Occultober Day 16: The Rules of Supervillainy by C. T. Phipps
Occultober Day 16: The Rules of Supervillainy by C. T. Phipps
Can something be spooky if it makes you laugh? I think you’ll agree the answer is yes if you give C.T. Phipps’ Supervillainy Saga a try. On the surface it’s the story of Gary, a troubled man who gets a package
in the mail that turns out to be the magical cloak of the recently deceased superhero, Nightwalker. Gary dons it and instantly decides to fulfill his lifelong dream of being a supervillain. He names himself Merciless—which really proves to be a terrible name because Gary is filled with mercy and concern for those around him even as he pretends not to care.
As one would suspect of a superhero story, Gary’s life is filled with melodrama and bizarre coincidences. His brother was a “c-grade” retired supervillain murdered by one of the new “tougher” heroes, starting Gary down his “villainous” road. Apparently every woman he’s ever dated is on the path to being a supervillain or superhero as well—and of course he runs into all of them. He’s constantly stuck between his desire to be “evil” and his hatred of the idea that the innocent get hurt which leads him to become what he calls an anti-villain with hilarious results.
Hilarious is a good word to describe the whole series. Many of the villains feel like they could fit in well on the set of the 1960s Batman series. The cloak is sentient and talks to him. His henchwoman (ex-girlfriend) thinks he’s the best boss in the world because he doesn’t want sexual favors. (Gary is happily married to a woman who wants to be a superhero.) His henchman and villainous mentor is a strangely honorable Satanist. And it gets weirder and weirder from there.
And yet, Gary/Merciless walks the dark magic side of the superhero genre. He encounters death (personified), vampires, zombies, a Cthulhu inspired monster, and that’s just the beginning. If you stop to really think about what he’s facing, it’s smack in the middle of the horror field, although Phipps is so dang funny that you’ll be laughing your way through even the nastiest of situations.
What comes through most clearly as you read or listen to this novel is how much C.T. Phipps knows about the superhero genre and how important it is to him. If good parody truly comes from love of your subject, I think Phipps has been engaged in a torrid romance with superhero comics for the last forty or fifty years.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07...
