Popper an unusually formidable opponent

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

E84 -- I hope you don't mind, but in my game Stallion will have be second-generation Italian and talk a bit like Sylvester Stallone. Or maybe my friend Mike.

[death tribble]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Litterbug is the codename of Darren Clarke. He encourages people to dump bottles, stick chewing gum on seats, throw papers and even food on the streets. After all the planet has been here for a billion years right so what harm can it do, huh ?

Darren is reputedly related to the Crawlling Chewing Gum people and learned from them the ways of indifference to people. He gets on with Big Red.

[Cygnia]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

"We coddle kids too much these days! They gotta toughen up and get over it! And if they can't pull themselves up by their own boot straps -- if they go running back to Mommy or to the teachers and whine, then [bLEEP] the little [bLEEP]s! It's just words anyway. What wimps get hurt by words?!"

 

Motormouth loves malicious gossip, picking on the weak and bullies of all sorts. A low-level mentalist, she considers herself a social Darwinist by encouraging the "strong" to weed out the outcasts, non-conformists and the unpopular. She's also a shyster of a lawyer who's more than willing to defend a bully and his/her parents in court. She savors the tears of the victims like a fine wine and considers a "Well, he DESERVED it!" from the jury after her clients are acquitted the best victory ever.

 

Team Name: They call themselves the Alien and Extra-Terrestrial Earth Defense and Assault Brigade. The media and the public, however, just calls them The Bug Hunters

Number: 6

Theme/Motive: Think X-Files, Men In Black &/or Torchwood gone horribly, horribly wrong. They are privately funded and believe the only good alien is a dead alien. All the members are human, no sleeper agents or hidden aliens. Despite their hatred of aliens, the Bug Hunters are more than willing to use any alien tech they come across. They are also more than willing to shoot first and ask questions never in the case of Earth-born mutants and magical entities who don't look human enough for their liking "just in case!"

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

"Yeah, ah'm a Bug Hunter. Proud of it, too. If it weren't for us standin' guard at the gates, this whole dang planet'd be overrun by Bugs, Blobs, Grays, Skags, Slags, and all th' rest. There's a whole universe full o' those @#&!*$! out there, waiting to take our water, our crops, our cattle, our kids, and our wimmen. Well, let me tell you, that ain't gonna happen, not while ah'm on the job!

 

"Oh, this? Got it off a Gray lookin' to turn our atmosphere into whatever poison gas they breathe. Caught the @#&!*$! by surprise with a double-load o' buckshot, blew his head clean off. Anyhow, our resident Einstein said this little baby can alter the structure of air and water and other gasses and liquids at the moe-lecular level, turn 'em into poison gasses and acids and throw 'em out about thirty yards. It's how I got my nickname, Cloudkill. Yeah, got me a special suit, too, protects me from my Clouds of Death. Sure, some of those bugs got suits too. That's why I still carry Bessie around. Let's see how good their spacesuits protect 'em after a few rounds of triple-ought buck!"

[The Arc]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

"You'll please excuse me for not shaking your hand or whatever. This alien bodily fluid is well...best not discuss it in polite society. Just give me a moment for DeCon. A scientist cannot be too careful. The whole world is in jeorpardy everytime one of you unknowns enters our fragile biosphere."

 

"Ahh, there I feel clean as a new born babe. A new smock and latex gloves and I'm ready."

 

"So please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Doctor Eliott Cross, but everyone around here calls me the Vivisectionist, a quant title don't you think? I'm resident brain of our little social club. You know, the things I've learned about xeno-biology so far out paces whatever knowledge NASA or any major university in the world knows or ever will. I truly thank God for this understanding of you specimens. Now just try and relax a little. This will only hurt a lot."

[Hermit]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Scout

"I know you're out there. These cybernetic eyes of mine can pick up thermal imaging, I'm following your footsteps, so there's no point in hiding. I'll make it quick. Two clean laser shots through whatever you call a heart. yeah, the eyes do that too. Come on, let's chat a bit. It'll pass the time before I kill you and I AM going to kill you. My name's Daylon Tyson and I used to be whole. You know what I mean by whole? I mean I didn't have steel framed pools of light for eyes or a left arm made of some crazy alien metal. I didn't have disk on the right side of my head where an ear used to be. I was human."

"I WAS HUMAN!"

"Ah! Trying to move while I talk. Think that just because a man yells he's upset... upset enough to make mistakes. Cute. No. My biggest mistake was letting my Shandra talk me into following that crazy light in the sky two years ago. We were engaged, y'know? I loved her. Then that light changed directions, and crushed us. They experimented on us, used us like guinea pigs. She ended up getting cyborged up too. Not in the same places, mind you. It was the aliens way of apologizing, she said. They tricked her. Made her think it was an accident...."

 

"She was an IDIOT!"

 

"You see... I know a set up when I see it. I used to think those country hicks talking about probes up their rear ends were funny. Yeah, I laughed at the jokes. But think about it... you want to test out technology, see how someone works? Why, you cripple them, then you build them up. Strip away what makes them human and more like machines so they're easier to control... heck, they might even be good soldiers. Guess they didn't have time to condition me like they did her. We both left... but whatever they did to her, it went beyond new arms. She said I was the one who'd changed, how she was worried about my mental state. Like losing my humanity had made me crazy."

 

"DO I LOOK CRAZY TO YOU?"

 

"I'm not crazy. I'm just very very pissed. She tried to drag me into superheroing... can you believe that? We'd been turned to freaks and she wanted to put it on display. I even patrolled with her once or twice, trying to talk her out of it. Then it happened. We found one of you... ok, not one of YOU, but an alien. She thought he looked lost and alone. I thought he looked a bit too much like the big heads that had carved us up. I killed him before he could do worse to us."

 

"Kind of like I'm going to kill you, mister green skin. Shandra tried to save the thing, can you believe that? Called me a murderer, and then tried to take me in. ME? The man she'd said yes to! That's when I knew that she'd been compromised beyond recovery. You damn invaders had even taken my heart. I ran from her, I should have killed her. I won't make that mistake again. Thank god, I found the Brigade. Now I AM a hero, saving the earth by killing one vermin at a time."

 

"Oh... big mistake by the way, hiding behind a propane tank."

 

*ZZZZAP*

 

*BOOOOOM!*

 

"Whew. Glad I don't have a cybernetic nose. Scout to base. Runner dealt with."

[SKJAM!]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

"He was handsome, I'll give him that. A little off human standards, but not too much, and he had that regal bearing and gentlemanly way of talking. He said he was the prince of his planet, being hunted by the soldiers of the usurper. He offered to make me his queen, even. And I swallowed it, hook line and sinker, just like I'd swallowed that ninja clan recruiter's promises a few years before. Long story short, turns out Prince Charming is actually an alien prostitute, and I'd been helping him avoid the police that were after him for killing a john. I got off with a warning, cause the space cops saw how bad I'd been fooled.

 

"But a few weeks later I discovered my prince had left me a little gift that keeps on giving, and I'm not talking about a bundle of joy. His species, it just causes a mild recurring rash. On humans, it's a bit nastier. Fortunately, Doc, Vivisectionist to you folks, fixed me up with an ointment that cleared the sores in a jiffy. But the internal stuff, not so lucky. Especially my brain, feels like a million tiny winged insects in there just eating away. You can feel them too, right, just chomping away at your grey matter? Or maybe it's green matter for your species, orange perhaps? Yeah, judging by that drool trail, I'd say the bugs have a quarter of your brain or more by now. That's half of why they call me Buzzkill.

 

"The other half? I may not have gotten the hang of disguise or seduction at kunoichi school, but I did damn well with the sharp, pointy objects lessons. And I have a lot of aggression to work out on you alien bastards."

[Terminal]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

I hear in the popular press that 'aliens' are a plague. They are an evil tide of mucosal menace, sloshing noisomely about in the cauldron of species that already inhabit our world. And if we don't deal with them, if we don't drive them out, the panic-mongers cry, then we are doomed. DOOMED!

Poppycock. Marvellous creatures, all of them. Though perhaps not for the reasons you think. Some seek to understand them. Others see them as fellow travellers, beings with the same rights, the same aspirations as our own. There are many who believe that they bring something unique to our lives, and should be protected.

I am in the latter group. And the thing I believe they bring to our lives?

 

Ingredients.

 

Keep your beefsteak. Enjoy your barbecue ribs, savour your coq au vin if you will. For myself? I like nothing more than flank of ransai, slowly chargrilled then slathered in a sauce made from its own barrier mucus. Flesh, bones, organs, every part of every alien menace is a new and unique culinary opportunity. And I, The Gustator, shall savour them all. Mastery of my enemies' endocrine systems, I can turn their bodily processes against them, paralysing with a touch, turning their nervous system into a jangling conductor of pain, causing their own digestive juices to consume them from within. It is not pretty, but it is effective. And it makes their flesh so very, VERY tender...

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Every super team needs a tech-head, an engineer type to go to with whatever gizmo they found. For the Bug Hunters, that person would be Jimmy "Spanner" McDonough. A Scotsman with a tool or gadget for every occasion, Spanner loves nothing more than finding new alien tech to take apart and figure out what makes it tick. For some reason, he seems able to dope out an alien doo-dad's functions far more often than not. (Some claim this is due to a metagene, but Spanner insists it's all just "old-fashioned know-how".) He tends to keep a lot of the more fun, or just plain strange, stuff for himself, mainly so he can "field test" it in action against other aliens.

 

I believe that makes six. I believe I will defer to Terminal to come up with the next team's name, theme, and number of members.

[Terminal]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Next team: The Byters, a four-member team specialising in data theft from big corporations, through both subtle and violent means.

[SKJAM!]

Re: Create a Villain Theme Team!

 

Shoulder Surfer is a mutant with a peculiar form of "remote viewing." He can tap into (almost) anyone's optic nerves and see what they're seeing without the original viewer being at all aware of the process. While his range is about a kilometer, Shoulder Surfer can't just pick a person at random, but must "see" them first. Thus his usual technique is to choose a person entering the target building, wait until he sees what appears to be a more important person, then jump to them, etc. until he finds someone actually useful.

 

Once he's tapped into the right person, it's a snap for Shoulder Surfer to steal computer passwords, safe combinations and any other visible information to pass on to the more...vigorous members of his team. He's also stumbled on juicy blackmail material from time to time, a very lucrative sideline for the Byters. SS doesn't have any useful combat skills and will avoid personal conflict.