Line #108 Literature/TheRulesOfSupervillainy


1	[[quoteright:373:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/3a1c3bb88230610793365fd5278a8644.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:373: It's good to be the bad guy.]]
3	''The Rules of Supervillainy'' is the first book in ''Literature/TheSupervillainySaga'' series by Creator/CTPhipps. The series is published by Jim Bernheimer, author of ''Literature/ConfessionsOfADListSupervillain.''
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5	Gary Karkofsky is an ordinary guy with an ordinary life living in an extraordinary world. Supervillains, heroes, and monsters are a common part of the world he inhabits. Yet, after the death of his hometown's resident superhero, he gains the amazing gift of the late champion's magical cloak. Deciding he prefers to be rich rather than good, Gary embarks on a career as ''[[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Merciless: The Supervillain Without Mercy.]]''
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7	But is he evil enough to be a villain in America's most crime-ridden city?
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9	Gary soon finds himself surrounded by a host of the worst of Falconcrest City's toughest criminals. Supported by his long-suffering wife, his ex-girlfriend turned professional henchwoman, and a has-been evil mastermind, Gary may end up being not the hero they want but the villain they need.
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11	The sequel, ''Literature/TheGamesOfSupervillainy'', came out on December 19th, 2015.
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13	----
14	!!This book contains the following tropes:
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16	* ActionGirl: Cindy, Ultragoddess, Black Witch, Ninjess, Guinevere, the Human Tank, the Red Schoolgirl, and many more. There are a lot of superheroines and supervillainesses in this world and all of them are badass.
17	* AffablyEvil: Gary Karkfosky may qualify, if you consider him evil. Diabloman and Cindy also qualify.
18	* AlliterativeName: Tom Terror.
19	* AntiHero: Gary zig-zags between this and VillainProtagonist for much of the book before finally choosing which he is. [[spoiler: He's an anti-villain.]]
20	** The Extreme and Shoot-Em-Up are antiheroes as well, though they kill numerous innocents and are much further down the scale than Gary.
21	* AntiVillain: Namechecked. Gary says this is what he aspires to be after a long period of soul searching.
22	* ArtifactOfDoom: The Reaper's Cloak is this, though Gary and the Nightwalker are both able to use it for good.
23	* TheAtoner: Most of the supervillains working in the Shadow Seven.
24	* AxCrazy: Cindy is literally this once she gets a fire ax. Psychoslinger is a much darker version of this.
25	* BigBad: Tom Terror is the likeliest candidate. Subverted as he doesn't appear until the final third of the book [[spoiler: and is summarily defeated by Ultragod once Gary removes his superpowers.]]
26	* BigGood: The Society of Superheroes fills this role in the setting. Which sucks for Gary when he draws their ire.
27	* BlackAndGrayMorality: Gary is a supervillain-in-name-only who fights evil superheroes and even more evil villains. Averted with the arrival of Ultragod, Ultragoddess, and the Society of Superheroes who are every bit as good as they are believed to be.
28	** Gary's conflict with the Society of Superheroes is more a GrayAndGrayMorality conflict, though, with the Society draconianly punishing Gary for killing the Extreme in self-defense.
29	* BombThrowingAnarchist: Gary fancies himself one of these. In fact, he is really just extremely left of center. It's just, well, he's a left-of-center supervillain.
30	* BunnyEarsLawyer: Gary rapidly develops into one of these amongst supervillains. He's shockingly dangerous.
31	* CapePunk: The book Deconstructs the NinetiesAntiHero and MediaNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks by having Gary disgusted by heroes who kill and overly psychopathic villains. It also serves as a DeconReconSwitch because Gary, himself, is a well-written NinetiesAntiHero. The book, notably, treats LighterAndSofter superheroes significantly more sympathetically than most examples of the {{Capepunk}} genre.
32	* TheCape: Ultragod is this sort of hero to the world. Gabrielle is viewed as one but she's more a PragmaticHero.
33	** Sunlight acts more like a parody of this and is as strange to other superheroes as Gary is to supervillains.
34	* CardCarryingVillain: Gary proudly proclaims himself to be a supervillain. Other villains find this quite weird.
35	* CaptainErsatz: Necromongers are not just {{Exp\|y}}ies of the creature from ''Franchise/{{Alien}}'' but actually the inspiration for them in-universe.
36	* CityOfAdventure: Falconcrest City is certainly full of this, even if it's also a WretchedHive.
37	* ClockTower: The Nightwalker was based in the Falconcrest City Clock Tower.
38	* CoolCar: Subverted by the fact Gary drives a white minivan. The Nightwalker owned one of these but never used it since, ironically, low profile vehicles were actually better for moving around in secret.
39	* TheCowl: The Nightwalker was one of these. Gary is actually one as well, though he'd never admit it.
40	* CurbStompBattle: Ultragod just flies down, puts Gary in a bubble, and takes him off into space and there's not anything he could do about it. [[spoiler: Given the way Gary fights Magog, it's entirely possible he COULD have but didn't want to hurt Ultragod.]]
41	** The way [[spoiler: Tom Terror]] is defeated.
42	* DarkAndTroubledPast: Gary is revealed to be suffering from one of these. [[spoiler: His brother was murdered in front of him by Shoot-Em-Up despite the former having reformed. Gary then tracked down the villain and killed him--at the age of fourteen.]]
43	** Cindy has one of these too, which is only alluded to. [[spoiler: At one point, having been forced to serve as a prostitute in high school.]]
44	* DatingCatwoman: Both Mandy and Ultragoddess consider their relationships with Gary to be this way.
45	* DeconReconSwitch: Despite being from the perspective of a man who idolizes supervillains while disdaining superheroes, it becomes very clear that villains are bad people and superheroes are (generally) good.
46	* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: Merciless: The Supervillain Without Mercy! The cloak gets a lot of mileage out of making fun of Gary for this.
47	* DistaffCounterpart: Ultragoddess for Ultragod. {{Justified}} given she's his daughter with the same powers. It also annoys her to no end as she was raised to be this rather than allowed to assume her own identity.
48	* TheDragon: Diabloman settles into a combination of this role and TheMentor.
49	* [[invoked]]DudeNotFunny: Gary's reaction to Iron Cross' "ironic" use of Nazi paraphernalia as part of his battlesuit.
50	* EldritchAbomination: Magog and Gog are monstrous creatures the size of Skyscrapers and what Nephilim apparently look like in this world.
51	* EndearinglyDorky: Lampshaded in-universe as one of Gary's qualities by all of the people who know him.
52	* {{Expy}}: Tons, as befitting the medium.
53	** Gary Karkofsky is one for the Hood crossed with Peter Parker.
54	** The Nightwalker is one for Batman as the Society of Superheroes reflects archetypes of the Justice League (Ultragod for Superman/Green Lantern, Guinevere for Wonder Woman, Prismatic Commando for Captain America).
55	** Cindy Wakowski a.k.a Red Riding Hood is one for Harley Quinn and Diabloman is a down-on-his-luck combination of Deathstroke and Bane.
56	** Ultragoddess is one for Supergirl with Green Lantern's powers and the Shadow Seven are stand-ins for the Suicide Squad.
57	** Tom Terror seems to be a combination of the Red Skull, Doctor Sivanna, and Golden to Silver Age Lex Luthor.
58	** The Extreme seem to be one for Youngblood, X-Force, the Authority, and every other 90s Antihero superhero team.
59	** Sunlight seems to be a parody of the Burt Ward Robin from the 1960s Batman series.
60	* GuileHero: The only reason, aside from creative use of his powers, why Gary lasts a single day as a supervillain.
61	* FauxAffablyEvil: Tom Terror appears to be a WickedCultured mentor-like figure to Gary. He's not.
62	* FreudianExcuse: Played with. The death of Gary's brother and the traumatic consequences [[spoiler: including killing his brother's murderer at age fourteen]], certainly contributed to Gary becoming a supervillain. However, it's also clear Gary always admired supervillainy and had extremist political views as well.
63	* {{Kaiju}}: Enough of a problem the Nightwalker had a special gun for dealing with them.
64	** Gary has to deal with two at the end of the book.
65	* KnightTemplar: The Extreme are a collection of these. As is Shoot-Em-Up and other in-universe antiheroes.
66	* LawfulStupid: Sunlight acts like this and it is initially played as a source of humor before its revealed he's suffering from PTSD and drug addiction.
67	* TheMentor: Diabloman plays this role to Gary. As does Cloak to a certain extent.
68	* MissionControl: Mandy takes on this role with Gary, providing him valuable intelligence through the power of the internet.
69	* MonsterClown: The Ice Cream Man has elements of this. It becomes doubly so when he [[spoiler: becomes a zombie.]]
70	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Not Gary but Shoot-Em-Up. An Anti-hero in the Nineties who wanted to kill supervillains to make sure they stopped menacing people, targeted a bunch of reformed and mostly-harmless ones in front of their families. The effect of this is, after killing Gary's brother Keith (a B-list supervillain named Stingray), he sets Gary on his path to supervillaindom. [[spoiler: Which results in Gary shooting him in a hotel later that year, despite the former being only fourteen years old.]]
71	* NinetiesAntiHero: The book shreds these mercilessly (no pun intended). Shoot-Em-Up is the first and he inspired Gary to become a supervillain by murdering his brother after he reformed. The Extreme, an entire team of them, are even worse.
72	** Gary is deeply troubled when he starts to realize, after killing numerous villains and getting praise for it, he's morphed into one of these himself.
73	* NominalHero: The Extreme and Shoot-Em-Up don't do anything good but kill supervillains. Reformed or harmless or not.
74	* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Most supervillains assume Gary is a HarmlessVillain due to his laid-back demeanor, [[CardCarryingVillain Card Carrying Villainy]], and rambling. He really comes off more as a demented cosplayer than a supervillain. Then the bodies start dropping.
75	* OriginStory: Averted as the story begins with Gary already being Merciless. Admittedly, for only a single day.
76	* PoliceAreUseless: Gary thinks so. Given there's 400 supervillains in the city and many have superpowers or super-tech, it's more like, "police are completely outmatched."
77	* PragmaticHero: The Nightwalker makes numerous references to how he subverted being TheCowl for practical reasons. [[spoiler: He's also subtly directing Gary against supervillains and for the public good now that he's a ghost.]]
78	* PsychoForHire: Psychoslinger is, apparently, this. He's a spree-killer, serial killer, and all round lunatic the other villains use.
79	* RefugeInAudacity: A large part of why Gary is so successful. People can't compartmentalize Gary more or less just walking up to people, announcing he's a supervillain, and then carrying out his plan without hurting anyone but fellow villains.
80	* TheReveal: [[spoiler: Mandy was intended to have the Cloak, not Gary.]]
81	** [[spoiler: Cloak was the Nightwalker's ghost all along.]]
82	* ServileSnarker: Cloak has this relationship to Gary, constantly pointing out the flaws in his very twisted logic.
83	* ShoutOut: The streets in Falconcrest City are named after famous comic book writers.
84	** Ultragoddess is playing a clear homage to VideoGame/InjusticeGodsAmongUs while wearing a Star Wars t-shirt.
85	** The phone to the Chief of Police's office is an homage to the 60s Batman tv series.
86	** Gary makes frequent references to the Franchise/{{Alien}} movies when fleeing an extraterrestial predator.
87	** Gary says his costume looks like a combination of a Sith Lord and Ring Wraith's outfit.
88	** Sunlight is said to have done a lot of drugs with Creator/HunterSThompson.
89	** A blink and you'll miss it reference to Grant Morrison's X-men is Gary's fourteen year old self is described as dressing nearly identical to Quentin Quire.
90	** When Cloak debates Gary's claim that an AntiVillain is a thing, Gary argues that he looked it up on Website/TVTropes.
91	* SpaceBase: The Society of Superheroes headquarters and the prison they take supervillains to is on the moon.
92	* SpicyLatina: Averted with Ultragoddess who is both black as well as Latina but the most sensible woman in the cast aside from Mandy.
93	* StraightGay: Bronze Medal has nothing camp about him whatsoever. This also applies to Mandy and the Black Witch.
94	* TheUnChosenOne: [[spoiler: Gary finds out he's this and Mandy was meant to be the new Nightwalker.]]
95	* ThouShallNotKill: Revealed to be a code of ethics most superheroes follow. It's {{Justified}} when Ultragod points out it avoids a lot of problems both legally, ethically, as well as practically. Furthermore, it can be bent if there's absolutely no other resort. Those superheroes who don't care about murder are called antiheroes in-universe.
96	* ThoseWackyNazis: Gary, being Jewish, doesn't find a superhero who incorporates their iconography the least bit funny.
97	* {{Tradesnark}}: Gary is ''Merciless: The Supervillain without Mercy™.
98	* UnskilledButStrong: Gary isn't a very powerful supervillain but he has a lot of very versatile abilities he makes intelligent use of. He also then becomes MUCH more powerful once he [[spoiler: makes a pact with Death.]]
99	* VillainProtagonist: It's in the title. Gary is a supervillain and proudly so. [[spoiler: He, eventually, becomes an antihero instead.]]
100	* VillainWithGoodPublicity: This starts happening with both the public and superheroes when they start to note Gary's "victims" are all evil.
101	* VoiceWithAnInternetConnection: How Mandy stays in touch throughout the story.
102	* WomenAreWiser: Mandy has elements of this, especially in comparison to the complete lunacy of Gary and his crew. As does Ultragoddess. Subverted by the fact it's really just Gary and his crew who are insane. We just see more of them (plus Cindy is arguably more deranged than Gary).
103	* WhatTheHellHero: A bank teller when he robs the bank within minutes of saving the employees from being killed.
104	** And then does it again the next day.
105	* WorldOfBadass: Gary lives in a world where four hundred supervillains in ''one city'' is just really-really high.
106	* WorthyOpponent: Gary seems to have this sort of feeling for the Society of Superheroes. They seem more confused why a non-psychopath wants to be a supervillain.
107	* WeaponizedTeleportation: Gary kills one NinetiesAntiHero by going [[{{Intangibility}} intangible]], then leaving his car keys inside his opponent's chest.
108	* ZombieApocalypse: What will happen if Gary doesn't use his powers often enough. He thinks it's a minor disadvantage.

Context Literature / TheRulesOfSupervillainy