Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: Difference between revisions

How on earth does he fund this? Why does anyone take him seriously anymore? The only possible explanation is that there have to be scores of successful operations the villain is undertaking that we're not seeing... much like how scientists speculate that there's "dark matter" in the universe - substances that can't be directly observed, but [[Anthropic Principle|must exist if the universe is to keep working the way we believe it does]].

 

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== Anime & Manga ==

* The Jovians of ''[[Martian Successor Nadesico]]'' have a basically infinite supply of robot drones, no matter how many thousands of the things the heroes blow up over the course of the series. However, no one finds this odd as they're an [[Alien Invasion]] force... {{spoiler|actually, they're just disenfranchised ''human'' colonists that stumbled across [[Applied Phlebotinum]] similar to ''[[Knights of the Old Republic]]''. When this starts breaking down, they start entertaining the notion of peace talks.}}

* [[Mad Scientist|Jail Scaglietti]] of ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' never seems to run out of [[Mecha-Mooks|Gadget Drones]] and laboratories despite losing a number of them to Combat Mages under the [[Heroes-R-Us|Space-Time Administration Bureau]]'s employ. {{spoiler|His being supported, funded, and supplied by the heads of the Bureau themselves}} may have something to do with this.

** And having a steady supply of mass-produced women to sell to arms dealers or lonely men as Dutch wives makes for good money. Especially when they can activate and kill its buyer if he needs them to.

* In ''[[Samurai Pizza Cats]]'', the Big Cheese has a surprising amount to spend on giant killer robots. However, this gets subverted when he runs out of funding in one episode and has his Ninja Crows working at minimum wage to scrounge up funds, and in the finale, we find out he's been embezzling from the royal court, to the point where there wasn't enough left to buy an ice cream cone. The princess was mighty peeved when her check bounced.

** They once realized they could make a lot of money just selling souvenirs for the some tournament or another, and set themselves to go into legit business doing so. They succeeded just after the tournament was over and the demand was gone, leaving them out of money, again.

* In ''[[Naruto]]'' Orochimaru has managed to single-handedly construct a series of immense underground bunkers populated by fanatic followers hidden throughout the Elemental Nations. On top of this, he has managed to conduct extensive large-scale experiments on human subjects. He throws away powerful minions like confetti. And despite setbacks, he never seems to face any serious damage.

 

== Comicbooks ==

** This trope was [[Lampshaded]] in one episode of the 1990s animated series, with the Scarecrow infecting star athletes with his fear poison and then betting against them for huge sums of money. When Batman confronts him, the Scarecrow explains that chemicals and other research materials are very expensive...

*** In some versions, the Riddler's goons seem to ''like'' their boss. In the comic book tie-in to the Animated Series, some of them were worried about him suffering a nervous breakdown if Batman solved one more of Ed's riddles (of course, it might just be that Mr. Nygma is comparatively pleasant as Gotham villains go). Similarly, one comic in which the Joker planted time-bombs in Gotham had one of his goons joking about working for Two-Face, and describing Batman's oncoming fist as "quitting time".

** HYDRA also controls a small nation.

** Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.), another terrorist group that broke off from HYDRA and became independent, also generates revenue by developing and selling deadly high-tech devices. This could arguably explain where [[Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?|many Marvel villains get all their fancy toys.]]

* ''[[Nodwick]]'': [http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2006-05-03 Anti-Santa] [[A Wizard Did It|did it]].

{{quote| '''Artax''': Monsters get their ''magic weapons'' from somewhere, and we don't think they're bright enough to ''make'' them...}}

 

== Videogames ==

** His fortresses. Those things are huge, requiring poor ol' Mega four or even ''five'' stages to traverse. And there's a new one every time? How is Wily doing it? Then there's Sigma, who apparently thinks that bigger is better, creating a ''floating island'' in the first game, and topping it every. Single. Time. Mainly by using other people's facilities.

** Perhaps he starts off with a single Sniper Joe, which he uses to steal supplies for more Joes, until he gets enough supplies to build a Robot Master, who steals supplies at a faster rate than the Joes. Exponential growth and whatnot. As for why Mega Man doesn't notice? He's really good at being stealthy. As for the fortresses, by that point, he'll have an entire army of robots to build it lightning fast.

* The ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' series [[Hand Wave|Hand Waves]] this by having Dr. Robotnik seemingly get the funds for his schemes from [[Casino Park|Casino Night Zone]]. [[Fridge Logic|Doesn't do so very well]] because Sonic tends to gain far more rings than he loses whenever he passes through the Zone, making it far more generous than any real-life casino. ''Sonic Battle'' also went into much more detail about this: Eggman has his robots often commit small-time thefts too petty to attract the attention of Sonic, and he also sells stripped down versions of his robots to other corporations and companies to have a steady supply of cash while keeping the real good stuff for himself.

*** It was explained in ''Sonic 3-Sonic and Knuckles'' that he was trying to repair rather than replace the Death Egg. Doesn't explain the numerous extra Death eggs he whips up in the ''[[Sonic Advance]]'' games.

** ''[[Sonic Unleashed]]'', Eggman produces a fleet of ''entirely expendable'' space ships solely for the purpose of luring Super Sonic into attacking his hidden superweapon.

{{quote| '''Knuckles:''' The Egg Carrier was ''nothing'' compared to this!}}

* Justified in ''[[Super Smash Bros]] Brawl'', where {{spoiler|the villains actually ''are'' getting their supplies from subspace. Mr. Game & Watch could have dark matter extracted from him endlessly, helping the villains create an infinite army of mooks}}.

** This is explained, but very briefly and only very late in the game. {{spoiler|He uses time travel to take (or steal) high technology from eras when it's cheap and common and easy to get, and uses it to establish himself as a techno-dictator in eras when it isn't.}}

** Probably partially justified by how long they've been receiving a blank check, all those weapons and armaments were likely accumulated over a couple decades, barring the Thermobaric tanks.

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* Inverted in ''[[Despicable Me]]''. When the main villain Gru wants to make a Super Death Ray, he doesn't have the funds and must get a loan from the Bank of Evil. The Bank denies him the loan until he steals a certain item, putting the events of the movie into motion.

* ''[[Kim Possible]]'' has a running gag where she [[Collapsing Lair|blows up Dr. Drakken's lair]]. It'll be up again by their next meeting. Many a [[Lampshade Hanging]] has been made about this. However, several episodes deal with Drakken's cash-flow troubles, notably "Ron Millionaire", wherein Drakken goes broke just as Ron receives a massive royalty check.

* Cobra never won a major tactical or strategic victory against the Joes in ''[[G.I. Joe]]'', yet they never seemed to lose the ability to field their army for next week's evil plan. Two episodes did center around Cobra having fiduciary problems; one where the Joes capture Cobra's assets for the fiscal year, and the infamous episode "Cobrathon" where extra funds have to be raised via a ''telethon'' for a special weapon. Several episodes hint that much of funding for the animated version of Cobra comes from Extensive Enterprises, a seemingly-legitimate [[Mega Corp]] that the Joes know is just a front, but apparently can't prove it well enough to shut it down.

** Having the clandestine backing of an elder race of [[Snake People]] probably helps, at least according to the questionably can[n]oned 1980s movie.

* The Limburger Building, HQ of the main villain of ''[[Biker Mice From Mars]]'' gets blown up in spectacular fashion in just about every episode, only to be rebuilt in time for the next episode.

* [[Carmen Sandiego]], particularly in the animated series. She has yet to hang on to her pilfered goods long enough to use them (and it's not like she could sell any of them anyway, given [[Monumental Theft|how famous they are]]), so where does she get the money for all the gear required to loot them in the first place?

* No matter how many times Dr. Claw of ''[[Inspector Gadget]]'' loses and conducts [[Villain Exit Stage Left]], he will always have enough funds and resources to conduct his next scheme. Partially justified however as he's implied to be the head of a worldwide criminal empire, and Gadget can only be in so many places at once.

* In ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' both [[Honest John's Dealership|Swindle]] and [[Bounty Hunter|Lockdown]] work almost exclusively for the Decepticons because Megatron pays better. This is despite Megatron being cut off from his army for years (although he's yet to actually ''pay'' that much, so it's possible that he's short on money and they just don't know).

{{quote| '''Palpatine:''' That thing wasn't even fully paid off yet! Do you have ''any'' idea what this is gonna do to my credit? [...] Oh, oh, "''just'' rebuild it"? Oh, real f***ing original! And who's going to give me a loan, jackhole? You? You have an ATM on that torso light-brite?}}