Dear Villainess,
As I was roaming around the multiverse doing my villain thing, appearing in a crossover issue here, heisting precious metals unknown on my birth world there, I ran across what I thought was an imposter. A guy using my name, my costume, some of my gimmicks, but not me. Not as cool as me. In fact, kind of lame.
My first inclination was to just open up a can of whoop-ass on the imposter-me, but something didn't feel right, so I did a little background check on him first.... and it turns out that he is me! Only, he's, like, not! Me in a different version or something! My sense of continuity is fucked and I'm embarrassed as hell. What do I do?
- Multiplied and Divided
Dear Mathman,
Alas, your problem is far from uncommon. In our modern multi-media-marketing-mad millennium (whoohoo! Bonus points!) villains have had their costumes, motivations, histories, names, races, and sexual orientations swapped in various incarnations without so much as a by-your-leave. As tempting as it may be to track down the creator of this travesty-you and lay the smackdown on him before he can do such a heinous thing, I advise against this for two reason: firstly, because showing up in the same universe as your creator can create even more paradoxes than the old killing-your-grandfather time-travel trick; and secondly, what if, god forbid, you turned out to be version 2.0? Maybe they improved you. It's rare, but it happens from time to time.
The good news is, now that this problem has become common, people are likely to be more understanding of the fact that your Doppelganger's lack of cool is in no way a reflection of you. Just as we no longer consider cancer or AIDS to be a shameful secret, so too most enlightened people no longer blame the victim for a multiplicity problem.
- The Villainess
Dear Villainess,
There used to be a time when, as a villain, I had some self-esteem. Sure, some (well, all) of my evil schemes got foiled by heroes, and yes, black maybe isn't the most original color for a costume, but I was doing pretty well. Or so I thought. With the advent of the Internet, though, I realized that I was just one of millions of villains out there doing pretty much the same thing, and worse, some of them were doing it better than me. I found out just how unoriginal my ideas were. Now, I spend all of my time reading the Livejournals of people who are hipper than I am and being depressed. What should I do?
- AOLoser
Dear Cliff Stoll Posterboy,
It's easy to feel overwhelmed by any vast new domain. Part of your villain-brain is saying "Conquer it! Conquer it!" and another part is saying "It's new! I fear it! Destroy it!" With the advent of Livejournal, the vast new domain is other people's boring-ass lives.
And yes, for the most part, they are boring. If you focus on the few outstanding specimens who outperform you, or even on the mediocre masses who bear a superficial resemblance to you, of course you're going to be depressed. You're looking in the wrong place.
With the relentless, villainous negativity that you're now turning inward, to self-destructive effect, instead look outward and find some of the million-and-one Livejournalers whose lives, thoughts, and emotions suck ass compared to yours. They're all out there - the women who pour all their nurturing instincts into low-mass, high-volume dogs, the teenagers who whine about everything for the pleasure of having all their friends leave "that sux, feEl better soon" message, the people who perpetually repeat the same relationship mistakes, the desperate guys who will empathize with anything that has a female screen name, the close personal friends of Jesus. I have it from a reliable source that even some heroes Livejournal. Find them. Sneer.
- The Villainess