Anti-heroes, anti-villains, and everything in-between.
The Games of Supervillainy is the second book in The Supervillainy Saga series by C.T. Phipps. The series is published by Crossroad Press.
Get ready for the action-packed follow up to The Rules of Supervillainy. This time with zombies, zombified heroes and villains, cults, magic, superscience, a dragon, a Greek demigod, and so much more!
Gary and Cloak have returned from the supervillain prison on the moon only to discover the city he plans to conquer and rule with an iron fist has been overrun with the living dead. Once again taking up the mantle of Merciless: The Supervillain Without Mercy TM, Gary will have to pull it together quickly, find his wife, his gang, and a whole lot of help to stop the Brotherhood of Infamy from slaughtering the population of Falconcrest City and opening a portal to summon a primal force of destruction.
But Gary has a plan, or at least he's sure he'll have one soon. Just give him a second.
This book contains the following tropes:
- All Myths Are True: Greek mythology, Judaism, Neil Gaiman-esque ubergods, Lovecraftian abominations, and more all seem to be real.
- Apocalypse How: Falconcrest City has been sealed away from the rest of the country by the government and superheroes forbidden from going in. Later, it is covered in a magical doom to make absolutely sure no one gets in.
- The Atoner: Keith Karkofsky a.k.a Stingray looks back at his pre-mortem career as a supervillain with great shame.
- Back from the Dead: Combined with Came Back Wrong. All of the dead in Falconcrest City are rising from the dead as intelligent superpowered zombies. Mandy undergoes this herself with her transformation into a vampire. This includes a couple of supervillains Gary killed in The Rules of Supervillainy.
- Big Bad: The Nightmaster is the head of the Brotherhood of Infamy and trying to summon Zul-Barbas.
- Zul-Barbas serves as the Greater-Scope Villain which will destroy the world then remake it without superpowers so he can destroy it again and again at his leisure.
- Berserk Button: Anything related to Mandy is this to Gary.
- Gary and Cindy both consider Neo-Nazis fair game to murder en masse being Jewish and supervillains both.
- Brick Joke: Amanda Douglas mentioned her father was part of an evil cult in The Rules of Supervillainy as an aside Gary ignored. It turns out to be Foreshadowing everyone rich and powerful in Falconcrest City is part of the Brotherhood of Infamy.
- Broken Pedestal: Amanda Douglas finds out her father murdered her mother for the Brotherhood of Infamy.
- Gary has a lesser one when his brother informs him, in no uncertain terms, that supervillainy was the worst mistake of his life.
- Brought Down to Normal: This turns out to be the ultimate aim of the Brotherhood of Supervillainy. They want to destroy the universe and remake it as a place without superheroes, supervillains, or superpowers.
- Came Back Wrong: All of the zombified superheroes are Always Chaotic Evil while the more evil humans maintain more of their personality. Mandy as a vampire is The Heartless as we find out in the final chapter.
- Clocktower: Where the final confrontation with the Brotherhood of Infamy takes place.
- Cool Car: Gary manages to acquire the Nightcar. Unfortunately, it doesn't come with instructions.
- Convection, Schmonvection: Justified. Gary specifically says that the fire and brimstone Gehenna was actually deathly cold.
- Cliffhanger: Seemingly averted then played-straight in the final chapter. Mandy has lost her soul and Gary has to figure out a way to get it back.
- Damsel in Distress: Gary assumes Mandy is one of these due to a letter from Adonis. It turns out she's in no danger whatsoever.
- Mandy actually is pretty good at subverting this as every time the heroes are imperiled, she's usually the first one to get out.
- Deal with the Devil: Gary is willing to make a deal with Zul-Barbas to bring back Mandy even though it might cost him his soul.
- Gary makes another similar pact with Death in order to speak with his brother one last time.
- Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: Gary has a conversation with Death and keeps his snarky attitude throughout, much to Cloak's horror.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Almost literally so as Zul-Barbas is an Expy of Cthulhu. Instead, they end up dramatically weakening the Great Beast by sabotaging his summoning and using the Reaper's Scythe to outright kill the Eldritch Abomination.
- Distaff Counterpart: Gary considers Amanda Douglas to be one of these while she insists she's the Nightwalker, not Nightgirl.
- Drives Like Crazy: It turns out driving a tank-meets-sportscar like the Nightcar is harder than it looks.
- Eldritch Abomination: Zul-Barbas is one of the Great Beasts and is, for all intents and purposes, Cthulhu.
- Exact Words: Zul-Barbas tries to pull this on Gary in their deal. Gary sees through it immediately.
- Expy: Quite a few as always.
- Zul-Barbas is Cthulhu with the serial-numbers filed off.
- The Book of Midnight is one for the Necronomicon.
- Nightgirl seems to be one for Spoiler/Batgirl/Barbara Gordon.
- The Backwoodsman seems to be a send-up of Wolverine from his brief description.
- The Brotherhood if Infamy seems a cross between the Yellow Sign, Cult of Cthulhu, and Court of Owls.
- Genre Savvy: Gary immediately sees through Zul-Barbas' transparent attempts at manipulation.
- A God Am I: Adonis has this going for him, primarily because he's a Greek Demigod.
- The Heartless: Vampires turn out to be this in the setting. Mandy has all of her memories and personality but no emotional tie to her friends or family.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Mandy gives her life to protect Cindy. She comes back as a vampire, though.
- Sunlight also died trying to stop the Brotherhood of Infamy, killing three of the remaining Reaper's Cloak wearers.
- Killed Off for Real: Sunlight makes a Heroic Sacrifice to help stop the Brotherhood's threat.
- Mandy, potentially, though she's still running around as a soulless vampire and Gary intends to fix it.
- The Lost Lenore: Mandy becomes this for about a minute and then Gary decides to make use of Black Magic to raise his wife from the dead.
- Mentor: Sunlight, of all people, becomes one of these to Nightgirl.
- Moose and Maple Syrup: Parodied. The Backwoodsman makes fun of this attitude by being as stereotypically Canadian as possible until he gets called on it. Then he promptly drops the act and becomes a serious superhero.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Gary being absent from the city for a month has allowed it to become overwhelmed with zombies.
- Gary also turns Mandy into a vampire using the Book of Midnight, which is not just super-powers with fangs but also a curse transforming you into The Heartless.
- Not Distracted by the Sexy: Mandy barely acknowledges Angel Eyes' presence and finds him annoying where other women (and men) find him nearly irresistible.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Gabrielle had one of these in school, basically amounting to glasses and putting her hair up. Also, hypnotism.
- Police Are Useless: We find out why in that they're secretly controlled by the Brotherhood of Infamy.
- Punch-Clock Villain: The Amazons are hired by the Brotherhood of Infamy to help them in their massacre of the city's population.
- Psychopomp: Gary agrees to become one of these for Death in exchange for extra power.
- The Reveal: Arthur Warren a.k.a The Nightwalker was the original founder of the Brotherhood of Infamy before he became The Atoner.
- The Brotherhood of Infamy has secretly been controlling the city for the entire time, explaining why Police Are Useless and the city's perpetually depressed crime-ridden state.
- Mandy the vampire doesn't have her soul and only barely feels anything for Gary.
- Religion of Evil: The Brotherhood of Infamy. Subverted by the fact, while their methods are deplorable, their desire to rid the world of superheroes and supervillains makes perfect sense given how crazy they've made the world.
- Rule of Cool: The only way to explain two Jewish anti-heroes fighting a Nazi Robot and Neo-Nazis during the zombie apocalypse.
- Or Gary riding a cybernetic T-Rex with laser-beam eyes against a bunch of Amazon warriors to the tune of "Walk the Dinosaur."
- Shout-Out: Tons as per usual to everything from Star Wars to Underworld to Neil Gaiman.
- Sinister Scythe: Gary acquires one of these when he becomes Death's agent.
- Stupid Jet Pack Hitler: Gary ends up fighting a giant Nazi robot, which apparently was a fairly common weapon during this world's version of WW2.
- Stupid Sexy Flanders: Gary has a lot of problems with Adonis despite his avowed heterosexuality.
- Those Wacky Nazis: Being Jewish, Gary doesn't find Neo-Nazis using Old WW2 Nazi superscience all that funny.
- Took a Level in Badass: Amanda Douglas, a former socialite and kidnapping victim from the first book, did this by becoming Nightgirl.
- T. Rexpy: Gary rides a cyborged one of these as his mount.
- Weaponized Animal: Cybernetic dinosaurs with laser beams and rockets.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: How the Brotherhood of Infamy sees itself. Gary doesn't buy it for a second.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Getting the chance to speak with his dead brother results in Gary getting an earful about how supervillainy is not a good lifestyle choice.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: Falconcest City is revealed to be on the other side of Lake Falconcrest which is on the border of Canada.
- Zombie Apocalypse: The central theme of the book with Falconcrest City being overrun with the living dead.
