March to Other Worlds Day 17 Confessions of D-List Supervillain by Jim Bernheimer

March to Other Worlds Day 17 Confessions of D-List Supervillain by Jim Bernheimer

It’s quite popular these days to focus on the supervillain rather than the superhero, but that may be a little misleading in the case of my choice for Day 17 of the March to Other Worlds. Mechani-Cal is technically a villain, but he was driven to this position by the machinations of a so-called hero and the company that stole all of Cal’s inventions and got him blacklisted from working in his field. As a villain, Mechani-Cal is spectacularly bad, and yet, he just may be the world’s only hope to survive a dastardly plot by the Evil Overlord.

 

The novel starts with a bang and keeps exploding. In the opening pages we learn that Cal may be the last human being in the world still free of the mind control of the “bugs”—conquer the world scheme of the Evil Overlord that got out of control. The first part of the novel focuses on how Cal literally has to save the world—and then, once again, gets screwed by the supposed heroes who think it will not look good if a D-List Villain saves the planet instead of them. It’s exciting and intensely frustrating to watch Cal in action and then get driven back to villainhood by egotistical superheros who don’t actually appear to have any moral compass.

 

Yet Confessions is more than that. It’s also the story of Cal’s rivalry with Ultraweapon—a “hero” who clearly isn’t a good guy. Ultraweapon and his company are the reasons that Cal became a villain—they stole his armor ideas from him and blacklisted him so he couldn’t legitimately start over. And of course, Ultraweapon leads the effort to keep Cal from getting any credit for saving the world. Watching Cal try to rebuild himself and his life as a hero made for a great story—especially when it was the so-called heroes who were often his biggest problem.

 

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