This is me dipping my little toe in this category. I have thought about this ever since I saw this show, and on fanfiction, I will finally address this.
This is an ecovillain fic, but I will not name them as they come. I'm certain you can divine which is which.
Disclaimer: I own none of these characters.
It's not about the money.
Yeah, sounds pretty weird coming from me, huh? I know what people say about me, that I'd sell my soul to make a buck, that I'm some all consuming mass of flesh, devouring all in my path, that I have some personal vendetta against forests and fresh air…I suppose I might now, but that has everything to do with spite. But I really don't care about the money. Only what the money brings.
See, I grew up on a huge pile of family cash, mob money, I think. My dad loved the stuff. Loved it too much, I think, loved it so much that he'd only spend what he needed to survive. Yeah, we were rich, but I think only our banker's knew that.
I won't lie, I was a bit confused when I got older. He worked and worked and worked, my dad did, but he never did anything with it, just hoarded it away in Swiss bank accounts, letting it gather dust. 'Course, that didn't last long. Dear old Dad had a heart attack when I was pretty young, and left it all to me.
So what was a lonely little piglet to do? It took about a year, but I realized that money was actually worth something. It's worth big, fast cars. It's worth personal golf courses that stretch for miles. It's worth delicious, five hundred dollar cigars, personal boats, huge mansions, and so many other things.
And now, there are people who want to make it worthless.
Money is only as good as what you can spend it on, and those kids want to make that nothing. I won't let that happen. I won't allow my sun to grow up rich but without pleasure. He deserves better. He deserves a car that blocks the whole road, and all the resorts and entertainment in the world.
And I'll be damned if he can't have it.
It's not about the money. It never really was.
I'll admit, it was never about science, either. In the beginning, it was mostly about pride. I was going to change the world, friend. Using radiation, I was going to become the greatest man who ever lived. I guess I did, depending on your definition of 'great.'
Ya know, ya shouldn't pity me, I'm nothin' to pity. Sure, I know, they say I do this to survive, that I threaten the whole world every month or so 'cause I can't help it. Not true. Fact is, I could live just fine without a spark or radioactivity. Medically, anyway.
That's why I find Skumm's plans so hilarious. Addiction? None of his victims know the meaning of the word. An addiction doesn't make you stop talking to your family, it makes you not care about the human race.
Radiation is my drug, not my food. I need it…need it in a way no meth addict could dream. So, I have no moral stance, no grand plan…I just want my fix. And damned be anyone who gets in the way.
It's not about the money.
I don't even need the stuff, really. I can survive without a single penny. See, that's what I'm good at. Surviving. And hating. I'm very good at hating.
Once, when I was in prison, I had a talk with someone like me, amazingly like me. A genius, a geneticist, and totally inhuman. He was there to analyze me, wanted to figure what made me go so bad. I guess I bothered him, we were so alike, yet so different. He was wrong. Dr. McCoy never had to live the way I did, but he has a strength I could never possess.
I'm a genius, there's no denying that. I know more about biology than almost anyone. The fact is, I could cure cancer if I put my mind to it, I could level disease after disease, saving the human race peace by peace. I could accomplish far more than those sweet little Planeteers. So why not? Why not save the world?
Because they had their chance.
See, people call me a monster, and their absolutely right. But it's got nothing to do with the tail and teeth. It has everything to do with the mother who threw me to the sewers rather than raise something so hideous. It has to do with the countless times people ran screaming from a starving little boy. It has to do with the endless darkness that made me an animal.
I hate them. I hate every last one of them. The wanted a monster? They got one. And this monster will not rest until they are driven down and destroyed. Even unto the smallest child.
It's not about the money.
Rules bother me and constrain me. If I followed them, I would have to accept that my sister's beauty was worth more than my brain. It's true, to the world. I could invent cold fusion, and it would still make second page to that tramp's newest movie. I just ignored that.
See, people are worthless, superficial animals, when it comes down to it. They don't think, they don't have their own ideas, they're an evolutionary stagnation. So, you can understand my outrage when human testing got me thrown out of collage.
What is madness, really? My compatriots in the scientific community condemn my work, to be sure, but I have no doubt that they also envy me. They sit in their dark little labs performing spineless experiments, while I'm pushing the envelope as far as it will go. Better still, I get results. Give men the Amazon rainforest and a week, and I'll find the elixir of life. I invented time travel. I replicated magic with a machine. I stole the body of a goddess!
We are moving toward a new, wondrous age. An age free of hunger, war, disease. An age that will never come because no one will make the sacrifices necessary. But I will. Won't dear Gaia be shocked when I change the world?
It's not about the money.
You could say I'm Batman. No, I don't have any super powers, but I'm doing the same thing Superman does. That sorta makes me better that Superman, if you think about it. Braver, at least.
Ordinary people don't have superpowers, see? And Superman, he's too busy cleaning up oil spills in Alaska and saving owls in Brazil to worry about them. That's why they got me. That's why they need me.
I care about the little man, so I'm trying to find ways to get rid of his garbage, ways he doesn't need superpowers to do. Sure, I make mistakes, but that doesn't mean I'm doing the wrong thing. Superman would tell you otherwise. He's threatened by me, see, he doesn't want people to be their own heroes. Then' who'll need him and his Eco pals?
If I make a buck along the way, great, but that isn't the point. Real heroes don't worry about money. And that's what I am, a superhero who looks out for the little guy.
Who am I? I'm Garbage Man.
It's not about the money.
I know that sound ridiculous coming from a business tycoon like myself, so please let me elaborate. I believe in hard work, my whole family does. Did you know that my great grandfather arrived here on Ellis Island with nothing? And look now! With perseverance and hard work, look at me now.
Of course, I also believe that a man keeps what he earns. On my mother's side, my grandfather had a plot of land, on which was a beautiful forest. One day, the government said they were going to force him to sell it, to create a national park. When they arrived the next day with the paperwork, the forest had been burnt to the ground.
No, I have no guilt. I am aware that my work has destroyed lives, but the way I see it, they should have worked harder if they didn't want that to happen. I have power because I earned it, step by bloody step. Harrison Ford would say the same. As would Wilson Fisk. As would my grandfather, Mr. Ryan.
The same is true for the environment. If it really deserved respect, it would stop me. It wouldn't need help for a bunch of kids and their pocket demigod. But no. I am the villain. I am evil because I work hard, because I earn my power.
What happened to the American Dream? It came true! You're looking at it! And who are you to say that I am not entitled to the sweat of my brow?
Well, that's all. This….may end up being a prelude to a really long story I will write…or maybe not. Can you guess who they all are? Can ya?!