Grumpy Old Villains

Written World: 50 Things I Love About Mainstream Superhero Comics

8) The core team of the JSA is essentially a bunch of cranky old men who probably get together with old supervillains to play poker.

This sort of fuels an expansion of this idea in my mind.

I wrote that story as part of my deconstruction of the supervillain archetype. But, I want to take it further. We all know the various and sundry reasons why any superhero keeps fighting the Neverending Battle. But why do villains keep going? Why keep get your ass handed to you on a regular basis? Why cope with the various life disruptions caused by jail time or faking one’s own death?

Because they’re EEE-VIL? That might be a plausible explanation if they won something really worthwhile on occassion. Being psycho might be a better explanation; certainly that’s the one given to us by a lot of villains lately.

Gotta think more about this one…