Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}{{Needs Image}}
{{quote|'''Redcloak''': So why the Southern Mountains, sir?
'''Xykon''': I keep a back-up fortress here, just in case.|''[[Order of the Stick]] [http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0148.html #148]''}}
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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]].
See also [[No Delays for
{{examples}}
== Anime & Manga ==
* In ''[[
* 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.
* Averted (if only just barely) in ''[[
* 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.
* [[Pokémon (
** 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.
** {{spoiler|Madara}} seems to have access to all of the abandoned assets of {{spoiler|the Uchiha clan}}, to the point that he can afford an entire building just to store ''[[Collector of the Strange|eyes]]''.
* [[Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water]] averts this with Gargoyle's mooks reporting how his dark matter (I.E. commerce in wool and banking) is proceeding, and how it is paying for things like his submarine and the Tower of Babel.
==
* Most ''[[
** 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".
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** 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.]]
* [[The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck|Scrooge McDuck's]] longtime foes The Beagle Boys, though [[Depending
* ''[[Nodwick]]'': [http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2006-05-03 Anti-Santa]{{Dead link}} [[A Wizard Did It|did it]].
{{quote|
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in one arc of ''[[Fantastic Four]].'' Sick of Doctor Doom pulling this trick over and over, Reed Richards travels to Latveria to destroy the villain's stockpiles and powerbase. [[Hilarity Ensues]].
== Film ==
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== Tabletop Games ==
* The Chaos Marines of ''[[Warhammer
** Traitor Marines also often raid Imperial supplies and use Loyalist geneseed from dead Marines to make more Chaos Marines. They also don't use the technology that would require extremely high amounts of maintenance like anti-gravity vehicles and assault cannons. Being able to bind Daemons into their machines helps to keep them working, too.
** It's worth noting that the majority of Chaos Marines operate from the [[Negative Space Wedgie|Eye of Terror]], where the laws of physics are a funny joke you tell your friends. In other words, they have ''literal''
** In the Warp they can probably conjure up anything they desire, so long as it has a daemonic motif to it, and is probably cursed in some way.
** Eldar are a perplexing example. They are apparently on the brink of extinction with only a dozen or so active Craftworlds and miniscule armed forces for a war that spans the galaxy, but neither the gameplay nor the story reflect this, repeatedly throwing away hundreds, thousands of soldiers on futile endeavors and generally having little better regard for their soldiers than the Imperium.
*** Should note Eldar have small numbers compare to the other races, Craftworlds are planet size that houses billions. Which is small when you compare it to the trillions of humans.
== Videogames ==
* See Also: [[Not Playing Fair
* Despite being clearly both evil and insane and even jailed multiple times, Doctor Wily of ''[[Mega Man (
** 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.
** While the ''speed'' of setting up his fortress and robot army is never explained, ''[[
** 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
** In addition to selling Guard Robos for extra cash in ''[[Sonic Battle]]'', he also owns two companies, Robotnik Corp - which sells air boards - and Meteotech, a company that develops security robots.
** Beyond just "monetary" issues is the fact that Robotnik's machines must require an utterly massive amount of natural resources and time to construct (not even factoring in R&D time), yet he always has some new, extensive machine on the ready when his last one fails. It doesn't help that beyond all the robots he has built, he has seemingly no other sentient biological creature with any significant role in his operations.
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*** 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.
** Ditto for the [[Sonic Heroes
{{quote|
* 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}}.
* In [[
** 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.}}
* In ''[[Prototype (
** 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.
* ''[[Professor Layton and
* Most versions of [[Carmen Sandiego]]. While she can steal almost anything, she is never known to fence or ransom her plunder; it is often suggested she cares more for the thrill of it. Having said that, it's unknown how she funds her organization.
** This is especially a puzzler in the [[Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?|first animated series]] where the writers tried very hard to justify how she could manage her [[Impossible Thief]] using advanced technology. Still, it's doubtful that stuff was cheap.
** The [[Netflix]] animated series - where Carmen is an [[Anti-Hero]] protagonist - averts this, stating that yes, Carmen does fence what she steals, keeping enough to fund her gang while giving the rest to charity.
== Western Animation ==
* The [[Mega Man (
* 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.
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** Dr. Drakken also ends up in the "Time Share Lair" from time to time when his current lair has been destroyed. Dementor apparently owns a share there, too, as Dr. Drakken keeps getting Dementor's mail when he's there...
* 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.
* ''[[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987
* 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?
** Carmen Sandiego, like most phantom thieves, is probably independently wealthy. Phantom thievery tends to be an occupation taken up by the rich out of boredom or the need for a challenge. See also [[Arsène Lupin]].
{{quote|
*** Or, maybe, she changes her outfit, wears a mask, and routinely successfully steals ''ordinary'' valuable items, for which she takes no credit.
* 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).
* Subverted and Lampshaded in the hilarious ''[[
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{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Money Tropes]]
[[Category:Applied Phlebotinum]]
[[Category:
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