This is a pencil sketch in writing.

This is a little more than the bare bones concept and the start of a supervillain. A lot of bad guys for superhero games are born in my notes this way. There will be more to come as I fill in the details.

My kids have been watching a lot of the Miraculous: Adventures of Ladybug and Cat Noir cartoon again as of late. Not that I’m much of a fan, but I do like a good superhero story. Despite its many foibles, Miraculous does have some very interesting character concepts. Yes, part of me wishes it had been written for adults and I could have wrecked the entire show in the first season as a writer if I was allowed to use some setting that wasn’t Paris, France.

Perhaps the most redeeming quality of Miraculous is the main villain of the story known as Hawk Moth. He’s a guy that hides out in his mansion as a reclusive millionaire artist by day and retreats to do villain stuff from his penthouse sanctum. His lofty goal is to bring his dead wife back to life by capturing the Miraculous artifacts of Ladybug and Cat Noir and combine their powers to grant a single wish. (Yes, the people who wrote this show gave the powers of ultimate creation and destruction to a couple of lovestruck Parisian teenagers.) Hawk Moth’s most interesting plot twist is that he is actually the father of Cat Noir and has no idea who his son really is.

Cheesy kids’ cartoon aside, I think there’s a great villain here.

Hawk Moth, aka Gabriel Agreste is kinda like Bruce Wayne in terms of money and influence. Hawk Moth’s main power is the ability to transform a regular butterfly/moth into an akuma. (Pretend for a moment I don’t know that Akuma is actually another term for demon.) Hawk Moth then sends these little buggers out to “akumatize” some poor down-on-their-luck shmoo and give them evil powers provided they obtain Ladybug and Cat Noir’s Miraculous for him. At the end of every episode, the akuma butterfly is released from whatever MacGuffin it was in on the villain and gets “de-evilized” by Ladybug. The teenager then uses her miraculous power of reality manipulation to fix catastrophic amounts of otherwise irreparable damage to Paris and harm to innocent bystanders.

Again, the fools that wrote this show gave the power to manipulate the fabric of reality to a teenage girl. How many ways could that go wrong? Not to mention it’s set in France where a .22 caliber pistol is considered a hand cannon, and the male lead is a teen fashion icon. It’s pretty much the exact opposite of an American superhero story for the most part.

But I think there’s a really great nugget of an American supervillain idea here.

Throw the entire show out the window except for Hawk Moth’s character. I’m going to mix in a little Dr Doom and Kingpin just to pull it closer to my ICONS RPG campaign that I’m still working on. My setting is the Gritty City, reminiscent of Batman’s Gotham before there were hot and cold running vigilantes on every corner and you could swing a batarang around without hitting a supervillain. Various mob bosses vie for control over the city while an inept or corrupt city government is powerless to help.

Billionaire industrialist Gabriel O’Leary mourns the loss of his beloved wife who was accidentally slain by collateral damage during a superhero battle. The accident was caused by the city’s unsung first team who are now disbanded, dead, or no longer heroes. (*More on that to come.) Gabriel’s long search for a resurrection spell led him to a mysterious temple in the Himalayan Mountains where he found a sorcerer-monk named Cheng. Originally the mystic master thought he was training a student to become an American superhero as he had done many decades before. (*JCU Comics lore from wayyy back. Yes, I’ve been at this for about 35 years now.)

O’Leary had other plans.

The American brought several highly paid gunmen into the country with him and waited for the right time to strike. He learned the ancient power to read as well as manipulate minds and Astral Projection. Later he discovered how to turn Astral Projection into Teleportation. He found the scrolls containing all of Master Cheng’s writings. He gave no warning. He and his thugs took over the monastery, slaughtering most of the monks. O’Leary magically lobotomized Master Cheng, stealing all of the knowledge of his ancient magic and fighting arts.

He paid off his men and left the monastery. Later he would discover that even the children he left behind were actually over one hundred years old, and they vowed revenge on him. O’Leary retained Cheng, whose body was kept in suspended animation. They could still speak telepathically whenever O’Leary needed to pry information from his former master.

Now he operates from the sanctum within his mansion on the edge of the city.

Other gangsters and would-be supervillains only whisper his name in hushed tones. Gabriel O’Leary has his hands in almost every major criminal racket in town along with the city government and police. He still has his lieutenants do business the old fashioned way whenever possible, by coercion, extortion, or violence. If that fails, mind control, magical assassination, or mystic means keep the other gangs in line.

He almost never does business in person with anyone. Instead, his butler, valet, driver, personal chef, or lieutenants relay his wishes for him. If he suspects anyone is getting too close, he teleports to one of his many safehouses in the countryside or internationally. Aside from amassing wealth and power, his one true goal remains to get revenge for his dead wife by eliminating every superhero that sets foot in his domain.

That’s where we’ll leave it for today. Thanks for stopping by. More to come. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy.

Copyright 2023 Jeff J. Craigmile.