Retired supervillain tries to have normal life

[Strangebuddy]

I've always liked when comics allow super heroes and villains to grow up and actually reflect on their lives...as opposed to having constant retcons so they never end up growing *cough*spiderman*cough*

Which leads me to thinking about supervillains who retire and what life would be like for someone who was holding the world hostage one day trying to think of what to do now that they've hung up their capes.

The why could be anything. Maybe a successful crime or a legitimate action made them enough to live on, maybe they feel the game has left them behind or maybe they've had a falling out with the lifestyle. In any case our lead is retired and is trying to get back into a normal (or somewhat normal) life.

So where's the eroticism in that?

Had a few ideas and as always, feel free to add your own.

1. Our lead retires from a villain pair "pain and pleasure" after her partner wanted some space and went off to another planet. She becomes a house mom at a sorority house and likes the job but gets the urge to humiliate and dominate opponents. Her chance comes when she sneaks into a party and sees one of her girls get drugged. She gets the girl back home safely and then comes back in an alternate costume and proceeds to humiliate and dominate all of the guys at the party. The experience is thrilling but as she puts away her paddle of pain, one of her girls confronts her, wanting to be a henchwoman for her.

2. Our lead was so into the villain lifestyle that they didn't pay attention to a lot of things, including their reputation. They find out upon retirement (I was thinking they attend a costume party and discover her outfit is sold in the "slutty" section without any alterations to it) that their image has become quite popular in porn circles and theirs loads of rule 34 for them specifically. Do they try to get payback on the people who are using their image, try to embrace it, or go back to villainy so they can try to change their image?



3. Our lead used to have no trouble with finding one or several lovers each night. Maybe it was the money, maybe it was the suit, maybe it was the vibro fingers, but sex came easy and everything was going great before retirement. However, it turns out that it tends to hurt your social skills. So now retired, our lead is desperate to start a relationship but finds he bombs every date. Doesn't matter if you have super technology from another planet back at your home, if you can't talk to someone without your suit on, you tend to not get many repeat dates.

So our lead tries to find hobbies to fill his time and starts taking up classes like massage therapy. One night, either at a class or on his way home, he uses some of of his old powers or tech to help someone out. He gets a call the next day, turns out the person they helped is involved in porn and wants them to star in a line of supervillain themed porno (the person thinks he just has powers, they don't know his background). On the one hand, even if staged, it is sex...on the other, he runs the risk of falling into the same problems as before.

 

[Real_American17]

What if the villainess is kidnapped by a sex club that let's you have sex with capes?

Or maybe the villainess is abducted by the kid on the scene and put on display to show they are a serious player?

 

[tnhardon]

This is a fun idea. I think you have to find a clever way of explaining how the villain got out of the game. Why does he not keep being a trouble maker? How did he settle down? Does he still have villainous tendencies that creep out from time to time?

Again, fun idea! While I do enjoy superhero movies, I don't have enough expertise in the field to do the story justice. However, I'd love to help brainstorm the idea out.

 

[Strangebuddy]

Thanks! I wasn't thinking of a universal reason for the supervillain to quit. For example, the third idea I thought it could be a case of the guy having enough success and getting bored...without realizing the stuff he liked from the lifestyle (women who liked him for his money, power, or wanted him to do a job for them) weren't going to follow him when he hangs his suit up.

Any reason can do though. In the "Tarnished Angel" storyline of Astro City (great book by the way). It follows a supervillain who quits after serving a 20 year sentence and realizing that he could end up like most of his former friends, who all went to their graves penniless because they kept waiting for the big score and blowing all their cash on the next heist. It's a more dramatic version.

Other reasons could be wanting to focus on their lives or families.

For example, one idea I pitched a while back was a young man who was a tech-based supervillain. I actually did stretch the story a bit since then but felt I spent too much time on the origin vs the story. In any case, the guy didn't really want to be a villain but he got marked as one since he caused serious damage to a town when he was testing his power (technopathy) out. He kept it up after that since it gave him cash and he liked the rush but he kept getting closer to being jailed and didn't want his parents to know so he helps the good guys thwart an alien invasion and works out a deal where he will never use his powers for villainy and he'll join a research team studying alien tech under his real name (the cover story will be he got an internship), He takes the deal, hangs up his duds, and tries to get involved in his work.

...downside is, the local heroes, the ones who he fought against, keep talking trash about his villain persona and his current boss isn't satisfied with him just using his power to explain how the tech works, so he has to work tons of overtime finding a way to break down things into layman terms and current tech.

Then the ultimate hit: he comes home to his bratty sister who has her friends over. He goes to his room and finds out that they are the secret identities of his foes...and they're talking crap about him as both his supervillain side and his civilian identity (they don't know it's the same person). He still has his tech and the house is wired up to a secondary control panel, if he wanted to, he could prank them or worse without ever leaving his room. It would be so easy...

It's best if there are still villainous tendencies that they have to overcome. Whether it's to assert their power to overcome a daily annoyance or just nostalgia for costumed life, they should have conflict where they need to think about going back to the lifestyle.

 

[Hypoxia]

I'm reminded of the caption "I teach -- what's YOUR superpower?" But I digress.

Retired supervillains. Hmmm... If they don't conquer the world or universe or whatever, I'd think their usual destiny would be destruction, imprisonment, or exile. I could imagine our SV locked up, seeing the error of their way, getting religion, joining a prison ministry.

But just to quit evil-doing and raise roses in the suburbs? What is the motivation? Maybe if they lost their powers -- if you can no longer belch fireballs or demagnetize gadgets, you may as well go straight. She was a super-spy until she lost the power of invisibility. Lacking other skills, she became an elite escort, yada yada.

 

[Strangebuddy]

It doesn't have to be a suburb and catching the early bird special retirement. For example, penguin is technically retired as he hasn't done anything directly for years, despite ruining lives and running a huge smuggling organization.

But the motivation can be a number of things. Admittedly, I'm thinking more of a silver-age style villain where the motivation for their start was simple and realistically would have been resolved pretty easily after their first jail sentence.

Let's use a more known example, shall we? Poison Ivy. She gets asylum extended to her by a South American country to help work on several important plants to the nation's economy and will receive compensation full control over the lab she'll be working at with only limited oversight. Boom, she gets to save the environment, is getting a crap ton of money, doesn't have to worry about Batman. She gets praised for her work and even the US is considering dropping charges in exchange for work on modifying cash crops.

So for once, she's happy and satisfied...but then something happens:

Harley comes for a visit and tries to get her to come back to Gotham for a crime spree.

Batman is seen nearby and Pamela can't help but play with the idea of sending some modified plants after him.

A coworker turns her down for a date or she keeps running into issues that could be solved with her kisses or zombie root serum. Does she give in or does she try to learn to lead a normal life?


Hobgoblin from marvel comics is one character who has retired from fighting spiderman and is doing pretty well, though he's still dangerous.

 

[Wulfric_Alpha]

A story that I play with every now and then involves a normal person who was in the wrong place at the right time and became the host of a demon for a time. Ultimately, through some book spanning epic good versus evil battle for all the ages, he is free again to live his life in a world where the people remember him for who he was possessed by rather than by who he is now, which leads to the sexy stuff.

There are evil groups who profited greatly from his actions. The Demon in him allowed them to flourish while he distracted the heroes of the world, and his defeat meant they had to go back to the status quo, but a few of them made their fortune and are eager to return the favor, if for no reason other than a professional courtesy to the guy who (inadvertently) made their fortune for them, or the hope that if they titillate him in the right way that the demon will come back.

There are good groups constantly "dropping in" to make sure he's not holding on to some lingering part of the old powers. There's been talk now and then that he's got a few powers leftover, and they need to get in there and keep an eye to make sure it doesn't mean the demon's coming back. Unfortunately one of those powers is a supernatural attraction to people who want to do sexy things with him. Not knowing if it's him or the powers, he leads a miserable life where he rarely goes out for fear that weak-willed people will swear eternal service to him.

An Amazon styled character was defeated by the Demon, and used as he saw fit before he was banished and she's still got that incident fresh in mind. She stalks him, she captures him, and when he's sure he is about to get chopped into a million pieces by her sword, she admits that she liked being his slave, and demon or not he's still the only man who's ever beat her, which makes him her Master forever, whether he wants it or not.

Just a few ideas along my "sexy superhero" stories that I'm still trying to hash out.

All in all, I've liked the idea forever and am glad that there's a spot here to chat about it. Thanks for the post.

 

[Strangebuddy]

I really like that idea. A guy who was forced to be a villain who just wants to be left alone but has to keep dealing with all the baggage.

Reminds me of the story I mentioned above. In that one the guy was more of a reluctant hero but the moment he gets out he has the hero community politely confront him and then give him a warning that they'll always be watching him. Then he runs into a group of guys who want him to go back to robbing banks and busting capes' heads in. Even his PO tries to get him to skip town so he doesn't have to deal with him.

The Amazon idea would have to be handled carefully since if he just forced himself on her it could be distractingly disturbing. I mean, regardless, it's going to be a non-con/reluctance piece but you'd want to be careful how it's framed. Maybe have the guy's memories be different than the Amazons. He might not recall all of the encounters and she might have viewed things differently due to cultural background (her red Sonja like chastity (pre retcon) and her society where fucking is supposed to be forced the first time for some reason).

Not saying scrap that part it actually lends itself to a lot of great material (her moving in and demanding he take charge, maybe she likes the new him or maybe she tries to get him possessed again, maybe she even encourages use of his seduction abilities since she sees being the mate of a guy who has dozens of lovers being very appealing, maybe she's a supervillain and even being around her raises suspicions that he's gone back to being possessed).