I’ve seen all these lovely headcanons about the people who produce costumes for superheroes and supervillains, but I’m always thinking: what about minions?
I mean, most villains have a theme, and custom tailoring is well and good for the boss, but what about the flunkies? When Captain Killblood needs a dozen pirate outfits for her “crew” on short notice, it’s probably not in the budget for all of them to be bespoke - and since nobody’s catching supervillains by tracing their credit card receipts, clearly she’s not sourcing them via regular channels.
I can’t help but picture our hypothetical supervillain walking out of the magic tailor shop and promptly heading down the block to Uncle Zargon’s Costume Emporium - all sizes and major body plans in stock, discretion guaranteed.
I always kinda figured that the minions were down with the theme and cobble together their own costumes…and now I’m picturing a minion-for-hire who has a couple dozen minion costumes stuffed into the back of their closet. Sometimes they get the accessories mixed up, so embarrassing.
And now I’m picturing this really dedicated minion and her closet full of DIY costumes henching for a whole series of one-shot theme villains - you know, the kind who get made out to be some kind of Big Deal for an issue or three, then never appear again - and eventually becoming much better known to the superhero community than any of the baddies she’s thrown in with.
(The more civic-minded heroes keep trying to give her mid-combat life counseling, like “you know, you don’t have to risk your neck just to dress up - you could get into cosplay”, and she’s all “oh, but I love the excitement!” as she unleashes the robot killer bees.)
Well, when you think about it, how many people can there be in any given city who are willing to sign on as minions to a super-criminal?
You could look at crime statistics to see how many potential criminals you’ve got to draw from. You’d have to count out all the crimes of passion and opportunity, because joining up with a supervillain, procuring a costume (and training if you’re lucky) and participating in fiendish schemes requires a fair amount of pre-meditation. Likewise, you’d remove family-related crimes from the pool, save for a statistically insignificant number of people with superheroes for relatives.
Considering that the vast majority of crimes tend to fall within those categories, you’re left with a fairly small pool to recruit minions from, easily less than a hundred depending on the city. If you’ve got more than one or two supervillains looking to put together a team, pickings are going to be pretty slim.
What I’m getting at here is this: What if minions working for more than one villain is the norm rather than the exception? Minions with closets full of different costumes for different gigs, taking freelance jobs for one-shot villains when they need some extra cash, sometimes becoming more recognizable to the heroes than the villains themselves. I mean, in this economy, who can get by with just one part time job?
I mean, imagine someone trying to put on a bee-themed costume made from roughly dyed clothes and spray painted football pads, while juggling their smartphone:
“Hey, Alex, you think you could cover for me tonight with The Conductor? She moved next week’s bank robbery up to tonight, but I’ve already got a gig scheduled with Insecticide, and - yeah, he’s calling himself Insecticide now - and I could be up for a promotion if I do well. Yeah, yeah, I know, shoulda blocked off the hours in my availability, but The Conductor and her Electric Death Orchestra normally only do one hit a month, so I thought it was safe. Listen, you’ve already got that suit from working with The Un-Gentlemen last Spring, so just throw on a cummerbund and you’re set. Thanks, yeah, I owe you one, and if anyone asks, you play Oboe.”
