How to Grow Up and Rule the World Read online

  Bonus Feature: Most Gothic cathedrals also include a system of underground catacombs—perfect for making last-second escapes.

  The Dastardly Deserted Amusement Park

  If ridding the world of Superheroes is near the top of your list of goals, and why wouldn’t it be, consider taking up residence in an abandoned amusement park and carrying out:

  VORDAK THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE’S

  Spectaculous Superhero Elimination Plan (Deserted Amusement Park Lair Version)

  1. Lure the Defender of Decency into your lair using a kidnapped sidekick or loved one as bait.

  2. Use the park’s assortment of mirror mazes and fun houses to confuse and disorient him.

  3. Capture him and place him in a diabolically clever yet extremely slow-acting death trap that you created by altering one of the park’s rides.

  4. As he awaits his doom, calmly reveal the details of your plan to take over the world while munching on cotton candy*.

  5. Repeat as necessary until all Superheroes have been disposed of.

  The Heinous Hovering Command Center

  Like the submarine lair, this hovering hideout will keep the Superhero community scrambling to pinpoint your location. Unlike the submarine, you can drop bombs, poisonous liquids, and misbehaving henchmen out of it onto the unsuspecting masses of humanity below. On the downside, birds with sharp beaks are a known safety hazard, and this floating fortress gets only .000001 miles per gallon of hovering command center fuel.

  The Unimaginable Underground Fortress

  Sure, it doesn’t look like much from the surface, but it’s what lies belowground that matters. And what lies belowground is an extensive network of tunnels and caverns capable of housing your armies of evil minions. The underground lair is also ideal if you are intent on terrorizing the planet by superheating the Earth’s core or unleashing gigantic creatures from the bowels of the Earth. Although a crypt entrance is shown here, tool sheds and dilapidated hunting cabins also make excellent secret entrances.

  Caution: One known issue with this type of lair is that a single, well-placed explosive will send the entire complex collapsing in upon itself. And cell phone reception is nearly nonexistent.

  A FEW FINAL WORDS OF ADVICE

  The type of lair you choose and how you decide to furnish it is up to you. Yes, I could tell you exactly what to do every step of the way, and, yes, you would then end up with a far better lair—but it wouldn’t really be your lair now, would it? It’s all the stupid decisions you are going to make that will allow you to create a lair that is uniquely yours.

  That being said, there are a few things I feel are important enough to mention. You are free to ignore this advice if you choose. Then again, I am free to seek you out and destroy your lair myself if you do.

  • Floors: Should be made of tile, stone, wood, or metal to create intimidating echoes as you walk around. No carpeting! Be sure to wear boots with metallic heals and make sure everyone else wears rubber soles—you should be the only one echoing.

  • Ceilings and Doorways: Should be extra high for Intimidating Helmet clearance.

  • Décor: Statues and portraits are the only way to go, and your theme should be “ME, ME, ME.” For example, take a look at one of my typical corridors from one of my typical lairs:

  This is how you should decorate your own lair—and I don’t mean with statues and portraits of yourself. I mean with statues and portraits of me, Vordak the Incomprehensible!

  • Bathrooms:

  All bathrooms should be self-cleaning and equipped with cape hooks and extra-large stalls to accommodate a wide variety of Supervillains, some of whom may not count hygiene among their powers.

  • Room Assignments: If you intend on having the Supervillains under your command live full-time in your lair, use common sense when deciding who will share living quarters with whom. For example, and I tell you this from personal experience, don’t let Earthquake and the Nitroglycerin Kid room together.

  • Conference Room: You should have, by far, the largest chair at the table as a symbol of your superiority over the other Supervillains present.

  • Escape Pods: The most important feature in any evil lair. If cornered by your arch-nemesis, you must have a way to flee and fight another day. Your escape pod should be large enough to hold only yourself and maybe a small pet—you don’t want any uninvited passengers tagging along. Make sure you are just a step or two from safety at all times by placing escape pods every ten feet or so throughout your entire lair—and don’t forget to outfit the escape pods with bathrooms (I learned this the hard way … don’t ask).

  “What do you mean you learned this the hard w—?”

  I SAID, DON’T ASK!*

  * NO, YOUR PLAN IS NOT TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD WHILE MUNCHING ON COTTON CANDY. YOU SHOULD REVEAL YOUR PLAN WHILE MUNCHING ON COTTON CANDY.

  * YOU ARE DARNED RIGHT THAT LITTLE PIECE OF INSOLENCE IS GOING TO COST YOU! WRITE I AM UNWORTHY OF VORDAK’S INCOMPREHENSIBLE WISDOM FIFTY THOUSAND MORE TIMES, ONE WORD PER PAGE THIS TIME, AND MAIL THE PAGES TO ME IN SEPARATE ENVELOPES. NOT A VERY NICE WAY TO END A CHAPTER, NOW, IS IT?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Building a Top-Notch EVIL Organization

  An organization is only as good as the people in it. Fortunately for me, I myself have been a member of every organization I have ever been in, thus guaranteeing its success. You, on the other hand, aren’t so lucky. In order to take over the world, you will need to surround yourself with good people, and by good people I mean, of course, bad people. Likewise, a bad person to surround yourself with would be a good person, since no good person is bad enough to be a good bad person, so you’ll definitely want to avoid that.

  This chaptabulous chapter’s mind-numbing know-how will have you assembling a first-rate band of bad guys in no time.

  ELEVENTH COMMANDMENT OF INCOMPREHENSIBILITY

  From time to time it will become necessary to create a powerful new adjective, such as chaptabulous, in order to maintain your air of vocabulatory superiority—particularly when you cannot find your Thesaurus of Evil.

  We will begin by taking a look at STOP RIGHT THERE!! DON’T ANYBODY MOVE!! I am sensing that a number of you ignoramuses have skipped ahead to this section of the book without even reading the previous chapters! If so, drop to the floor and give me one thousand sit-ups … while balancing a bowling ball on your head. Those chapters don’t exist solely to allow me to bask in my own brilliance—I expect you to bask in it as well. On second thought, make it two thousand … and if you just rolled your eyes, add another five hundred. Now go back to the copyright page and begin reading again, memorizing every word—and let’s just say you had better be wearing your acid-free Ethiopian ibex hair gloves.

  For those of you who have read through the first 110 pages as intended, I will now tell you how to build your evil organization, a sinister staff of underlings who will provide you with:

  • the numbers and firepower needed to carry out the abominable schemes you devise to take over the world

  • someone to torment in the meantime

  MINIONS (10,000+ RECOMMENDED)

  These deplorable drudges occupy the bottom position on the totem pole and will be used to form your evil horde, your malignant multitude, your army of darkness. They can be frustrating at times, but at their best they are a relentless plague upon civilization. Minions lack ambition and are willing to do whatever is commanded of them, even though this might result in a severed limb or a lopped-off head.

  A properly mastered minion horde is extremely useful for:

  • spreading fear among the general population

  • battling the armies of stubborn, pesky nations

  • creating a diversion so you can do something diabolical

  • ganging up on Superheroes once control of the world has been established

  • rounding out the rosters of your League of Evil softball teams

  You have a number of options available when it comes to choos
ing your minions, some costing more than others. Just beware—you get what you pay for.

  BLIs (Beings of Limited Intelligence)

  This group includes zombies, primates, and teenagers who wear their pants around their knees. They don’t cost much to maintain and are easily kept under control by bombarding them with, in no particular order:

  • threats of physical torment

  • false promises that they will become important once you have gained control of the planet

  • bananas

  The problem with BLIs is that their lack of intelligence makes it difficult for them to understand and follow directions, especially the teenagers. By themselves, BLIs are not very powerful, but send them out in groups of ten thousand or more and they will wreak some serious havoc. They tend not to bathe very often, so don’t let them anywhere near your lair.

  Clones

  Clones are very expensive to produce because of the high cost of the cloning equipment. You will save some money on their uniforms, though, since they only have to be made in one size. Some Evil Masterminds choose to fill their minion armies with clones of themselves. Not me. Sure, the spectacle of ten thousand Vordak the Incomprehensibles would be a wondrous sight to behold, but I somehow think it would make me feel less special. Besides, one of me provides more than enough wonder as it is. Self-esteem is a major issue with clones, though, due to their lack of individuality. I, myself, solved this problem by starting a recognition program that greatly improved my clones’ morale by making them feel “unique” and “special”:

  Programmable Entities

  This category includes robots and cyborgs, which make ideal minions because they can be programmed with exact instructions to follow. Again, this is a very expensive way to go, especially if batteries are required. But an army of well-made mechanical monsters may be virtually invincible. In fact, it has been proven over the years that the only way to stop a robot/cyborg onslaught is for some Superhero to reprogram the units to turn against one another—and ultimately their creator—which happens roughly 100 percent of the time.

  Demons, Devils, and Other Dark Creatures from the Underworld

  I strongly recommend that you avoid this option altogether. Sure, it sounds tempting—unleashing these foul forces upon humanity—but you will have to spend months researching and memorizing spells designed to open an earthly portal from the underworld. And for what? So the first demon to come through can devour your soul and occupy your body’s empty husk, free to enjoy the evil costume you worked so hard to design? I think not.

  The Elderly

  This group is often overlooked as a source of minionship. After all, unarmed old folks are certainly not as frightening as the other minions we’ve talked about—unless, of course, they’re wearing their bathing suits. However, when equipped with their weapon of choice, the automobile, a few thousand of them can quickly send a major metropolitan area spiraling into complete chaos. The problem with this group is that they are extremely difficult to control. If you try to threaten them in any way, they will beat you senseless with their canes and hard black purses. My helmet has the dents to prove it. And mind control won’t work on them, either, since what little working brain tissue they have left is used to store tales of how rough they had things when they were your age. Your only real option is to mail them phony senior citizen discount coupons to Denny’s and watch them descend upon those restaurants like locusts on a cornfield.

  I have always considered it important to rule my minions with an iron fist and inflict harsh discipline when I deem it appropriate, which is pretty much all the time. Any minions worth their salt will come to appreciate the foul treatment as proof that their existence, though nearly meaningless, is still worth tormenting—after all, you wouldn’t punish needlessly if you didn’t care. Case in point—I recently received this little surprise in my mind-boggling mailbox:

  Dear Mr. Incomprehensible,

  Hello! I hope this letter finds you in good health. You probably don’t remember me, but I wanted to send you a note and let you know what an absolute privilege it was to have served as your minion. Since your retirement, I have bounced around from master to master and have had the good fortune to devour human flesh the world over. I must say, however, that that flesh seemed to taste just a little better when I was devouring it for you.

  These days find me in rather high demand as a minion, a happenstance I attribute largely to the experience I gained while under your supreme evil mastery. And I want to assure you I hold no grudge whatsoever for the time you fed me to the sharks in a fit of rage. Quite the contrary, in fact, as it served only to make me work that much harder to overcome my newfound lack of a right arm and leg.

  I have enclosed a recent photo of myself that may serve to refresh your memory, although when I last served you I believe my left nostril was still partially intact. Anyway, I will let you return to what certainly must be more important matters, but please feel free to summon me should you decide to resume your conquest of the planet.

  All the best,

  Henchmen (Ten, Give or Take)

  Also known as flunkies, stooges, lackeys, or thugs, henchmen are an important part of any successful evil outfit. They “fill in the gaps” between the widespread havoc wreaked by minion hordes and the highly specialized functions of Supervillains by providing such valuable services as:

  • robbing banks

  • kidnapping

  • guarding lair entrances

  • picking up ransoms

  • forming the initial, though easily dispatched, line of defense against Superheroes who gain entrance to your lair

  • landscaping and snow removal

  • dragging prisoners before you

  • groveling

  High-quality henchmen usually come from among the ranks of petty criminals and other riffraff of society. Unlike minions, most henchmen are normal-looking enough to mingle freely within the community, although their black turtlenecks and unshaven faces might look suspicious in most countries other than France.

  Frenchmen Henchmen

  A properly trained henchman knows his place in the overall scheme of things. He understands that his life is not nearly as valuable as your own and that his role within your organization will require tremendous personal sacrifice. A worthwhile henchman must be willing, for example, to throw himself in front of an oncoming train in order to:

  • push you out of the way, thus saving your life

  • distract bystanders, thus allowing you to secretly carry out some diabolical scheme or other

  • slow it down, thus preventing its breeze from unnecessarily rustling your cape

  You will rarely require more than eight to ten henchmen at a time, but they don’t last very long, so you will need to replace them often. Fortunately, there are people who can help you with this.

  I used these guys. I found them to be extremely helpful and professional, especially after I implanted that remote-detonating explosive microchip in the base of Mr. Three Fingers’s skull.

  You should punish your henchmen often, even when they have done exactly as you commanded. This will keep them on their toes. And demand they address you as “Your Immenseness” or “Your Enormousness” to help remind them of their worthlessness compared to you.

  A couple words of warning: henchmen have an annoying tendency to squeal like stuck pigs when they are captured and questioned by the forces of justice, so dole out information on a strictly need-to-know basis. They also can’t aim handguns worth a darn. It seems the only things they can hit are open car doors, trash cans, and the ground. As you can imagine, this provides big laughs within the Superhero community:

  Captain Purity: “SORRY I’M A FEW MINUTES LATE, EVERYONE. I WAS CORNERED IN AN ALLEY BY A GANG OF VORDAK THE INCOMPREHENSIBLE’S ARMED HENCHMEN.”

  Garbage Can Man: “BETTER YOU THAN ME!”

  (hysterical laughter ensues)

  Scientists (Twenty to Thirty)

  Sure, the
y’re dorky, but you will need them to monitor your magnificent banks of supercomputers and highly advanced weapons systems. You can easily lure these gangly geeks away from their regular jobs by promising them free pocket protectors and Star Wars DVDs. Equipped with white lab coats and clipboards, scientists look very impressive in the background when you issue video ultimatums to world leaders or give tours of your lair to captured Superheroes. However, should the forces of good ever manage to penetrate your lair’s defenses, don’t count on these eggheads to hang around and fight; they are easily spooked by sirens, flashing lights, and countdowns to self-destruction.

  Supervillains (Ten to Twenty)

  Much to my dismay, the world has become overrun with Superheroes. It’s to the point where an Evil Genius can’t even fire off a death ray these days without having it deflect harmlessly off the impenetrable pectorals of some deplorable do-gooder. Sure, you could tackle all these stalwart stiffs yourself, but that would take up valuable time better spent plotting the downfall of humanity.

  Enter the Supervillain, a powerful being capable of battling the Superhero on even terms. More than even, one would think, since he is not bogged down by feelings of pity, compassion, and respect for human life—characteristics that often cripple the common Superhero. In a perfect world, this powerful Supervillain would defeat his Superhero adversary and return him to your lair for you to dispose of at your leisure using one of your diabolically clever yet extremely slow-acting death traps. Alas, the world is not perfect. If it was, I would be ruling it.

  WHAT’S IN A NAME?

  True story: I once hired a Supervillain who called himself “The Whizzer” because I naturally assumed he possessed superhuman speed. As it turned out, what he actually possessed was a bed-wetting problem. Here are a few other vapid villains I have come across whose actual abilities are not quite what I expected—consider yourself forewarned.