Who is a Mastermind?

[Ultimo]

So, I had a bit of a discussion in chat the other day, and it got me thinking.  I made the assertion that certain comic book characters were best represented as Masterminds, but many disagreed.  My question for the community (for the sake of amusement, if nothing else) is, which characters in the comics would you think is best represented by the Mastermind class?

 

The character I was playing at the time was based on Doctor Doom, whom I qualified as a Mastermind because he rarely gets personally involved in events, preferring to send lackeys to do his bidding.  Of course, when he DOES get personally involved, he's FAR more capable than a petless Mastermind is in the game... so does Doom qualify as a Mastermind?

 

A second character I built as a Mastermind was based on the Joker.  Joker also has a variety of minions he sends to distract his enemies while he does other things.  Joker himself isn't especially dangerous on his own (though he does have one or two genuinely dangerous attacks, such as his acid or Joker toxin), so I think that fits the Mastermind mold pretty well.

 

Red Skull is another who is not a serious threat on his own, but pulls the strings from the shadows, using minions to do his dirty work.  Similarly, Baron Zemo might have started out that way, but in the Avengers, as a member of the Masters of Evil, he was more of a match for Captain America on his own.

 

What do you guys think?  Who would be a Mastermind?  How would they be built in the game?

[Snarky]

From “The Tick” is The Monarch.  Quite a few villains in many iterations of Batman were MMs. Giving Batman plenty of goons to dance with.  In fact so many villains of lower power dramas could be considered MMs. On the high end Lex Luthor and Kingpin. Both smart and powerful but preferring to work through flunkies.  Why not?

[Lunar Ronin]

IMO, Lex Luthor (since the Post-Crisis revamp), is the quintessential Mastermind.  He's a businessman, but he pulls the strings and gets others to do his dirty work.  That's usually my inspiration for playing Masterminds, since 2005.

[Water]

Charles Montgomery Plantagenet Schicklgruber

[Major_Decoy]

Comic book characters do not delineate nicely into archetypes, they all have to meet the story being told.

 

Antman has mastermind like aspects. He can, at times, command ants.

Multiple Man has mastermind like aspects.

The Living Doll is full of tinier men.

 

[Lusiphur Malache]

Syndrome, Purple Man, Ra's Al Ghul, The Spirit's Octopus, Geppetto from Fables, Helspont, Kaizen Gamorra

[InvaderStych]

5 hours ago, Snarky said:

From “The Tick” is The Monarch.

 

Coincidentally, as is The Monarch from The Venture Bros. Occasionally he gets an interesting toy for himself, but they rarely work, and his two (well, eventually one) best henchmen are in constant use.

 

Arguably, Awesome-X from Frisky Dingo is also a Mastermind. In an interview he's literally asked, "So ... your super power is management?" 🤣

 

Oh, you wanted competent examples? 😉

[Snarky]

1 hour ago, InvaderStych said:

 

Coincidentally, as is The Monarch from The Venture Bros. Occasionally he gets an interesting toy for himself, but they rarely work, and his two (well, eventually one) best henchmen are in constant use.

 

Arguably, Awesome-X from Frisky Dingo is also a Mastermind. In an interview he's literally asked, "So ... your super power is management?" 🤣

 

Oh, you wanted competent examples? 😉

Damn.  I actually meant Venture Brod.   Old vamp brain.  Well, time to go out and look for fresh blood….

[Techwright]

 

I'm actually only posting ones that, generally speaking, cannot fight well alone.  Mad Hatter, of course, uses mind control to gain minions.  Joker definitely works with minions, but he's incredibly dangerous as a solo act as well.  As is Two-Face, Bane, Magneto, Gorilla Grodd, etc.    I suppose there's a reasonable argument to be made for Professor X being a mastermind over the X-men on the side of heroes, though like Magneto, he's very dangerous as a solo act as well.

[roleki]

8 hours ago, Snarky said:

From “The Tick” is The Monarch.  Quite a few villains in many iterations of Batman were MMs. Giving Batman plenty of goons to dance with.  In fact so many villains of lower power dramas could be considered MMs. On the high end Lex Luthor and Kingpin. Both smart and powerful but preferring to work through flunkies.  Why not?

 

It's The Terror that's a mastermind from the Tick, though I prefer the incarnation from the Patrick Warburton series.

[Luminara]

Who is a defender, not a mastermind.

[Oubliette_Red]

Professor Xavier, he has all those X-men as his minions.

 

[ZekeStenzland]

Not sure if there was a comic book, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to claim Buckaroo Banzai as a mastermind: a smart, capable guy who surrounds himself with other capable guys. 
 

[Lunar Ronin]

20 minutes ago, ZekeStenzland said:

Not sure if there was a comic book, but it wouldn’t be unreasonable to claim Buckaroo Banzai as a mastermind: a smart, capable guy who surrounds himself with other capable guys. 
 

 

 

There've been several.  A Marvel Comics adaptation of the film, and some prequel comic books by Moonstone Comics in the mid-to-late aughts.

 

 

[Clave Dark 5]

I think Dr. Doom is more of a Dominator with more pets than he should have.

 

The Joker I think is a good MM example too, yeah.

[twozerofoxtrot]

It's a but tricky because some "masterminds" have entire armies at their disposal but that's because they're personally very powerful and sit at the top of that power structure. 

 

Others (as mentioned above) hedge more to what we see in game as a Mastermind for balance purposes. 

 

In the former category some might suggest Dr. Doom, Darkseid, and even our own beloved Lord Recluse. In the latter your Luthors, Jokers, and Professor X.

 

---

 

Because of how the game has made stratified delineations between ATs for mechanical purposes, it's as difficult to apply the game's classifications to popular comics characters. 

Edited February 12 by twozerofoxtrot

[Scarlet Shocker]

Professor Charles Xavier

 

Professor Trevor Bruttenholm of East Bromwich

[ZemX]

I think it's a trick question.  The problem lies in the fact that ANYONE can have followers and be considered the mastermind or ring-leader or, dare I say, "kingpin" of a criminal (or hero!) enterprise while at the same time being more well represented by another AT in this game.   

 

Bane might have a gang but he's obviously a science Brute.  Prof X and Magneto are mutation Controllers. Statesman was a Tanker.  Ms. Liberty is a Scrapper.   All of these folks had/have followers or henchmen or paramilitary organizations that report to them.  Doesn't make them MMs.  

 

Flipside of that, I suppose, is that you can call anybody with a gun a "pistol blaster" but that doesn't make Joker, Penguin, Riddler, Black Mask, or any of the other bat-villains NOT an MM.  Those guys are totally MMs!

[Go0gleplex]

Ratcatcher, Toy Man, Toy Boy, MODOC, Ra's al Ghul, Aquaman (telepathic control of fish which he used as his combat force...originally), Shadow King...off the top of my head.  Also Swarm...their body is literally made of thousands of bees they control. 

Edited February 13 by Go0gleplex

[Ultimo]

I agree... not every character with allies is a Mastermind.  The X-Men aren't Xavier's pets, they're allies.  Meanwhile, Joker's henchmen would be best thought of as pets.

[Ultimo]

On 2/11/2024 at 3:26 AM, Lunar Ronin said:

IMO, Lex Luthor (since the Post-Crisis revamp), is the quintessential Mastermind.  He's a businessman, but he pulls the strings and gets others to do his dirty work.  That's usually my inspiration for playing Masterminds, since 2005.

Interestingly, I originally made a Luthor-themed character as a bots Mastermind, but he never quite "felt" right.  In the comics, he was always that mad scientist type (until more recent years), making weapons and death traps and personally battling Superman.  When I finally settled on him as a Blaster (Beam Rifle/Devices), he felt a lot more like Luthor. 

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, Ultimo said:

Meanwhile, Joker's henchmen would be best thought of as pets.

Certainly.  But there's a point where you have sufficient minions that you stop being a Mastermind and start being the commander of a army....  And that point is scaled both by raw numbers as well as by the intelligence, independence, etc... of your pets.  Otherwise, Lord Recluse would be a mastermind as well.

But really, yeah.  As someone said upthread, you can't really map CoH archetypes onto comic book characters.

[sbloyd]

I submit another Batman villain: from the Animated Series...

Scarface!

 

He just has a bunch of mooks doing his bidding.

 

[Duckbutler]

I think both controller and mastermind work for Professor X. Early on he's more often directly involved, like in the 1960's stuff. There are more than a few times where the team's losing a fight and then Xavier intervenes to telepathically lock down their opponent. His role in the 90's comics that I grew up with was much more passive, particularly as the team got bigger and got split into different sub teams. The problem with hero mastermind types is that disposable minions and nameless mooks is not very heroic. Because we also spend more time with protagonists, we know who those allies are and they may become characters in their own right.

 

Incidentally, if I recall, it is possible to rename your henchmen in game to give them each more unique identity and feel less "disposable minion" and more "friend and ally."

[Techwright]

6 hours ago, Ultimo said:

I agree... not every character with allies is a Mastermind.  The X-Men aren't Xavier's pets, they're allies.  Meanwhile, Joker's henchmen would be best thought of as pets.

That's reasonable.  I was going to add Doc Savage as a hero mastermind, but his five "brothers" as well as his cousin Patricia are definitely in the allies camp as opposed to henchmen.