Evil Inc.

You can do more evil if you do it legally.

Evil Inc. is a superhero Web Comic created by Brad Guigar. Somewhat of a continuation of Guigar's previous strip, Greystone Inn, it revolves around the titular company which is run, staffed and provides entirely legitimate services for supervillains. Its CEO is Evil Atom, a once powerful and feared supervillain who is now somewhat past his prime.

The main character of the strip was initially Lightning Lady, the Ensemble Darkhorse of Greystone Inn who at the beginning of the strip takes a job at Evil Inc. as a secretary- Later on, the strip gradually changed focus towards Captain Heroic, the number one hero in the unnamed city the strip is set in, and Miss Match, another Evil Inc. employee (though Lightning Lady still appears regularly in Saturday comics). A while into the strip (a point which Guigar has once called the "official" launch of Evil Inc.) it's revealed that the two are married and have a son, Oscar. Their opposite moral alignments has caused some conflict but they appear to be Happily Married.

Though the strip is mostly gag-a-day, there have been several story arcs as well

Tropes used in Evil Inc. include:

• 555: Samantha's phone number
• All There in the Manual: Inverted. "Bio cards" with information about cast members, including background and powers, occasionally run as a day's strip.
• Art Evolution: In later strips some characters' faces become more realistic, starting with the women but then expanding to most characters.
• Artifact of Doom: The Ruby of Ragnoor.
• Art Shift: The adults in the flashback to Captain Heroic's School Days are drawn in a highly realistic style. Cap...not so much.
• Anti-Hero: The alternate Captain Heroic claims he's this.

Miss Match: So you're a villain?
Alt Cap: I prefer "anti-hero".
Miss Match: And I prefer "extra-legal capital liberator", but the cops just laugh.

• Back from the Dead: Memo.
• Bad Guy Bar: Beelze Pub.
• Bad Santa: Evil Atom decides to recruit Santa Claus, reasoning that he shows all the signs of being a classic villain. Santa surprisingly accepts - and promptly gets carted off by the Feds.

Lightning Lady: And if he says no?
Evil Atom: Then he is a deer-and-present danger.

• Bait and Switch Comment: Department of Magic and Occult Studies.
• Basement Dweller: Grand Gamer
  • Captain Heroic rejects using Grand Gamer's wish to give Oscar superpowers for fear he'll become this.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Miss Match makes a wish, using an Artifact of Doom, to give her fellow villains Laser-Guided Amnesia after they find out about her marriage. Too bad Cap was masquerading as Dark Hood at the time...
• Before I Change My Mind

Captain Heroic: Muskiday?
Dr. Muskiday: Yes?
Captain Heroic: Start running before I find a magnifying glass.

• Biological Mashup: Dr. Muskiday is essentially a humanoid fly, his condition the result of a teleporter accident. He inverts the usual order of things though, in that the original Dr. Muskiday was the fly. The human was a janitor who mistook Muskiday's teleporter experiment for a trash can.
• Bland-Name Product: "U-Tug"
• Bothering by the Book: Evil Atom's whole idea of mostly-legal villainy. "Holy moley, you're right. You can do more evil if you stay on the right side of the law."
  • Catspaw really thought old style loan sharking still impresses someone? "I used to miss it. But I got over it." (cue Evil Inc credit card)
• Brain Bleach: Both Captain Heroic and Miss Match get chills from the Unfortunate Implications of the thought of Commander Heroic "appealing" to Flame. Little do they know...
• Brain In a Jar: Dr. Haynus is one of these - given mobility through being mounted atop the head of the family dog. Exploited and punned in every way.

Dr. Muskiday: Oh, absolutely... No one can deny you think outside the box...

• Brought Down to Normal: Captain Heroic. He recovers.
• Bullying a Dragon: Red tape!
• Canon Welding: Pretty much every character from Greystone Inn (with one exception, see Expy) has showed up in the strip at one point or another.
• Cat Fight: When two groups of heroes come to blows over whether or not to destroy Evil, Inc, both sides are brought to a grinning standstill by Blonde Bombshell and Amazing Amazon squaring off in mid-flight.
• Chameleon Camouflage: Mr. Nukkel.
• Chekhov's Gun: Project X. Later returns to become a Chekhov's Boomerang.
• Chest Burster: "Gotta stop eating at the cafeteria..."
• Clothing Damage: Miss Match decides to sober up Desdemona by setting her on fire, as she's a demon and won't burn, but the alcohol will. It works, but they forgot her uniform wasn't fireproof...
• Code Name: But of course.
• Comes Great Responsibility: Said word-for-word by Captain Heroic as he and Miss Match debate how to use Grand Gamer's wish.

Miss Match: If you have the power of a god, you're not responsible to anybody.
Captain Heroic: No, I'm responsible to everybody.

• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Actually, since everyone in the corporation is a villain (for the most part), it's more of a corrupt corporation.
• Cosmic Being: Grand Gamer (and his parents).
• Cut and Paste Comic: The Saturday strips use a small set of different sets of art with changed dialogue. At first they were Lighting Lady acting as Sexy Tech Support; later they became a series of Incredibly Lame Puns on department names, while still later the scene shifted to the cafeteria's menu. Best so far? "Ghoulash".
• Cute Monster Girl: Subverted. Desdemona is a demon, but in appearance is 100% human.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: The entire point of the company.
  • Though it should be said, they mostly sell inventions to supervillains, and most of their corporate strategies involve somehow getting stockholders behind super-villainy. They aren't so much selling their fancy techonlogies to the regular consumers.
• Dating Catwoman: Captain Heroic and Miss Match aren't just dating, they're married.
  • Later, Lightning Lady and Elastic Man have a fling, but worry what others will think...

Lightning Lady: Besides, who ever heard of a super-villain getting into a relationship with a hero?
Elastic Man: Yeah...it could never work.

• Deadpan Snarker: Everybody.
• Did You Just Polymorph Cthulhu?: During his match against Captain Heroic during Grand Gamer's tournament, Evil Atom wears down Cap by using his mastery over atoms (= matter) to change Grand Gamer, a Cosmic Being, into a duplicate of himself!.
• Disembodied Eyebrows: Evil Atom gets these when Captain Heroic interrupts his fight with Miss Match.

Cap: As soon as your eyebrows land back on your head, I'll explain...

• Do Wrong Right: Being stopped mid-mugging by Cap at least won't be as embarrassing as by Evil Atom.
• Evil, Inc.: A-durr.
• Evil Pays Better: The reason Captain Heroic rejects the idea of using Grand Gamer's wish to turn Miss Match into a hero.
• Expy: Word of God confessed that Memo (a sentient memo that communicates via writing) is an Expy of Greystone Inn's Narrator.
• Face Heel Turn: Phenomenal Lass. And, later, Elastic Man. Among others:

Evil Atom: You're not the first hero to ask for this, you know. We've had a revolving door installed for Mystique alone.

• Faceless Eye: Oculore
• Fake Boobs: While Desdemona is all natural, it's implied Lightning Lady is not.
• Fan Boy: Don Luke Piccardo. Guess what he's obsessed with.

Don Luke: (discussing his choice of toy train) Number One? N-gauge.

• Five-Bad Band:
  • Big Bad: Evil Atom
  • The Dragon: Dr. Haynus
  • The Evil Genius: Dr. Muskiday
  • The Brute: Iron Dragon
  • Dark Chick: Lightning Lady (and Miss Match, before she gets fired.)
• Flashback Effects: Flashbacks are shown in a slightly faded, Newspaper Comic style.
• Flying Brick: Commander Heroic, Captain Heroic
• Foe Yay: Nemesis Matching is not too different from mundane match-making, which was occasionally pointed out.
• Four-Girl Ensemble: Psy-Chick, Lightning Lady, Desdemona and Miss Match team up to steal a superweapon. Turns out it's Project X...
• Giant Enemy Crab: Rock Lobster
• Go Through Me: The alternate Miss Match tells Muskiday he'll have to do this if he wants to shoot Captain Heroic with Project X. He shoots anyway. And the alternate Captain Heroic takes the shot.
• Groin Kick: Miss Match delivers one to the alternate Captain Heroic.
• Handsome Lech: Iron Dragon.

Lightning Lady: You chase everything in a skirt!
Iron Dragon: I never wore a skirt a day in my life...except that once. And that was with someone I loved...and her girlfriend.

• Hero Insurance: One of the services Evil Inc. provides is "Battlefield Location and Booking" which seeks out abandoned locations for villains and heroes to battle to avoid lawsuits from any property damage and casualties.
• Heterosexual Life Partners: Captain Heroic and Wingman; Haynus and Muskiday.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Catspaw, big time.

Do you know what the "A" stands for?
Aaaaaaw, @#$@*!

• Hollywood CB: Muskiday hams it up with CB lingo when he steals Project X from storage in a truck. The real truckers on the frequency are not impressed.

Trucker: Did he really just say "lot lizard"?

• Horny Devil: Desdemona.
• Hot Mom: Miss Match. (Literally.)
• Impossibly Low Neckline: Lightning Lady and Desdemona most prominently.
  • LL's alternate-universe self "utilises a special Nth-metal underwire".
• Improv Fu: Muskiday and Haynus ad-lib the latter having a "force field" to explain their "capturing" the alternate Miss Match to Up'n Atom. Only a very short time later, Haynus shows off a working force-field generator...

Haynus: While you were picking up Project X, I got creative...
Muskiday: You sly dog.

• Incredibly Lame Pun / Just for Pun: The entire strip runs on these tropes.

"Human Flame...fired. Micro-Lad...down-sized. Executioner...axed. Undertaker...deep-sixed..."

• Instant Awesome, Just Add Dragons: Guess how Iron Dragon got his villain name.
• Instant Costume Change: Subverted. The alternate Miss Match ducks into an alleyway to change into her super-costume...and has to change like a perfectly normal person (giving a nice Sideboob shot), which starts drawing a crowd (including the villain she's trying to thwart). She winds up finishing her costume change on a rooftop.

Alternate Miss Match: I bet Spider Woman never had this problem...

• Ironic Echo: Making decisions based on what you want.
  • And with someone jamming the copier.
  • When Evil, Inc. is in Washington DC seeking a bailout.

Barack Obama: You can't set all of those villains loose on America!
Evil Atom: Yes. We. Can.

• • "Hey! Y'know what? Your head kinda looks like a helium atom!"
• Kirby Dots: Apparently used as a measure of power in-universe. Rock Lobster has a reading of 50 kds (Kirby Dots/second).
  • Also, they apparently leak through ceilings.
• Klingon Promotion: Dr. Haynus takes this route to become Commander Heroic's arch-nemesis.
• If You Know What I Mean:

Evil Atom: Try not to look like a credit-card lobbyist.
Desdemona: Believe me, there's nothing plastic about me

• Large Ham: There are courses on doing this properly.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Ruby of Ragnoor storyline is all about this - and, specifically, its effect on Cap after Miss Match inadvertently wishes away his memory of their marriage.
• Lava Adds Awesome: the fight between Captain Heroic and Wingman. Cap has no problem with having bathed in lava to retrieve his Commander USA secret decoder ring, which he then uses to knock Wingman out.
• Luke, I Might Be Your Father: Commander Heroic has a heart attack in mid-flight ("helped" by the fact Mr. Threat has been siphoning off his powers) when he sees Flame babysitting Oscar, and realises Miss Match might be his daughter. Thankfully, she isn't, and he gets better.
• The Mafia: Evil, Inc is hired by the Mafia to steal one family's "superweapon" for another. It turns out it's Project X.
• The Masquerade Will Kill Your Dating Life: Lightning Lady and Elastic Man (type 3A).
• Mirror Universe: Muskiday and Haynus visit one. The heroes are villains and the villains are heroes... Or are they?
• The Mole: Dr. Whoosh.
• Most Common Superpower: Naturally. Even mentioned as such.
• Mr. Exposition: There's a training program to control compulsive exposition.
• Must Have Caffeine: Captain Heroic's coffee addiction comes in unexpectedly handy in a fight with Lightning Lady.
• My Dad Can Thwart Your Dad
• My God, What Have I Done?: Flame's reaction to Commander Heroic's heart attack.
• Obnoxious In-Laws: Visiting Mrs. Melba makes Evil Atom feel like he's still in the office.
• Offered the Crown: Following being shrunk and becoming lost, Muskiday becomes the King of the Flies.
• Only Sane Man: Keagan.
• Persona Non Grata: Dr. Muskiday's back massager resulted in Evil, Inc. being forbidden from conducting business in the state of Utah.
• Pity the Kidnapper: Phenomenal Lass decides kidnapping a security guard would be a good act of villainy. She didn't count on the fact that nine other guards would tag along wanting her to kidnap them too.
• Playing with Fire: Miss Match, Flame.
• Poke the Poodle: A recyclable container! The fiend!
• Powered Armor: Commander Heroic has a set made for Oscar, complete with Rocket Boots, so he can keep up with the other superkids.
  • Oscar gets an upgrade later, along with a set for the Brought Down to Normal Captain Heroic, when they have to fight Oculore.
• Power Nullifier: Project X, aka the Null Gun. And Oculore's power removal bomb derived from it.
  • Dr. Muskiday built a set of power-draining cuffs for use on Lighting Lady. They come in handy during a heist, but were built with recreational applications in mind.

Muskiday: Lightning Lady! I didn't expect you to interfere with my plans! Actually... I did.

• Power Perversion Potential: The reason production of the Super-Power Drainer was discontinued.

Lightning Lady: You'd be surprised how many disgusting uses there are for "Plastic Man".

• Psychic Powers: Psy-Chick.
• Puppy Dog Eyes: Part of Miss Match's strategy for defeating Elastic Man (along with some whispering...)
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Miss Match. (More orange-ish, really, but it fits with the "flame".) Originally seen only in close-ups when angry but later (with Art Evolution) consistently.
• Ring of Power: Dr. Muskiday invents a power ring that, instead of being powered by a user's emotion, changes to fit the user's emotions...a Power Mood Ring.

Muskiday: In righteous day or boogie night, no jive or funk escapes my sight...

• • Actual Rings of Power gave Commander Heroic and Ms. Amazing their powers. They double as their wedding rings.
• Saving Christmas: Spoofed several ways. Lightning Lady has to do this after Santa gets arrested, and after she says she's saving Christmas, she has to take a number in a line of all the other fictional characters who have done so.
  • Then the elves produce a Sexy Santa Dress variation of her Leotard of Power for her to do it in.
• Secret Relationship: Captain Heroic and Miss Match. Evil Atom is NOT happy when he finds out.
• Sexy Secretary: Lightning Lady; later, Desdemona. LL continues as Sexy Tech Support in the Saturday strips.
• Shame If Something Happened: Miss Match doesn't even need to get this far into the phrase.
  • Evil Atom tries to use this against Captain Heroic after he learns about Cap's wife and son.

Evil Atom: If he's not invulnerable, neither are you...

• Shape Shifter: Elastic Man.
• Shapeshifter Default Form: Elastic man has two, his standard form and his true form
• Shark Pool: Evil Atom's here, Oscar's here, plus some alligators for belligerent visitors in Evil, Inc.
• Shock and Awe: Lightning Lady.
• Shout-Out: The comic is full of them, with "mainstream" comic heroes being off-handedly referenced or appearing as background silhouettes.
• The Starscream: Dr. Haynus.
• Stripperiffic: The alternate Miss Match wears a somewhat...skimpier outfit than the prime unvierse's.

Alternate Miss Match: ...seems like overkill to use an entire hanger...

• • Also Lampshaded by Lightning Lady:

Captain Heroic: Is there any place I can touch you that won't be inappropriate?
Lightning Lady: If there is, I need to find a new tailor!

• • • Ironically, LL's initial reaction to Desdemona was negative on account of her outfit. A bemused Keagan pointed out the obvious.
• Superpowerful Genetics: Captain Heroic and Miss Match are both Type 1s. Oscar appears to be a type 5 (so far).
  • Cap is, apparently, actually a Type 3, given that Commander Heroic and Ms. Amazing got their powers from an ancient Egyptian artifact.
  • The kid at least has tell-tale interests, like that obsession with sharks.
• Taking You with Me: When they team up to bury a villain Dr. Haynus poisoned, Haynus threatens Muskiday with this if he gets caught. Muskiday isn't very impressed.

Muskiday: I'll add it to my long list of accomplice-ments.

• Talking with Signs: There exists a sentient piece of paper who can only communicate this way. He used to be a narration box in the strip.
• Thinking Up Portals: Desdemona can generate portals to travel through.
• This Is Sparta - Dr. Muskiday doesn't like it when Dr. Haynus reminds him of how he recycles sci-fi props to contain his inventions.

Muskiday: It. Was. A. Back. Massager!

• Those Two Guys: Muskiday and Haynus.
• To Hell and Back: Iron Dragon does this to save Desdemona from an Arranged Marriage. Her father runs the place, after all.
• Too Many Cooks Spoil the Soup: Too many crooks foil the plot.
• Twin Threesome Fantasy: Captain Heroic's initial reaction when he learns the true identity of the alternate Miss Match.
• Umbrella Drink: Desdemona is quite fond of daiquris.

Miss Match: We've got to be the only people on Earth trying to cast spirits out of a demon.

• Vehicular Sabotage: Evil Atom's car is (presumably) disabled by Lightning Lady when she thinks he's replacing her. When she learns she's being promoted, she advises him to take a cab.
• Villain Protagonist: Surprisingly averted, considering the comic's setting. The comic doesn't seem to have a focus on any one protagonist, instead focusing on the politics in and surrounding the corporation.
• Villainesses Want Heroes: Miss Match and Captain Heroic, Lightning Lady and Elastic Man...
• Villainous BSOD: Evil Atom's reaction to Captain Heroic's Badass Bluff that his his wish to Grand Gamer was "anything that happens to my family will happen to yours".
  • This becomes Paranoia Fuel for Atom later, when his wife's modeling a new slip for him starts him wondering just how far "anything that happens" goes.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: After biting into a doughnut containing a shrunken, spying Muskiday, Desdemona rushes off-panel with a very green face.
• Wreathed in Flames: Miss Match, especially her alternate.
• Wretched Hive "You took the city hostage two weeks ago and nobody noticed?"
• Writing Around Trademarks: Grand Gamer's teleport sound.

Captain Heroic: 'Bomf'?
Grand Gamer: I'm pretty sure 'Bamf' was copyrighted.

• You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Phenomenal Lass
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: In test form even
• You Need a Breath Mint: According to Captain Heroic, Evil Atom needs one.
• You're Not My Type: Oculore crushes - hard - on Blonde Bombshell. Much to her disgust.