Advisory Council for the Legion of Doom
Introducing: Conflict Resolution Advisory Council for the Legion of Doom
We will form a unique system called the Conflict Resolution Advisory Council. Lex Luthor, our leader, will appoint three people to the Council.
To eliminate prejudice, we elect one Supervillain, one Femme Fatale, and one Super Ape with eerie mind powers. Each person should undergo at least one 45 minute villainy and political training session which we can help organize.
Whenever there is an internal conflict in the Legion of Doom, it will be put to the Council. Each supervillain will have an opportunity to present his side of the story to the Council to review. The Council members will decide on a fair resolution and provide it as advice.
Initially the Council will be advisory only. In the future the system could evolve to become more mature with binding resolutions, impositions, retribution, enforcement, torture, mind-alteration, and imprisonment.
The appointed supervillains will hear out and settle any internal disputes. We’re not suggesting that this Council members become police or judges, only referees in case of quarrels over divisions of loot, or by what slow deathtrap to kill the helpless superheroes. All death-traps, whether clown-themed, bird-themed, riddle-themed, ice-based, or radioactive will be given equal chance in rotation.
Edit 1: After receiving feedback about inclusiveness we shall include in the council one member of an evil Lost Race, one sexy catburglar in a skintight catsuit, one extraterrestrial from an evil planet bent on earth conquest, one non-binary robot programmed for evil, and one sexy gun moll dressed in a clown suit.
Edit 2: On more feedback we will add to the Council 1 Non-surface dweller, 1 evil spirit-being or pagan god, and 1 evil time traveler from a hellish post-apocalypse future, and then 4 additional mutants to balance it out. In total there are 3 + 4 + 4 = 11 members.
Edit 3: We’ve received some feedback about including mutants (physical or mental) and post-humans on the Council. 20% or 40% of the Council should be persons with lived experience of mutant powers. These can be physical alterations or mutant mind-powers.
At least 10% should be experiencing involuntary elevation to the next step of human evolution, either an evil super-robot, an energy being from the far future, or a homo superior, or an evil man-beast created by the High Evolutionary.
Edit 4: We realize supernatural evil communities are being under-represented in the Council so far and are working on proposals to rectify this. The final composition of the balanced Council will likely include 10-50% people who identify as warlocks, sorceresses, ghosts, she-devils, mummies, or sons of Satan.
Edit 4 & 1/2: Red Sonja, she-devil with a sword, does not count. She is actually a human from the Hyborian Age.
Edit 5: We have agreed to add 3 more seats, two of which are to give a voice to the disadvantaged unnatural community, one to warlocks or witches, one to represent those horribly mangled in accidents or burned by acid, but still living in opera houses, and one to give creepy children with psychic powers or possessed by the devil. This will give the unnaturals equal representation and fairness.
The new seats include one for a practitioner of Black Magic whose limbs or eyes have been replaced with demon-parts, one for a horror movie creature, and one for a freakish psychic or demon-possessed child between the ages of 8 and 15.
Edit 6: There have been further concerns raised over the efficacy of the Council to deal with disputes between demon-possessed children, as demons are currently not adequately represented.
In light of the feedback, we will add demon safety training programs to the onboarding session and add one additional seat for a demon-possessed child between the ages of 8 and 15 (preferably insane), or a creepy being who is actually an immortal entity, but merely looks like a child, except that he never blinks his eyes.
Edit 7: We’ve heard your concerns about the non-surface-dweller seat representing all non-surface subgroups as if they are a monolithic identity. That wasn’t our intention.
We will replace the non-surface-dweller seat with 12 mini-seats for each of the following non-surface-dweller identities: Morlocks, Troglodytes, Lizard Men, Lava Men, Deviants, Atlanteans, Lemurians, Merpeople, Spawn of Sliggith, Trolls, Underdwellers, and wildcard (any Non-surface-dwelling identity, except Deep Ones). The mini-seats will collectively hold the voting power of one seat.
The one seat will vote as a monolith identity representing them all.
Edit 7 1/2: Both Mister Mxyzptlk and General Zod of Krypton have represented to us that that they are not surface-dwellers, since they do not dwell on the surface of the earth. That is not our intent. We intend the 12 sub-seats to represent the cave, mantle, core, sewer, sunken continent, and undersea dwelling community. Extraterrestrial and exodimensional beings have their own seat.
Underdwellers from the Planet of the Apes, it is true, are from the post-apocalyptic future, and are mutants, and are psychics, and have horribly radiation-burned faces, so they automatically qualify for the time traveler seat, mutant seat, horror seat, and psychic seat, but they do also dwell in ruins buried below the surface of the earth, so they also are candidates for this seat to represent the non-surface dwelling community.
Edit 8: We’ve been told that our Council under-represents those with a lived experience fighting the Batman or the Shadow as opposed to those fighting Wonder Woman or Doc Savage.
Wonder Woman and Doc Savage do not kill their foes, but perform brain-surgery or similar superscience alteration on Transformation Island, and transform them into good guys; whereas superhero culture from Gotham or New York allows supervillains to suffer a particular disadvantage because of getting bashed by batarangs and sent to Ryker’s Island, or just shot dead by blazing .45 automatics while a chilling, supernatural laughter haunts the cold air!
The Council will mandate that more than 25% of its members must have a violent criminal history with previous or current incarceration experience.
Edit 9: Some beautiful but evil space princesses, sultry sorceresses, or sexy cat-burglers in skimpy costumes have expressed to us that they wouldn’t feel comfortable presenting a case involving a sexual offence to a Council that is partly made up of space-tyrants, or top-hat wearing criminals with a history of tying women to railroad tracks or sawmill logs after she nobly refuses his menacing yet untoward matrimonial proposals, or using love potions or hypnotic mind-rays on potential kidnapped brides.
We are placing a cap of 50% on the proportion of Council members who have performed one or more premeditated damsel-in-distress style marriage-abductions in the preceding twelve months. Evil time travelers, for obvious reasons, are exempt from this cap.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
