History Comicbook / WANTED

** Sucker is explained to be a parasitic alien lifeform that lives through attaching itself to various unwitting hosts, thus making him an {{Expy}} of {{ComicBook/Venom}}.

** Turns out that this universe once had a Franchise/{{Batman}} {{expy}}, who Mr. Rictus described as essentially being the "scariest man in the world" (and considering what Mr. Rictus is like, that says ''a lot''). After the villains effectively retconned the existence of superheroes, that same guy is now an expy of Creator/AdamWest, and is an actor who portrays a superhero in [[Series/Batman1966 a campy TV show]].

** Franchise/{{Superman}}'s counterpart is not named, but he is explicitly ''shown'' as a paraplegic, like Creator/ChristopherReeve, the actor who played Superman in the Richard Donner films.
** Franchise/{{Batman}} is alluded to several times -- as the Detective -- before his post-1986 persona [[spoiler:who was basically Adam West, along with Dick Grayson who had turned into Burt Ward, are placed in a death trap by Mr. Rictus and fed to a cyborg octopus.]] It's a bit tragic when [[spoiler:Mr. Rictus points out that the fat, pleading slob with the hood over his head was once the scariest man in the world.]]

** Johnny Two-Dicks is Comicbook/TwoFace combined with [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGallery Scarface]].

** Sucker is based on [[Characters/SupermanRoguesGallery Parasite]] in that he can drain energy from people and copy the powers of superhuman victims, with a bit of {{ComicBook/Venom}}'s nature as a parasitic alien life form that thrives by bonding to host bodies for good measure.
** The Frightener is a representation of [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGallery Scarecrow]]. He also looks vaguely like a green version of {{ComicBook/Carnage}}.

* CaughtInTheRipple: At some point every supervillain banded together to rewrite reality so that not only did the world forget superheroes were real, the superheroes forgot as well (the supervillains, for their part, operate in secrecy). One villain killed his nemeses (Franchise/{{Batman}} and ComicBook/{{Robin}} expies) by dunking them in a vat of acid, they kept screaming that they ''weren't'' superheroes, they'd just played them on TV.

** Earth's first superhero is implied to be Franchise/{{Superman}}.

* TalkingPoo: Shithead, a [[Franchise/{{Batman}} Clayface]] {{Expy}} creature made of the feces of the [[NumberOfTheBeast 666]] most evil people in the world, including UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler and Jeffrey Dahmer.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: Considering that Seltzer engineered the Superhuman genocide, condemned his arch foe to a miserable existence as a cripple and that it's very heavily implied he's a pedophile, one could easily interpret Shithead and Rictus's murder of Seltzer as a ruthless killing of someone who had it coming anyway.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: In spades. Wesley Gibson: Mass murderer and remorseless rapist? Oh yeah, absolutely. But at least he has a tiny sense of decency when he displays his appreciation of family. Mr. Rictus, on the other hand, commits such heinous atrocities that disgust even Wesley and most of the other villains. Fox mentions this as the reason she moved from Rictus's gang to Seltzer's. Sure, she kills people, but Rictus was shooting babies in cribs for the hell of it. In fact, Mr. Rictus's evil is pretty much the only reason you would cheer for Wesley when he [[spoiler:goes on his killing spree against Rictus]]: the latter is only slightly better than the former when it comes to morality. Just barely.

After more than twenty years since the series debuted, the Fraternity made its [[TheBusCameBack grand return]] in Millar's ''ComicBook/{{Nemesis}}: Reloaded'', where they promise to wage war against the newly emerging superheroes of the ''Millarworld'' SharedUniverse in the CrisisCrossover ''Big Game''.

* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Professor Seltzer doesn't look that threatening, does he? Now look at him again, while remembering that he ''personally killed this universe's Superman''. Worse: During the rewrite of reality, he made him into a quadriplegic -- that is to say, Creator/ChristopherReeve, the actor who played the titular character of the first ''Film/{{Superman|FilmSeroes}}'' movies.

* NotSoHarmlessVillain: Professor Seltzer doesn't look that threatening, does he? Now look at him again, while remembering that he ''personally killed this universe's Superman''. Worse: During the rewrite of reality, he made him into a quadriplegic -- that is to say, Creator/ChristopherReeve, the actor who played the titular character of the first ''Film/{{Superman}}'' movies.

* PlotArmor: Either that, or the Killer and the Fox are the only ones capable of actually hitting the target they are shooting at. The Sucker and Shitface, however, are two egregius examples: the former wastes no time talking when he has to use his powers against [[spoiler:the Imp]], but when it's Wesley and the Fox's turn, he [[spoiler:instead takes just enough time gloating to have him reach his limit]]; the latter doesn't take any action against the two and even [[spoiler:lets itself be held at gunpoint (despite bragging about being bulletproof ''after'' the Fox shot it, but Wesley had the bleach ready by then)]], as before, he had a more pragmatic attitude when he killed [[spoiler: the Professor]].

** Franchise/{{Batman}} is alluded to several times -- as the Detective -- before his post-1986 persona [[spoiler:who was basically Adam West, along with Dick Grayson who had turned into Burt Ward, are placed in a death trap by Mr. Rictus and fed to an octopus.]] It's a bit tragic when [[spoiler:Mr. Rictus points out that the fat, pleading slob with the hood over his head was once the scariest man in the world.]]
** The Emperor is Literature/FuManchu, or possibly [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/IronManCentralRoguesGallery The Mandarin]]. Given the DC origins of the pitch, he's also Ra's Al Ghul.

** The Emperor is Literature/FuManchu. Given the DC origins of the pitch, he's also Ra's Al Ghul.

** Shithead is very similar to [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGallery Clayface]] in that he's a shape-shifter who resembles a brown being made of mud in his default form.

* BasedOnAGreatBigLie: As a child, Creator/MarkMillar assumed that superhero comics were based on true stories. When wondering what happened to the heroes, his brother told him that they were all wiped out in a war with every supervillain. This lie inspired Millar to write ''Wanted'' and ''ComicBook/OldManLogan''.

Meet Wesley Gibson. Wesley's father abandoned him when he was eighteen weeks old, and things have gone steadily downhill since. He works for a disgusting boss at a job he hates before going home to a girlfriend who's sleeping with his best friend. But suddenly, Wesley is tapped to join The Fraternity, a shadowy cabal of comic book-style villains who claim they're behind all organized crime on Earth, and that further, Wesley's father was one of them.

You see, this ''still'' wasn't enough (''super''villains, remember). So they took the heroes who had survived and gave them meaningless lives, then left most of the heroes exploits around... in comic books.

* LawyerFriendlyCameo: The superheroes are unnamed and implied to actually be the ones from ''Franchise/TheDCU''.

* BadassArmy: Composed of supervillains. Who use AKs for some reason.

* BadassDecay: [[invoked]]Turns out that this universe once had a Franchise/{{Batman}} {{expy}}, who Mr. Rictus described as essentially being the "scariest man in the world" (and considering what Mr. Rictus is like, that says ''a lot''). After the villains effectively retconned the existence of superheroes, that same guy is now an expy of Creator/AdamWest, and is an actor who portrays a superhero in [[Series/Batman1966 a campy TV show]].

* BlackAndGreyMorality: One of the defining traits of the series.
** You can argue that its Black and Black Morality. The differences are negligible at best. The only differences in morality seems to literally be shooting babies in their cribs and ''maybe'' cannibalism.

* NearDeathExperience: Mr. Rictus was originally an extremely religious man who did only good, but after [[CessationOfExistence briefly dying on the operating table and seeing no afterlife]], he became one of the world's worst supervillains after deciding there were no consequences for being bad.
** Keep in mind Mark Millar's other comic ''Chosen'' is implied to be set in the same universe and it's about the second coming of Jesus.

* CessationOfExistence: Mr Rictus was originally an extremely religious man who did only good but after briefly dying on the operating table and realizing there was no afterlife, he became one of the world's worst supervilains after realizing there was no consequences for being bad.
** Weirdly Mark Millar's other comic ''Chosen'' is implied to be set in the same universe and it's about the second coming of Jesus.

* HeavenSeeker: The backstory for the supervillain Mr. Rictus is that he dedicated his life to religion in the hopes of being rewarded with Heaven. However, after an accident that caused him to be clinically dead for a minute, he realized that there was no afterlife. Then he became a StrawNihilist who indulges every sadistic whim he has.

* HollywoodAtheist: Mr. Rictus, who turned evil because he found out there was no afterlife, and decided to just do whatever the hell he wanted for the rest of his life. It turns out he wants to do some evil, evil shit.
* ImAHumanitarian: Mr. Rictus is seen eating someone. The looks on Adam-One and The Emperor's faces suggest it may have been [[spoiler:Seltzer]]. Considering [[NauseaFuel who killed him, and how]], one hopes that corpse was ''thoroughly'' cleaned. It probably wasn't. And he probably doesn't care.

* CaughtInTheRipple: At some point every supervillain banded together to rewrite reality so that not only did the world forget superheroes were real, the superheroes forgot as well (the supervillains, for their part, operate in secrecy). One villain killed his nemeses (BatmanAndRobin expies) by dunking them in a vat of acid, they kept screaming that they ''weren't'' superheroes, they'd just played them on TV.

* CrapsackWorld: Ever wonder why the world seems like it sucks? Because it does, thanks to the villains erasing superheroes.