King Oblivion, PH. D (as told to Matt D. Wilson)
Adam Wallenta
$12.95 176 pages
Skyhorse Publishing
The Ultimate How-to Guide to Destruction and Mayhem
Everyone knows villains have more fun! And everyone fantasizes about being a villain. Maybe all your revenge dreams center around humiliating your ex or the person who swoops in and takes away the object of your desire and thus completely eliminates the possibility of him or her even becoming one of your exes. Your revenge is equally justified. But do you have the steely nerves to become a true supervillain or are you simply a merry and misunderstood prankster who gets served with orders of protection by exes and tramps who steal away your fantasies? How can you objectively know? This is where King Oblivion’s Supervillain Handbook comes in handy! Before Oblivion’s book came into my life I was plagued with doubt over whether I was good supervillain material and just how to start in the event that I was. With a gleeful smirk and a hint of malice I can tell you all the answers to my myriad questions are answered by the King as transcribed by his lackey Matt Wilson.
King Oblivion’s Handbook is organized in ten sections that guide you from the basic question of motivation to advice on knowing your limitations because, face it, most of us common people have some kind of drawback. That said, you will find you are plagued with fewer limitations when aided and abetted by this book as practice makes for perfect nefariousness. The remaining chapters cover it all from qualifications to goal creation, creating your evil doer personality based on six rogue archetypes, banter, abilities and equipment, how to find and treat henchmen, proper hideouts, and all the way through to successful masterminding of evil plans! Sure, you might learn a little faster with on the job training with the Joker, but chances are really good that if Batman doesn’t break a few of your teeth and get you tossed into Arkham you’ll die with a grisly smile on your face the next time Mistah J gets bored. Personal favorites are the chapters on Persona, particularly for the handy tips on how to choose the appropriate attire based on your individual criminal type, and the on Rhetoric because, as any one who’s ever suffered through nauseating exposition (thanks, John Byrne and Chris Claremont for your own take on a special kind of evil!), a truly memorable villain must know how and when to speak to henchmen, hostages, and those ever meddling, self-appointed heroes. Rounding out the book are a timeline of the International Society of Supervillains (strength in numbers, you know, plus better health insurance) and a glossary from the all important villainous viewpoint.
A word of caution to people seeking out this book in a bookstore. Assuming you can find a bookstore in your city these days what with Amazon driving so many out of business! Thanks, Jeff Bezos. Talk about evil! Don’t waste your time looking in the self help section where this book should be shelved under the “Villainery” sub category. No, no, no! Instead you’ll find it in the humor section. Galactus knows why! And if your bookstore doesn’t have copies, then for Luthor’s sake, villain up and threaten destruction with a horde of giant apes until it hand delivers a free copy to your doorstep!
Thanks to King Oblivion sharing his vast wealth of villainous information I now know that I’ve little aptitude for making a successful bad ass supervillain.* You’ll want to read The Supervillain Handbook to find out whether you can make the jump from mundane bad assery to high octane assaults on dastardly do gooders everywhere! Either way I think you’ll enjoy reading King Oblivion’s musings as much as I did. And kittens will be killed if you don’t!**
* Or this could be a duplicitous effort to misdirect you, the reader, into thinking so while I work on my nefarious schemes for domination!
** If the threat of kittens dying doesn’t persuade you, then King Oblivion is fully prepared to shoot his ray gun pointed at my head.
