A pair of lovely angels.
Tales of Supervillainy: Cindy's Seven is the eighth The Supervillainy Saga novel by C.T. Phipps. It is the first book from the perspective of a character other than Gary Karkofsky AKA Merciless: The Supervillain without MercyTM.
Cindy Wakowski AKA Red Riding Hood is sick of being treated as a second-class supervillain, sidekick, or henchwoman to her lover Gary Karkofsky AKA Merciless: The Supervillain without MercyTM. Deciding that she needs to prove her value as a criminal mastermind, she sets on a plan to rob the Dragon King (a literal dragon) of his vast hoard.
Assembling a team of mostly-female superheroes established in previous books, Cindy heads to Dragon Island and everything proceeds to go catastrophically wrong.
Cindy, for all her skill and genius, is an absolutely terrible leader who constantly changes her plans as well as belittles her subordinates. She is easily distracted, prone to temper tantrums, and bizarre tangents. However, a good chunk of her team are directly related to her and refuse to let her fail in her attempt to hit the big time. This despite the Foundation for World Harmony, Dragon King, and a league of evil exes all being out to kill her.
This work contains the following tropes:
- Amazon Brigade: Cindy's initial plan is to assemble an all-female heist team of these with Mandy, Amanda, Selena, and Clarissa all being seasoned superheroes or supervillains. Her daughters, Leia and Mimi, also join up. She also picks up Dana AKA Damselfly, just because she fits the theme. It is Subverted when Case AKA Agent G becomes part of the team just because he's convenient. Gary joins as well and Cindy doesn't have the heart to send him away.
- Amusement Park: World Emperor World is a steampunk version of Disenyland founded by one of the world's first supervillains.
- Ancient Grome: Directly acknowledge in universe when despite Adonis and Achilles being Greek, the latter shows considerable interest in watching a gladiator fight which was really more of a Roman tradition.
- Anti-Climactic Unmasking: When the ninja themed villain Overlord takes off his mask Cindy doesn't recognize him in the slightest.
- Atrocious Alias: In this book we discover that Nikki Tesla's supervillain name is Doctor Scientist though interestingly despite who he's a stand in for Red Splotch never teases her over it. Probably because it's pretty clear that he's got romantic feelings for her.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Cindy confesses to Gary that she does love him more than anyone else on Earth or other realities. She also admits, to herself, that she loves her children but is an objectively terrible parent.
- Barbarian Hero: After discovering she's the descendant of Red Sindi, Cindy claims her ancestor's sword and combines it with her werewolf powers to become one of these in appearance. She begins wearing a wolf skin, fighting savagely, and having the sword sing the soundtrack from Conan: The Barbarian while she fights.
- Beleaguered Assistant: In a humorous bit of role-reversal, former henchwench Cindy dragoons a fellow supervillain, Dana Vandergast AKA Damselfly, into being her sidekick. Dana is an Antivillain who just wants to get out of supervillainy but bullied into being part of a massive heist.
- Big Bad: The Dragon King is not only the subject of Cindy's heist attempt but actually arranged for all the supervillains in the world to be at her island in order to exterminate them all. She also brainwashed Mandy's father in order to try to his kill his own daughter as well as grandnieces.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Dragon King is killed by Cindy and her team but the majority of their hoard is buried under a ton of rock and will probably be claimed by the Chinese government. A lot of supervillains and innocents were also killed by the Foundation bombing the island for better or worse. The team did recover a few notable items, though, and Cindy understands that her family has her back even if other supervillains don't realize she's awesome. She's also Took a Level in Badass.
- Borrowed Catchphrase: Revolutionary Girl uses Damselfly's "Wait, what?" when she hears that Ultra Goddess has signed a kill order for both Cindy and Damselfly.
- The Caper: Cindy Wachkowski AKA Red Riding Hood assembles a team to rob the Dragon King's The Casino. The Dragon King is a literal dragon and the richest being on Earth.
- Caper Crew: Cindy attempts to assemble one of these to rob the richest dragon on Earth but members keep quitting, joining, or splitting off to do their own thing instead of focusing on her plan.
- The Casino: The Dragon King's casino is located on its own private island with a massive statue of its owner wrapped around it. They are a literal dragon so its quite impressive. It is also where his actually her enormous hoard is located.
- Clark Kenting: This phenomenon is justified by the existence of disguise spells which make it so no matter how obvious the disguise is, people will be unable to connect the dots between a superhero and their secret identity. Cindy even reflects that some heroes have multiple identities while being utterly unable to recognize that Revolutionary Girl is clearly Ultra Goddess with a ponytail. Tellingly the disguise also completely works on Gabrielle's own daughter.
- Chainmail Bikini: As an Expy of Red Sonja, Red Sindi apparently wore one of these during the Hyborian Age. Cindy briefly becomes obsessed with acquiring it so she can wear it as part of her supervillain costume. It apparently is enchanted to be better than actual armor.
- Cloud Cuckoolander: Cindy often goes off on tangents in the middle of conversations that have nothing to do with whatever is being discussed as well as makes wild deviations from her previously carefully agreed upon plans.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: As the first book not starring Gary Karkofsky AKA Merciless: The Supervillain without MercyTM, we see how she differs. Cindy is much more driven by whimsy, ruthless, and uncaring about collateral damage. Also, where Gary is a Papa Wolf, Cindy is an ambivalent parent at best.
- Combo Platter Powers: Crowbar King is indestructible, immortal, super-strong, capable of shooting energy blasts, and can share a watered-down version of his powers with his henchmen.
- Cowardly Lion: Damselfly would clearly rather not be engaging in violence, and is a mainly brought onboard the team because her knowledge of shrinking science is the only way it'd be possible to actually steal Dragon King's entire hoard, yet whenever a fight breaks out she pitches in, despite her shrinking powers being extremely well suited to finding someplace to hide and hoping not to be noticed.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Damselfly is interested in using her research into shrinking things as a way to cure cancer and make money legitimately. Sadly for her, Nikki Tesla is determined to see trope played straight and use it to turn people into her minions.
- Denser and Wackier: As weird and silly as the series normally is, Cindy is much-much crazier and the goal is The Caper rather than the cosmic shenanigans or fights against Nazis that Gary is usually up to.
- Distinction Without a Difference: Gary and Cindy's aren't married, they just live in the same house together, frequently have sex, have a child together, and have shared finances.
- Dude Magnet: Cindy has dozens of lovers and no difficulty attracting heroes or villains of either sex. At one point she claims that she's slept with the Legend of Zelda's Link.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: The entire motivation for the novel. After a villain brushes her off during a jewelry story heist, Cindy becomes obsessed with the idea she doesn't have nearly as much street cred as Merciless: The Supervillain without Mercy AKA her lover as well as the father of her children. This despite the fact she was a key player in all of his major crimes. Cindy thus decides to rob the Dragon King AKA the richest person on Earth (as well as a literal dragon).
- Expy: Red Sindi is one for Red Sonja to the point she verges on a Captain Ersatz. She is a red-headed Barbarian Hero from Hyrkania who has a Chainmail Bikini. Cindy even makes several jokes she's verging on plagiarism and mistakes her Bridgitte Neilson.
- The Fundamentalist: Dana had to deal with this from her parents as neither of them were fond of her status as a gay woman or super scientist.
- Genre Blindness: Damselfly despite being a somewhat experienced supervillainess is repeatedly flabbergasted by the comicbook shenanigans that working with Cindy inevitably involves. Though to her credit this allows her to correctly describe Merciless with "He's the guy who acts like the Hamburglar and has killed more people than some wars" when numerous heroes and villains alike have severely underestimated him.
- Ma'am Shock: Cindy experiences the equivalent of this when two young cosplayers ask her if she's Red Riding Hood's mother. They're lucky to escape in one piece.
- A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Read: Multiple times in the story Leia picks up other people's sexual thoughts including those of her parents. She's grown somewhat used to it by this point, but clearly doesn't enjoy the experience.
- MockGuffin: The Spear of Saint George is an intentional example, created by the villain. It looks super magical but is worse than useless for the purpose of slaying the Dragon King
- Mr. Alt Disney: A hilarious version is apparently a combination of Captain Nemo, Robur the Conqueror, and Doctor Doom with Walt Disney. He even has his own theme park.
- No-Sell: Disguise spells don't work on Leia Karkofsky AKA Gizmo the Girl Genius because she's a telepath. She is notably annoyed by the fact that even pointing out this fact does not break the magic's effect.
- Not His Sled: It turns out that Ultra Goddess after being exposed to a special chemical by the villain has split into two versions, one with her powers but no compassion, and one with her compassion but no superpowers at the climax of the story rather than the two being recombined, Gary is forced to kill the compassionless version of Ultra Goddess to stop her from killing Cindy's Seven and Merciless' Five.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: Played to comical extremes with Damselfly. She was forced to work for Tom Terror against her will and so now pretty much everyone assumes on that she must be some kind of Nazi despite her having an even stronger moral compass than Gary or Cindy.
- Only Sane Man: Inverted as a great deal of the books humor is that, by comparison to Cindy, the bizarre cast of eccentrics from previous books are all this to her.
- Our Presidents Are Different: After spending the entire series dealing with various Presidents who were corrupt at best, and supervillains at worst, in this novel Ultra God is the president. We don't see too much of his exact policies, but to his credit we don't see any references to Department of Supernatural Security or Variant Intelligence Collective Enforcement so presumably progress is being made.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Gabrielle Anders AKA Revolutionary Girl has a pony tail and thus can't be recognized by any of the cast except for Leia (who has telepathy). Justified due to the existence of disguise spells.
- Really Gets Around: Cindy and Gary's relationship is definitely of the open variety as we meet multiple lovers as well as ex-lovers of each. Cindy even gives a lengthy list of exceptions to a more monogamous relationship she wants to start with Gary that ends up over a dozen. This includes, among others, Drizzt Do'Urden and the girls of Dragon Age.
- Reincarnation Romance: Cindy is revealed to be the reincarnation of Red Sindi from the Hyborian Age (about 10,000 years earlier). Furthermore, it is revealed that Red Sindi was married to a wizard named Gariel, which is pretty similar to her present-day beau Gary the wizard's name.
- Samus Is a Girl: It turns out that the evil dragon Cindy and the others have been planning to steal from is actually female despite their title of "Dragon King" and their name being a rather blatant reference to a a famous male dragon
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Halfway through the heist, a good half of the crew decide to abandon Cindy and carry it out on their own due to her constant shenanigans.
- Souvenir Land: World Emperor World (WEW) is a Disneyland-esque theme park in the fictional country of Londonium. Cindy loses track of her daughters for a few minutes and they come back drenched in steampunk memorabilia.
- Steampunk: The World Emperor was a steampunk version of Doctor Doom who created his own country off an isolated Scottish Island. It's now a theme park.
- Took a Level in Badass: While starting as a werewolf, Cindy acquires a magical sword that belonged to an ancestor of hers and becomes significantly more powerful.
- Trapped in Villainy: Damselfly is basically forced into working for supervillains due to the fact that there are few opportunities for legitimate work as a scientist after being forced to work for Tom Terror and now being labeled a Nazi supervillain (she's not). Nikki Tesla more or less uses her and discards her before Cindy dragoons her into participating in the heist.
- Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Cindy is a sultry Femme Fatale Cloud Cuckoolander supervillainess that flutters from one crazy scheme to another. Both her children are serious, studious, and generally well-behaved young women. Somewhat averted by the fact both of them are willing to help with her heist.
- Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child: Dana's parents (apparently conservative Mormons by the references made to Utah, Brigham Young University, and annoyance at polygamy jokes) did not approve of her interest in super sciences or lesbianism.
- Who Would Be Stupid Enough?: Adonis is clearly just about to deny Leia's request for Trial by Combat when his soon to be husband Achilles starts chanting "Gladiator Fight!" until Adonis gives in goes along with it.
- Women Are Wiser: Made fun of. Cindy Wakowski AKA Red Riding Hood repeatedly makes a claim about this as to why she should be the team leader instead of Gary Karkofsky AKA Merciless, only to be confronted by her (mostly women) teammates that she is every bit as deranged, selfish, and shortsighted as Gary. If not more so.
