Laughs and Lessons from a Supervillain in Supreme Villainy

We don’t go for that kind of villain anymore (Darth Vader’s grandson is already so whiny and conflicted). It’s too bad: truth has gotten much, much stranger than fiction, with grandiosity in the ascendant. A sense of superiority seems to be the default mode among our real-world leaders (though I’m not, of course, be referring to anyone in particular). Saving us from our milquetoast fictional villains is King Oblivion, PhD, the subject of Supreme Villainy: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Most (In)Famous Supervillain Memoir Never Published, the new book from writer and humorist Matt D. Wilson, who has himself been trapped in Oblivion’s writing pool, somewhere deep in the basement, for a good long time now, and taken it upon himself to collate the papers of the deceased (for the fifth time) global supervillain, while Matt awaits a rescue that he’s pretty sure will never come.
Wilson’s faux memoir details the life of the man who has ruled the Earth with an iron fist for decades, whose every action has been a triumph of indomitable will, and whose every defeat has been a well-planned ruse. The core of the book is Oblivion’s ghostwritten autobiography, complete with hand-written notes often suggesting that the writer of that particular chapter has failed in his or her goal of aggrandizement, and therefore has very little time left to live. The book doesn’t have just one unreliable narrator, it has several, overseen by an evil editor ensuring that very little truth escapes…on pain of death. Any indication of weakness or sign of humility ought to have been ruthlessly cut from the finished manuscript.
The stated goal of the work is to inspire a potential successor, so alongside the manuscript pages are essays on the failings of some more familiar supervillains and vocational quizzes. We learn of Oblivion’s orphaned childhood, of his training at the Oceania School for Mischievous Boys—sort of an evil Hogwarts (the Christmas party involves dressing a man up like Santa before beating him and trying to steal the most presents)—and of his pioneering exploration of the virtues of killing with sharks. He has a special teacher who instructs him in how to be indescribably evil while appearing to do good, surely an important skill among today’s titans of self-interest (when Miss Spiraci disappears, he vows to hunt her down in order to further his training, then to kill her for abandoning him). Later, he duels with feckless heroes like Mr. Wonderful and the Bioluminescent Brawler.
Matt D. Wilson writes for McSweeney’s, and fans of that online humor site will recognize the house style here: absurdist humor, bordering on the silly, but carried off with panache and self-awareness. The varied style, with the different narrators and formats, and the brisk pace keep what could be a one-note joke from getting stale. On one level, it’s a funny, clever satire of the pop culture villains of a classic mold, done with a surprisingly light touch given the number of people consumed by sharks. On another level, it’s pretty much a guidebook for our modern cultural scene, and doubtless will be taken as non-fiction once our real-life megalomaniacs catch up to King Oblivion. (We’re probably about five years off.) Get the well-earned laughs out of Supreme Villainy now, because it will soon be taught in schools.
Supreme Villainy is available now.