The internet has become the frontlines for innovations in geek culture and comedy. So when these two things collide on the premier website for supervillainy, only good can come from it right? And so it is that The ISS (that's International Society of Supervillains) has birthed its first book - an instructional text on how to become a supervillain appropriately titled Hate You Forever.
The fact of the matter is that, at 172 pages (including many illustrations) and only $13, the book - full title being Hate You Forever: How to Channel Your Rage Into Effective Supervillainy - is definitely a quick read. But that's not a negative thing at all. In fact, it points to the powers of pithiness that King Oblivion, Ph.D. (a/k/a MD Wilson) employs in his writing. He gets in, establishes various jokes (include some great running gags) and then gets out before the whole thing becomes stale and annoying. True, some of the humor may be aimed more towards a certain demographic (let's call them the "indoor kids"), but by and large this is a very entertaining read for people who love absurdity and flights of (fearful) fancy.
Oblivion outlines all the various aspects of supervillainy - persona, goals, base of operations, costumes, personnel, and varios other tropes that have cropped up previously. With a Tony Robbins approach to the outlandish antics of costumed rogues, Oblivion is able to present the absurdity of global domination as another mundane avenue for realizing one's potential. Combined with the black humor of someone who delights in the pain and anguish of others (especially henchmen), it makes for a hilarious bout of cognitive dissonance.
True, some of this material has been covered elsewhere. If you're a fan of The Venture Brothers, Frisky Dingo, Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog or Joe Meno's The Boy Detective Fails, then this may seem like well-worn subject matter. But it doesn't have the melancholy aspects that all of those projects seem to include. As opposed to realizing the depressing futility of being a constantly losing supervillain, Hate You Forever delights in the prospect of waging war against heroes - even at the cost of a few punches in the face.
Oblivion gets the best of both worlds - the absurdity of comic book heroics mixed in with the awkward normality of a motivational PowerPoint presentation, all without the despair that seems to accompany most characters when they make the transition from grandiose to realistic. This isn't a deep tome that probes the psyche of anyone - besides Wilson, that is - nor is it any sort of a complex book that has multiple levels. It has two - at most, three - levels, and that's quite enough. It's a lark of a book that'll find you chuckling fairly regularly.
There are some problems with the book, though. Wilson could've spent a bit more time proofreading the final copy as there are numerous typographical errors in the books - a common mistake that seems to be carrying over from the internet blogs (I do not exempt this blog from that statement). Often times the rhythm of the jokes or diatribes are off set when excessive words are accidentally included, or something is incorrectly spelled. Also there are a couple of chapters that seem to have little to do with the actual narrative of the book (particularly one exchange with a department store clerk). These chapters are still funny, but they definitely seem like they were included less because of a narrative need and more because Wilson found them too funny to exclude or save for a later book.
Again, such criticisms mostly miss the point of the book. Hate You Forever is just interested in having a good time laughing at tired tropes and clumsy clichés while creating a rich fantasy world that is overrun with villains - yet is somehow less evil than our own. Through Oblivion's book, readers are allowed to just chuckle at the absurdity of their own lives and the impracticality of the fictional worlds we escape to when we desire to take over the world.
If you're interested in checking out more about the book you can read a sample chapter here. And you can purchase Hate You Forever from Lulu (self publishing website).