What Do Henchmen Do When Evil Geniuses Die?

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When Dr. Klepto died in that firefight with Power Man and the Revenge Crew in central Chicago, I saw a thirteen year career flushed down the toilet. I saw all those years I’d spent working my way up from Admin Assistant to Admin Executive, Assistant Vice President to Senior Assistant Vice President, thrown instantly into a smoking nuclear grave. What prospects would I have now, when the only guy who could give me a credible reference was a pile of ash in a crater outside the Field Museum? What could I go onto? There aren’t many visionary evil masterminds in the world, and even less who are hiring in this climate. For a while, me and the guys continued to fight for the cause, kept trying to execute Klepto’s Grand Plan, but without the big man the direction was just… gone. We couldn’t do it anymore. We were all so used to following orders that we’d forgotten how to think for ourselves. So, after bombing one more children’s hospital, for old times’ sake, we went our separate ways.

I was lost for a long time. I tried putting together a résumé and applying to other evil corporations, hoping that Klepto’s name alone would carry me into at least a low-level henchman job; but I would have had more luck trying to jump off a cliff and land on my feet (which, coincidentally, I saw Dr. Klepto do once, when he was battling X-Ray Girl at the Grand Canyon, trying to poison Vegas with his deadly Déjà Vu Gas). These days, unless you have some terrifying deformity or are covered in scars and skull tattoos, you just have no chance of getting a job in the mischief and mayhem industry. They say you don’t grab the eye well enough, or you weren’t as edgy as they were looking for, and you’re shown the door without so much as a thanks for coming.

So instead, I started working the kind of shit jobs disgraced policemen have to resort to. I was a bouncer one week, and the next week I’d be a taxi driver. I worked for private security firms, bare-knuckle boxing clubs, haulage companies, porno studios, you name it. Anything that required burliness, big muscles and a shaven head, I did it. But I couldn’t find satisfaction. Working for douchebags and sickos is nice, but it just doesn’t compare to the thrill of working for a genuinely insane, murderous psychopath. I was going cold turkey from the havoc I had spent my whole life wreaking, and it was hitting me hard.

So I hit the bottle. I drank heavily, wherever I could and whenever I could. I knew it would just exacerbate my depression and cloud my mind (Dr. Klepto had been sure to clarify his feelings on doing our work with an unclear or overly happy mind by making the company slogan “no drink, no drugs, no kisses, no hugs”), but it was all I could do. At that point, I felt so sure of my worthlessness that it was that, or throw myself off a bridge. I was kicked out of my crummy apartment, I was barred from half the bars in town for ranting about that god damn Revenge Crew, and all signs were pointing to a cold and lonely death on the near horizon.

But then I met Greg. Greg, with his goatee moustache and love of show tunes and his way of saying pick yourself off that floor, dust off your butt and keep mincing toward that happy ending, hun. He took me off the streets, shipped me to New York, cleaned me up, and taught me how to love again. With Greg, I relearned how to live, and this time I did it right. He showed me music, he let me dance, he showered me with joy. Greg taught me that it was okay to be myself and let go of all the badness that had ruled my life, because I didn’t need it to cover up my faults anymore. He told me I was perfect, and that I should let the world see just how perfect I am every single day.

So that’s what I do. They call me Brenda Blowhard now, and when I sing those Whitney Houston songs in my sparkly pink dress and feather boa in the Stonewall Inn, they cheer my name so loudly that I feel like a big gay rainbow might just burst out of my chest and explode into the night’s sky, brightening the whole world for everyone to see. Finally, I can be me, the me that I’ve been hiding all these years under aggression, steroids, hate and evil; and I realise now that Power Man and the Revenge Crew are the best thing that ever happened to me.