This week, St-Pierre asks
"What's your favorite evil organization?". On account of my being Lawful Good, I can't go for any real world evil org, like the pharmacological industry or my provincial government, because that would be like implicit approval. And I do not approve.
So fiction it is.
It's fashionable today to say Hydra, but that's a fad. COBRA is the better choice, if also a rather obvious one. But look, what are my criteria here? Well...
1. Doing evil for evil's sake
2. Iconic uniforms and cool named characters
3. Mind-blowingly, stupidly, epic plots against the world
4. Potential for comedy
COBRA could hit the first three easily (while another front-runner, Wolfram & Hart from Angel, would do #1 better, but fail at #2 and the COBRA acronym does stand for Criminal Organization of Bloodiness, Revenge, and Assassination, which might be enough to clinch #4. However, there's one criminal organization that's really good at #4 without compromising criteria 1 through 3. Ladies and gentlemen, I present my very favorite evil org: AIM (Advanced Idea Mechanics)!
Sure, they look silly with those eraser head helmets (see #4), but an organization in which every member down to the last henchman is a mad scientist? Come on! They were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (or HYDRA, depending on your point of view). They currently have their own country with no regulations about things Man wasn't meant to play with. In the Caribbean. Their greatest accomplishments include the Cosmic Cube, the Super-Adaptoid and the whole MODOK, Ms. MODOK, SODAM, MODAM line of super-genius mutations, an advance in acronym technology at the very least (and you have to be especially evil to name one of your creations SODAM in a Code-approved comic). Yellow jumpsuits or not, they're a very real threat.
But they're also hilarious. I don't know what it is about anonymous geniuses in yellow jumpsuits, but their appearances over the last few years have been universally hilarious. For me, the love affair began in all-ages books like Marvel Adventures' Avengers, which had a natural focus on comedy, but that portrayal continued in the mainstream books, most recently in Secret Avengers.
Images from Marvel Smart Ass' A.I.M. High series.
Comments
Having revisited the series now that its on Netflix Instant, I can confirm with gusto #3 is their main order of the day.
Now then I'd also like to give an honorable mention to H.A.T.E. and the Agents of, on the grounds:
#1: They weapon-test odd and cruel weapons on US soil & civilians, just 'cause.
#2: Legion of broccoli-men in cheap suits as well as Dirk Anger, Director of H.A.T.E. and POPE OMERTA.
#3: Everything from unleashing Fing-Fang-Foom, Ptero-Men, Shrödinger's Bullets and Rokrannu of the Dank Dimension.
#4: Dirk Anger's suicide-chair; hell Dirk Anger's anything.
"They were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (or HYDRA, depending on your point of view)."
You buried the lead. AIM is an evil SUBCONTRACTOR for evil! That's three times as evil as HYDRA right off the back.
Aaron: I buried the lead because I wanted you to dig for it.
It was obscure...but epic.
http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20070926052845/marveldatabase/images/d/da/DevilDinosaur3.jpg