Captain Douchebag and the Not-So-Super Heroes

A few years ago, Mr. B was telling me a story about one of his co-workers who he called “Captain Douchebag.”  He kept telling the story, but I didn’t hear a thing he said because I was instantly and completely consumed with the question “What would Captain Douchebag’s super powers be?” It drove me crazy for months.  I asked everyone I knew, “If you had a superhero called Captain Douchebag, what would his superpowers be?”  A lot of people tried, I got lots of cracks about freshness and PowerPoint (the man who inspired the name had a gift for PowerPoint), but nothing seemed right.  Finally, about six months after my quest began, it came to me.

I was driving along, I get lots of ideas when I’m driving, and it just popped into my head.   Of course!  Captain Douchebag’s superpowers are a blinding smile and his gift for bullshit.  He attacks his enemies with his blinding insincerity and, while they’re trying to remember what they are there for, his sidekick Nozzle Boy takes them out.  Captain Douchebag always lets someone else do the real work if he can get away with a simple wink and a smile.

A wave of sweet relief passed through me, I had the answer I was looking for.  But now there were new questions.  Is the Captain an anti-hero, like Die Fledermaus from “The Tick” (or Bat Manuel, if you happened to catch the live-action show), or is he really a super-villain?  Now that I had a foundation to build upon, answers came more quickly.  Anti-heroes are fun, but heroes only get one sidekick.  As a super-villain, Captain Douchebag could have a whole horde of Nozzle Boy henchmen.  How can you resist that?  Imagine a cross between Burt Ward’s Robin and the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz, all wearing bandoliers of douche nozzles.

Every super-villain needs a nemesis, who shall it be?  That’s easy!  Her name is Crimson Tide and she is immune to the Douchebag’s charms because she is so not in the mood for his bullshit.  Crimson Tide is the leader of a group called The Not-So-Super Heroes.  Fighting alongside her are The Gremlin, Homer and Saturday.

The Gremlin is a weird little man with a knack for breaking things.  He can bypass security systems and sabotage doomsday devices with almost magical speed.  Crimson Tide grudgingly admits his usefulness, but can’t stand him as a person for his habit of referring to her as “Sugar Britches.”

Homer is more of the “stay at the lair” kind of hero.  He is a technophile who takes care of research and weapon design (think Penelope Garcia on Criminal Minds).  In his spare time he works on perfecting the group’s website homepage.  It’s been ten years, but he’s almost there.

Saturday Night is the group’s muscle.  She is a classic punk-rock girl, in my head she looks a lot like Tank Girl.  She eschews Homer’s high-tech weapons and gadgetry in favor of her trusty baseball bat.  I had a really hard time coming up with a name for her, but I was inspired by a line from an Elton John song “My sister looks cute in her braces and boots, a handful of grease in her hair.”  It was perfect because, as we all know, Saturday Night’s all right for fighting.

Sadly, this is as far as it goes.  I have random little stories about them in my head featuring things like zombie frat boys and mind-control hair products – not to mention terrible puns like “Captain Douchebag really cleaned this place out,” but I can’t draw for shit so the comic book lives only in my head.  Still, it makes a fun place to go when my mind needs to wander.