[[WMG: It's all a dream, Dr Horrible is just an insane Youtuber]]
The only bits that are real are the bits where Dr Horrible is talking to his computer in his room (so not the bit where he says he got a car thrown at his head), and the rest is just wishful thinking. The Evil League of Evil don't exist, Captain Hammer doesn't exist, the death ray doesn't exist at all (you never see it in his blog) and the freeze ray is just a toy.

[[WMG: Penny will return in the sequel...as Dr. Horrible's new nemesis]]
She's so much more heroic than the JerkJock DesignatedHero Captain Hammer, has elements of TheMessiah, so she'd make a good superhero. Bringing her back and making her Billy's mortal enemy would just twist the knife in that much further, fits JossWhedon's attitude to happy endings perfectly.

[[WMG: Penny is evil.]]
She's just dating Captain Hammer to infiltrate his secret base and take him out and get into the Evil League of Evil; and Dr. Horrible gets rejected, but they still hook up.
* Alternatively, Penny is part of the Evil League of Evil as Dr. Horrible's examiner. Dating Captain Hammer (Dr. Horrible's stated nemesis) is just a convenient way of ensuring she's around whenever Dr. Horrible commits his acts of evil.
* Evidence for Penny being evil: Bad Penny is just too terrible a pun not to use.
** Well, a bad penny ''does'' always come back to you.
* She's a fellow League hopeful. Her comment about giving homeless people jetpacks to go to the moon wasn't just sarcasm, she was genuinely intrigued and hopeful when Billy slipped and mentioned Bad Horse, and her song's a disguised origin story (she stopped feeling sad and hopeless once she realized the [[Main/WellIntentionedExtremist potential of being a supervillain to cause social change]].) She was going to tell Billy after the shelter was running and her plan was in play, but, well...

[[WMG: This takes place in the same universe as ''Main/TheMiddleman''.]]
Think about it: the world is full of low-level weirdoes with a meta sense of humor. Cheap production values further prove this.
* It helps that the Phased Cannon from "The Palindrome Reversal Palindrome" was the exact same prop as the Freeze Ray.

[[WMG: Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer are [[Main/CainAndAbel Brothers]].]]
That would be [[Main/RuleOfDrama dramatic.]]

[[WMG: Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer will hook up.]]
It would be hot. But then, let's hope the previous WMG isn't true.
* Hot?? Captain Hammer's inexplicable ability to make people believe he's a great guy seems to work across the divide between fiction and reality, too... urgh.
** Have you ''seen'' Nathan Fillion's ass?? (''Main/{{Firefly}}'' episode "Trash.")
***[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0481536/ "NPH" would love to brand it]].

[[WMG: Nobody gets the girl.]]
Penny is turned off by Dr. Horrible's hubris and Captain Hammer's behavior. Neither man wins her heart, and everyone learns a lesson about being a regular ol' normal person trying to make it in this tough ol' world without black-and-white, Good-and-Evil definitions.
* Theory confirmed, details {{Jossed}}.

[[WMG: Bad Horse is Hammer.]]
Think about it. You ever seen them in the same place at the same time?
* We never see him, period. For all we know, Bad Horse is Moist - which would be awesome.
* Waitaminute... Isn't Bad Horse '''the horse in the Evil League of Evil at the end'''???
** Then that must mean... SHAPESHIFTING is one of Hammer's powers!
** Or that the horse in the [=ELE=] was Fury Leika, and Bad Horse was someone else. It's ''possible'', right?

[[WMG: Bad Horse is a horse.]]
If Bad Horse was an intelligent horse, it would explain why we haven't seen him - the budget's too low for a talking horse to appear. It would also explain the lame name - "Bad Horse" might be what someone called him before he gained human intelligence.
* He "whinnies," too. Heh. And it'll probably be a dramatic reveal, anyway.
** Hey guess what... This one's true. Check the credits.
*** Who didn't see this coming when they called him the "Thoroughbred of Sin"?
* He is a horse. He's in the last scene, at the head of the Evil League of Evil.
** Alternately, Bad Horse is a big, skinny donkey. The Evil League of Evils' comic publishers wouldn't let him be called [[{{Badass}} Bad]] [[{{Discworld}} Ass]].

[[WMG:We should have seen this ending coming.]]
[[spoiler:It's freaking ''Joss Whedon'', and not a single person predicted a "death of love interest"?]] WMG is slipping.....
* Blame it on the Main/VillainSong in Act III for making slipping sound so enticing.
* Why would you guess it? Considering this is Whedon we're talking about, and Dr. Horrible himself is almost a perfect Main/CaptainErsatz of the three supervillain geeks combined from {{Buffy the Vampire Slayer}}, it was a given.
** He reminds me more of Spike, for all the times when Spike was making Main/PuppyDogEyes and was the Main/ButtMonkey of the universe. The tunes of some of Billy's songs resembled Spike's parts in the Buffy musical. And the parallels: Billy = William the Bloody Awful Poet (both were shy and socially awkward around women). Dr. Horrible = Spike the vampire (the cool guy he longs to be, but who always gets upstaged by his nemesis, Hammer/Angel(us), who mocks him and steals his girl, or in Spike's case, girls). Admittedly, Spike has never stalked someone in a ''laundromat'', AFAIK. ;-)
* It's not wild enough to put here. Just a garden-variety [[spoiler:Whedon death]].

[[WMG: The Death Ray Worked...]]
And Billy Buddy is in his own Personal Hell by the end of Act III.
* The ending is already cruel enough without dragging Hell into it.
* This theory helps explain how Billy "survived" the explosion that hurt MadeOfIron Captain Hammer and killed Penny from across the room without damaging his coat or doing anything else to anyone else. Captain Hammer is a mewling wimp; Dr. Horrible has been inducted into the Evil League of Evil, and he cannot enjoy a moment of it because he's too distraught over Penny's death to gloat.
** The explosion happened by Hammer's side of the ray, knocking him back. Since he was still holding onto the death ray when he shot it, it flew back with him as some shards exploded across the room (more or less horizontally to the ray), and Billy was "lucky" enough to be under the range of flying shrapnel and exploding ray, as were the hiding innocent bystanders.
* Maybe Hammer died in the explosion too and they're now sharing the same damnation. Billy loses Penny and Hammer becomes a snivelling mama's boy.
*If you look closely at the death ray, you will see that the nozzle bit that Dr Horrible was pointing at people was actually pointed at Captain Hammer, who was holding it the wrong way round due to being stupid and the death ray having a stupid design. This explains why Dr Horrible sounds warning when he tells Hammer not to fire, not terrified.

[[WMG: Billy's delusional.]]
He's hiding away in his basement and is imagining [[spoiler:all the success and fame; Penny's death has left him an emotionless shell, and Bad Horse has refused to let him join the Evil League of Evil because he [[Main/KickTheDog was responsible for Penny's death]].]]
* Wait, [[spoiler: they'd ask him to kill someone, but then they wouldn't let him in because he... killed someone?]] Main/EvenEvilHasStandards, but why that standard?
** Point. But then, [[spoiler:maybe Penny's death]] has led to him becoming introverted and ever-so-slightly crazy and delusional. It wouldn't [[spoiler: exactly be conducive to good villainy to have a member of your elite group mumbling to himself and doing nothing but sing in morbid tones about the death of Penny. Perhaps Penny's death]] damaged him that much mentally that he [[spoiler: became unhireable.]] Overly-long and elaborate explanation/new part of theory thought up this minute complete.
* Alternatively, [[spoiler: the League rejects him because he ''didn't'' kill anyone. Captain Hammer fired a malfunctioning death ray despite Billy's warning and accidentally killed Penny. Billy is responsible for that, in a sense, but it's not enough for the League.]]
** True, but [[spoiler:it was Dr. Horrible's death ray either way, so he was at least partially culpable for Penny's death. Plus, he ruined Captain Hammer's reputation and crushed his ego, leading to months of therapy: a social and mental "kill", in a manner of speaking.]]
* Also, it seems possible that he suffers from multiple personalities: both Dr. Horrible and Billy Buddy refer to each other by name as if they were separate entities, especially at the end of ''Slipping'': "Head up Billy Buddy there's no time for mercy". The final verse of ''Everything You Ever'' gives a similar idea: "And now the nightmare is real/Now Dr. Horrible is here".
** Um, wasn't Billy vs. Horrible the main theme of the movie? They diverge around the end of Act II.
** The two personalities were the same until Billy was taunted by Hammer near the end of Act II, when he [[Main/StartOfDarkness became very evil]]. Then you can see at the end of Act III how Billy is almost completely dead when he finally puts on his goggles, and with the new red-and-evil suit, and how Billy, rather than Dr. Horrible, gives the last word on the blog.
*** It starts off as Dr. Horrible being purely an alias for Billy (so Billy's mind is 90% him, 10% Dr. Horrible); as time goes on, Dr. Horrible manifests himself more and more. ''Brand New Day'' was a key turning point, as the two sides of Billy agree with each other: Captain Hammer must die! It also showed Billy throwing away one of his previous qualms (about murder), or rather, Dr. Horrible did it for him (so Billy's mind was approximately 50/50). By the end of ''No Mercy'', it's clear that Dr. Horrible is in control, with Billy's nervousness holding him back slightly (25% Billy, 75% Dr. Horrible). Finally, in ''Everything You Ever'', the first 4 lines ("Here lies everything/A world I wanted at my feet/My victory is complete/So hail to the king") are symbolic of Billy's grief about [[spoiler:Penny's death]] and his anger towards Dr. Horrible (who he holds responsible). However, his next line ("Arise and sing!") is symbolic of his surrender to Dr. Horrible: he knows that there is no redemption for him now, and gives in to his Dr. Horrible persona completely. However, it is also one final command to Dr. Horrible: arise and be all that Billy wanted to be, and more! The rest of the song is Dr. Horrible making his declaration of evil, and a slight explanation of Billy's view of him taking over completely: "And now the nightmare is real/Now Dr. Horrible is here" (Billy, or rather, Dr. Horrible's mind is now 90% Dr. Horrible and 10% Billy). Billy gets the last word of the song, but the room he's in is metaphorical: we see Billy, shell shocked and trapped in his room, but the room is in his, now Dr. Horrible's, mind, having retreated into himself due to his grief.
* A simpler possible explanation along these lines: [[spoiler: The Evil League of Evil offered membership to Billy, but he rejected it out of guilt and now spends his time sitting in his room entertaining delusions about what would have been.]]
* Dr Horrible is just a facade; after what he's done, he's got nothing to lose. He's going to rule and change the world, but not in an utopian way like he implied during his first discussion with Penny; it's going to be a nightmare. But Billy is still here; and he's terribly shocked of what he's done, although he doesn't show it to anyone. He's trapped inside Dr Horrible, and he can't show his grief or he won't even have the League.
* Semi-confirmed by WordOfGod at the 2008 Comic-con: "Dr. Horrible got what he wanted and Billy lost everything"
* Not only that, but you could see Billy fighting Horrible during "Slipping" and the showstopper in the middle. The line "Hammer meet nail"? It sounds like Horrible gloating that Hammer has met his match. But what is a hammer's job except to pound a nail into line so that everything doesn't fall apart?
** He's really bad with analogies? "The snake rots from the head so why not cut off the head?"
* Alternatively, this is the story of Billy [[http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BecomingTheMask Becoming The Mask]]. Rather than a multiple personality, Dr. Horrible was originally just a character he was playing. To create the kind of social change he desired, he needed a supervillain to make people wake up and let go of their obedient apathy -- notice that as Dr. Horrible, on his blog, he ends his talk about what's wrong with the world with "I just need to rule it" almost tacked on as an afterthought. Billy wants to change the world, but this "Dr. Horrible" character is supposed to be a supervillain, so obviously he should want to rule it. Later, Billy realises that this made-up reasoning is starting to make a lot of sense and that his goals and Dr. Horrible's goals overlap, which (judging by the lyrics of "On The Rise") worries him; that's when he stops ''playing'' Dr. Horrible and starts ''being'' Dr. Horrible.

[[WMG: Dr. Horrible's true arch-nemesis was never Captain Hammer, and the Evil League Of Evil was aware of this.]]
Ideologically, [[spoiler: it was Penny, all along.]] If Captain Hammer had been killed, Billy would have gotten a pat on the back for the good P.R. and a post as Bad Horse's official Hoof-Picker. Unlike Captain Hammer, [[spoiler: Penny was selfless from the start, which makes her death look like [[MoralEventHorizon the most downright evil thing for a person to do.]] That's why Dr. Horrible's being shown such a prestigious top position in the League.]]
* At least, [[spoiler: it looks like a top position. Not as top as Dead Bowie, but...]]

[[WMG: Dead Bowie is ''the'' David Bowie from the Buffyverse.]]
* Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars made a stop in Sunnydale (or maybe Cleveland), and things did not go well.

[[WMG: The world will end about 2 days after the last images of the show]]
Think about it. [[spoiler: We have a villain who has nothing left to lose and who at least partly blames a corrupt world for the death of his loved one. Even if he's a bit odd about how good his inventions are, he can make some pretty nasty stuff if it comes down to it. A doomsday device should be coming about any day now.]]
* Don't worry. Captain Hammer will save us...

[[WMG: Bad Horse got his start when he failed to win the Triple Crown]]
* Alternatively, Bad Horse was ALWAYS a bad tempered horse, and the term "bad horse" was repeatedly used by his handlers. When he failed to win the Triple Crown, it was simply his breaking point. He gained his sentience, killed his handler, and went off to a career in villainy, taking the name Bad Horse as both symbolic as his status as a supervillain and an ironic name: his past handlers thought he was bad, and now he's going to prove how right they were! The cowboys are simply a facet of his abilities, an astral projection of himself that manifests as singing cowboys and that can be transmitted via phone signals or used to "charge" inanimate objects (like letters...) so that, when they are received by the intended recipient, the cowboys appear and start singing.
** That ''would'' explain why they're present at the final party...
*** The cowboys were obviously real (notice Moist's reaction when they first turn up), and they are so beholden to Bad Horse that he arbitrarily sends them around to provide singing narration to his correspondence (in the case of the phone call, the phone was silent while the cowboys provided the message) simply because ''he can''.

[[WMG: Bad Horse is ClarkKenting as [[spoiler: {{the Lone Ranger}}'s Silver.]]]]
Typical for Joss hiding things in plain sight. [[spoiler:The singing cowboys clearly reveal this in the letter to Billy: "It's hi-yo Silver, signed, Bad Horse."]]
**Wasn't Silver supposed to be...silver?
***Ah, it's probably just a dye job... [[DyeOrDie it's probably necessary...]] [[DyeingForYourArt or at least just wanted...]] [[DyeHard you wouldn't know he was Bad Horse otherwise.]]

[[WMG: The entire show is told through an unreliable narrator in the form of Dr. Horrible.]]
Clearly, on the blog, someone asked Dr Horrible how he got his start as a villain. The entire story is, to a point, rather self-congratulatory. The villain is clearly noble. A superhero is portrayed as a brainless, brutish thug who also gets his joy out of deliberately and cruelly tormenting the villain.....when no one else is around to hear it. And it goes on. [[spoiler: Despite the villain's instigating the attack and bringing the death ray, the fatal action was caused by the hero showing sudden and unnecessary overkill and even ignoring the warning the villain tried to give him.]] From that last image of the show, we see him finishing his story, which is clear propaganda meant to cast Dr. Horrible in the most sympathetic light possible.

[[WMG: The whole thing is an idea for a story told by a writer-actor on his video blog.]]
Some of the things outlined in the story are ludicrous, even by supervillain-story standards - for example, a car gets thrown at Dr. Horrible's head and he ''survives''. A lot of things seem to happen in moments that would heighten the drama - Captain Hammer saves the day at the last minute! Captain Hammer enters just as Billy leaves! Billy appears just as Captain Hammer finishes his big song! The large number of {{Metaphorgotten}}s and {{Incredibly Lame Pun}}s indicates he's not the most original of writers, and he winds everything up with a Godfather-esque closing of the door to the Evil League of Evil and him, the blogger, singing the final note. And the whole Act III is just one long CreatorBreakdown.
* "Ludicrous, even by supervillain-story standards"? No, "time-honored tropes". There are more ridiculous things in Superman comics, and as you said, it heightens the drama. Superhero comics are full of cheap heightened drama and convenient coincidences. If hero and villain never met, we'd have no story.
* As for the car throw at the head bit, he said Hammer threw a car ''at'' his head; he never claimed that the car ''hit'' him. Maybe he dodged and stumbled and, you know, bruised his cheek. Also, the whole stunt falls squarely into the realm of Main/AmusingInjuries and Main/RuleOfFunny.
**Perhaps Dr. Horrible genetically altered himself to have super-resistance to strong blows, which explains how he's survived all of Hammer's punches.
**Dr. Horrible used the Freeze Ray on the car. Billy's comment about the Freeze Ray taking a few moments to warm up paints a picture of Dr. Horrible cackling, aiming at Captain Hammer, and firing... only for it to produce a buzzing sound long enough for Hammer to throw a car at Horrible, whose ray finally fires, saving him barely... [[Main/CoconutSuperpowers Budgetary constraints, you know.]]
*** Or Captain Hammer couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. With or without a car.
** As for Hammer appearing out of nowhere when Horrible was trying to steal the can with the Wonderflonium, it makes perfect sense: As Dr. Horrible finds out later, Captain Hammer had been viewing Horrible's video blog. We know that he had been blogging about the freeze ray; it's possible that he also mentioned he needed Wonderflonium to power it. Captain Hammer only had to lie in wait to catch him red-handed. It's also possible that the courier van with the Wonderflonium was set up as bait for any aspiring villain in the city, which would explain the lacking security measures; everyone expected Captain Hammer to stop the bad guys.
** And why Hammer entered the laundromat just when Billy was trying to leave: Penny told Billy that she had told Hammer about her "laundry buddy," and Hammer had expressed a desire to meet him. Given that Horrible had also blogged about Penny extensively (even if he didn't mention or know her name, he may have described her), and that Dr. Horrible was concerned about Penny nearly being run over by the van, it wasn't hard to see the connection. Hammer therefore likely already knew that Billy was Horrible before he even opened his mouth. Just look at him smirk.
*** Billy says 'inadvertantly introduced my arch-nemesis to the girl of my dreams' in his blog just prior to the Bridge Dedication, so it's safe to assume that Captain Hammer knew exactly what Penny was to Billy, anyway.
** And, um, wasn't Horrible ''purposefully waiting'' until Hammer's song was almost done to use his Freeze Ray? He didn't burst in at an opportune moment, he was hiding under the sheet!
*** He was waiting for the freeze ray to charge.
* How is this different from taking the writers of Dr. Horrible, turning them into one conglomerate character, and criticizing the Blog-- which is fine to do, but since most/all of us here are Horrible fans, [[SoYeah you can pretty much see the reaction above]]?

[[WMG: Captain Hammer was artificially created]]
Captain Hammer is the product of a government initiative to artificially create superheroes to help fight back against the Dead Bowies and Bad Horses of the world. Why? Because, after getting struck by the exploding death ray, Hammer cries out for "someone maternal". A normal person would cry "Mommy!"/"Mummy!" at the very least; Captain Hammer doesn't because he doesn't have a mother. He could have been grown in some sort of vat or tube. The best he can cry out for is someone vaguely maternal to help him during his first experience of pain. Also, it could explain why he gets away with all the throwing cars around and stuff: The local police have had him assigned to them by the FBI and have to accept that he'll do things like that.
* Also, his comic on the DarkHorse MySpace Page has him claiming he was born with the ability to bench press five hundred pounds. This sort of child could not be born naturally unless his mother was Supergirl.
** Also also, in the laundromat, Captain Hammer suggests he's met Billy before at the gym but then realizes he's "naturally this way".
** It explains his shitty personality. He might be only a couple of years old and have spent all that time being told how great he is by the men who made him. He certainly acts like a kid. “lol, I totally made out with a girl!”
* He initially calls out "Mama!" "Someone maternal" is said afterwards, presumably after he realized that his mama isn't there.
* This could also explain why he doesn't seem to have a SecretIdentity.
** Yes he does. What do you think the sweater vests are for?
*** They just ''are''. [[RealMenWearPink He can get away with that sort of thing]] because he ''is''. [[supersecretspoiler:I think sweater vests would be sexy on him, anyway.]]

[[WMG: Captain Hammer and Penny were members of the Evil League of Evil]]
Both of them were sent to masquerade as good people for various reasons, including to test and observe up-and-coming villains such as Doctor Horrible. Captain Hammer being a member is not too subtle, given how much of a {{Main/Jerkass}} he is. Penny, on the other hand, was much better as feigning good; however, after Dr. Horrible got the letter from Bad Horse telling him that he will be watched, who are the two people who see him the next day during his heist? Penny's skill at pretending may also have earned her a high position in the league; Dr. Horrible was in a (at least seemingly) high position the moment he was made a member because he managed to kill her. Captain Hammer was kicked out at the end because he was too much of a wimp.

[[WMG:Bad Horse is David Bowie from TheVentureBrothers.]]
He has the power of shapeshifting, and thus can take on the form of a horse. Dead Bowie is a decoy.

Alternately...

[[WMG: Dead Bowie took over the Evil League of Evil...]]
...renamed it the Guild of Calmonious Intent, and became the Soverign.

[[WMG:Captain Hammer is [[Main/NiceJobBreakingItHero directly responsible for Dr. Horrible's fall to true evil, and thus, the end of the world]].]]
At the end of "Slipping", Dr. Horrible hesitates to kill his ''arch-nemesis'', who has [[Main/WhatTheHellHero caused him nothing but grief and rubbed it in]], despite thinking that Penny isn't watching. Had Captain Hammer not punched Dr. Horrible and fired the exploding death ray, he probably would have backed down. Hammer would beat up Horrible anyway; Penny would see it, ''really'' see Hammer for the Main/JerkJock he is, and dump him for Billy, who will be caught up in Main/LoveRedeems; Hammer would hook up with one of his fangirls, and everyone would live happily ever after.
* Unless Main/RedemptionEqualsDeath - but even in that case, at least [[Main/NeedsOfTheMany the world in general is better off...]]
* ...or Hammer would start brutally beating up Dr. Horrible, and Penny would pick up the death ray and point it at Hammer and tell him "Get lost! Leave us alone" and walk out with Billy. But Main/JossWhedon never does Happy Endings, and Dr. Horrible wouldn't have acquired the aura of tragedy that every good villain or Main/AntiHero needs.
* Oh, Hammer is ''definitely'' responsible. Think about it. Compare Captain Hammer's track record of blithely inflicting bodily harm on people and emotionally torturing Billy, and Hammer's fascist leanings in the comic ("report the freaks to the police"), with Dr. Horrible's deeds. What evil deeds exactly has Horrible ''committed''? His list of crimes comes up as.... theft of gold bars and wonderflonium (it wasn't even a robbery or breaking-and-entering!), and negligible property damage to the ceiling of a public hall. All of Horrible's weapons prior to the death ray were ''nonlethal''. Hell, they were less lethal than a tazer gun! A freeze ray (stops time), a stun ray, and a gun that was supposed to weaken Hammer's muscles (in the comic) but malfunctioned. So we have two cases of pointing (but not firing) nonlethal weapons at a guy who is invulnerable, one case of pointing a potentially lethal death ray at Hammer (but not firing), and one instance of shooting him with a weapon that simply put him in stasis. Horrible has never hurt a living thing; he abhorred killing. There's nothing there that would warrant a death sentence. Hammer, on the other hand, had no compunction about aiming the death ray at Horrible's head and pulling the trigger...
** This is related, but considering that Captain Hammer goes to Dr. Horrible's blog, he could have been the one to e-mail him asking who "she" was, and thus know exactly who to save.
**Sure, but Billy never said her name, did he? He doesn't say Penny during the Freeze Ray song.
** In Captain Hammer's defense, all he saw when he was unfrozen was Dr. Horrible, his arch-nemesis who had reason to kill him, pointing a ray gun at his head. As far as the good captain knew, he had saved himself just in time before being killed. And almost being killed tends to piss most people off.
*** Point, but Hammer had already tried to kill Dr. Horrible at least once by throwing a car at his head -- and in light of that, it's not unreasonable to suspect that he might have been about to kill Horrible even sooner, when he was choking him in front of the van, had Penny's arrival not distracted him.
**** Captain Hammer seemed to enjoy tormenting Dr. Horrible too much to want to ''kill'' him, and only seemed ready to do so when Horrible finally started to pose a genuine threat. Granted, this doesn't make Hammer less of a jerkass.
* Another point - the death ray seemed to be working just fine until Captain Hammer became unfrozen. Dr. Horrible fired it into the air several times without blowing it up. The death ray only broke when Captain Hammer punched Dr. Horrible and made him drop it on the floor. Yet another way that Captain Hammer is responsible for the death of Penny.
** Before the death ray hit the floor, it worked just fine; afterward, the gun was sizzling and crawling with red energy discharges. You can hear and see it. When Hammer points the gun at Horrible, who is lying on the floor, you can see Horrible noticing that something is wrong only after he tilts his head and takes a closer look at the gun (he probably heard the sizzle). That's when his expression changes and he says urgently, "Don't...!" Hammer misinterprets that as "Please don't shoot me!" and cuts him off to gloat, when Horrible was trying to warn him, "Don't fire that, it's overloading!" Since Hammer was previously frozen and had ''not'' seen the death ray when it was not broken, he probably thought the red discharges were a feature of the gun.
***Hammer says "I don't have time for your warnings," almost as if he didn't care that the gun might not work right.
*** Alternate addition: The gun wasn't broken. The gun merely bounced a bit. And what aren't we supposed to bounce?
*** Wonderflonium, true. But Horrible said himself in Act I that the Wonderflonium was for his freeze ray, which remained untouched after powering down, and not his death ray. It just broke when it hit the ground (with the force of a guy who was born able to bench press 500 pounds, remember).
**** But, at the time, he wasn't planning to [i]make[/i] a death ray. It's quite possible he did use it in the death ray. But in the end it doesn't really matter does it?

[[WMG:Dead Bowie's superpower is a form of subconscious mind control that manifests itself in dreamlike hallucinations.]]
[[Main/FlightOfTheConchords "Am I freaking you out, Bret? Is this a freaky dream?"]]
* [[{{Labyrinth}} As the world falls down, makes no sense at all, makes no sense to fall...]]

[[WMG:Bad Horse is a political puppet]]
He's a normal horse, and those singing cowboys who speak for him with absolute authority are the real power behind the Evil League of Evil.
* But what about his whinny? His terrible Death Whinny!
* Alternatively, he still is a regular horse, but his henchmen honestly believe that he is a real villain and just consistently misinterpret his behavior and act on what they ''believe'' his orders to be.

[[WMG:Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog is Joss Whedon's attempt at an NGE style Deconstruction of the Super Hero genre.]]
Think about it, every cliché and standard of the Super Hero genre is either subverted or inverted:
*Hero is the main character: inverted, the villain is the main character.
*Hero can survive through anything through strength of character: subverted, Captain Hammer throws himself into every situation heroically, but [[spoiler: once he feels pain for the first time, his ego crumbles and he winds up in therapy as a sobbing wreck]]
*[[spoiler:Hero gets the girl: subverted - she dies]] (then again, this is Joss Whedon we're talking about)
*Villain is foiled by the hero: [[spoiler: partially subverted, Dr. Horrible's plan was to kill Captain Hammer, but ends up killing Penny instead]]
*Hero is a good and moral person, villain is evil and corrupted: subverted AND inverted - Captain Hammer is a jerk and womaniser, but is still proclaimed as a hero, in a similar way to a Main/VillainWithGoodPublicity. Dr. Horrible initially has qualms about murdering someone under orders from the Evil League of Evil, but has no qualms about theft. He also cares for Penny, and his key invention is a Freeze Ray which, unlike other villains who would use it for selfish purposes, plans to use it to give him time to speak to Penny without stuttering or mumbling.
*Hero cares about keeping up the masquerade, villain doesn't: inverted - Captain Hammer is (apparently) Captain Hammer 24/7, whereas Dr. Horrible lives a double life.
* On the other hand, the sequence of events constitute a perfectly good [[spoiler: tragic]] origin story for a villain in the superhero genre. [[spoiler: At least, this is Dr. Horrible's debut as a scary villain people hear of and take seriously, as opposed to a guy named Billy who had never hurt anyone, was not wanted by the cops, and was taking voice lessons to manage proper maniacal laughter.]]
* This is a WMG? Isn't it a given that it's a deconstruction of the genre?

[[WMG:Dr. Horrible will [[spoiler:bring Penny Main/BackFromTheDead.]]]]
What's the point of being a mad scientist if he can't manage a little necromancy?
* Then there's Moist namedropping a woman called Hourglass, who has some form of time-related powers. Can you think of anybody who might want certain events in his past tweaked?
** Hourglass seems to be able to see someone's future (she knew that boy would grow up to be a future president) like the protagonist of ''The Dead Zone'', but she must probably meet someone in ''person'' for it to work; otherwise, she might have told Moist to warn Dr. Horrible against doing certain things. Which she didn't.
* Alternatively, he'll get a hold of her body and harvest her eggs. Thus, he'll wind up with an heir that would allow him to at least pretend he'd slept with Penny at some point.

[[WMG: Penny never realized that Billy is Dr. Horrible]]
She never did get a look at the "good" doctor -- remember, she was hiding during the entire master plan -- until she was already dying, at which point, all she sees is his face (completely missing the goggles and labcoat). She never quite makes the connection and thinks Billy was just in the audience for the unveiling of the new shelter. And so, even though she knows that Captain Hammer is a Main/{{Jerkass}}, she lies to Billy and tells him that Cap will save them to reassure him. Because Billy ''is'' Dr. Horrible, this has the opposite effect and acts to seal his descent into madness.
* Alternatively, she ''did'' realize it (she picked up on the "Head up, Billy buddy" line, after all); but in the shock and trauma of her mortal injury, she can no longer recall anything that's happened over the past quarter hour and so dies believing the integrity of both Billy and Captain Hammer to be unblemished.
**Assuming she did realize it (which seems likely, given that shot of her mouthing what looks like his name), maybe her last line was so that he wouldn't realize that she knew he was Dr. Horrible. After all, if she heard that whole softer part of "Slipping", she knows that he didn't want her to see him like this, and she makes sure he never knows she figured it out.
*Before she says "Captain Hammer will save us," she says "Billy? Is that you?".
*Alternatively: She did realize that he was Dr. Horrible, and said it to tortue him, because he did basically attempt to kill her boyfriend out of jealousy and indirectly result in her death. Maybe she wanted revenge
**Course, this was after Penny realized Captain Hammer's a big [[Main/JerkAss Jerk Ass]]

[[WMG: This is all just a ploy to get tons of money off DVD sales.]]
Why else would the Whedons take it off the web after only one week?
* Well, ''duh''. Joss all but said this on the "Master Plan" page on the site.
* And movies are ...? In fact, you don't even get to see those for free until they're broadcast on TV.
** And regular TV shows have a much smaller window of opportunity. Until reruns -- and even then you have to stick to the TV schedule (well, unless you record everything).
*Jossed by Joss himself. Hulu.com has it.
**[[NoExportForYou Unless you live ]][[OfferVoidInNebraska outside of the USA.]]

[[WMG: Billy never wore a white lab coat.]]
For most of the show Billy seems to wear a white lab coat while he's in the "Dr Horrible" persona, changing back into civilian clothes when he's just Billy. Except, in Act I, he ducks behind a wall in normal clothing for a second, then stands up wearing the lab coat. The only explanation is that Billy wears normal clothing at all times - the lab coat is just a visual representation of his state of mind. Even the red coat at the end could be imaginary in the same way.
* Doesn't work. Even if Captain Hammer recognized him right away, waiting for Penny to leave the room first suggests that he knows Penny is oblivious to Billy's supervillain identity.
* Sure? Even if Penny did know, or Captain Hammer thought she knew, Captain Hammer did say some things that he probably didn't want his girlfriend to overhear.
* Ah, but in the [[AllInTheManual supplemental comics]] from Moist and Hammer's perspectives, the good doctor's still in the lab coat.

[[WMG: Two days after the last images of the show, Billy commits suicide]]
*Then how is there going to be a sequel?
** Well, that [[DeadToBeginWith wouldn't necessarily]] be [[SelfInflictedHell a problem]]. But really... there ''shouldn't'' be a sequel.
*** Agreed. No matter how much we like the character, some stories are... ''complete'' in themselves. They are cheapened by sequels.
**** How would it be cheapened? Using a sequel to further twist the knife in and show a "true Villain" Dr. Horrible struggling to cope with his dark world after the death of Penny? How would that cheapen it? Besides, Joss himself has said repeatedly he would love to do a sequel/there will be a sequel. He's even implied he already has a story in mind. One of the reasons they haven't begun work on it yet is because Joss is working on Dollhouse, and Neil has a full-time gig on HowIMetYourMother. But they have all expressed interest in it.
** Why two days? Just out of interest.
*** His situation needs some time to sink in. The first few days, he just gets swept up by the whole new Evil League of Evil thing, robbing banks, etc., other villains cheering him on. It stops him from thinking about what happened. But once the first excitement is over and Billy faces days (or nights, it's night in the last shot) full of emptiness and despair, walking the city streets, passing by the laundromat where ''she'' won't be waiting for him, never again... how long do you think he will last? If he makes it past the first few months, then he'll probably live because he has managed to return to some semblance of normalcy. Or "Billy" as we know him will disappear completely as he commits symbolic suicide by utterly embracing the Dr. Horrible persona and never ever looking back. But even supervillains have to go to sleep. Brush his teeth, eat breakfast, watch as some henchman does his laundry for him...

[[WMG: Captain Hammer's penis ''is a hammer'']]
This was why Penny was ''really'' getting distant from Captain Hammer.
* He does seem the kind of guy who might... name his superheroic pseudonym after his junk.
* What sort of hammer is it, though?
** Claw hammer, if his chest insignia is any indication...
*** [[RuleOfFunny Ball-peen is funnier.]]
* This perfectly explains why Captain Hammer has never slept with the same girl twice.
* Wouldn't even the ''first'' time qualify as "the weird stuff" in this case?
* Confirmed: [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BO79btjZ_E "It is actually shaped like a little hammer... well, little for a hammer."]]

[[WMG: Doctor Horrible became a supervillain because everyone expected him to.]]
He lives in a world where exceptional students in science are reported to the police for surveillance.
*Look at what the world is okay with accepting as a hero. If that's their idea of a hero, he couldn't go that route.
** The public police-state-like prejudice against scientists and engineers might even ''be the reason Billy seems to have no job''! He's a brilliant gadgeteer (he can build rayguns that ''freeze time''!); but he has to go to the laundromat to get his clothes washed, so he's probably poor, and he shares an apartment with Moist. Don't ask where he gets the parts for all the gadgets he designs if he is poor... perhaps he steals them, just as he stole the Wonderflonium? Perhaps he used to have more income in the past? Perhaps he's using up an inheritance from his dead parents? In comic books, supervillains and superheroes are either filthy rich or have just enough mysterious sources of income to get along (unless they're called Spiderman) and have access to technical gadgets even if they're living in the sewers. It's just one of those things.
*** Billy's whole attitude is a mixture of extreme shyness and bitterness and frustration, like someone who has been beaten up by life so often that he has withdrawn into himself. Normally, you would expect someone like him to be courted by corporate and military headhunters and offered vast sums of money to design weapons. Billy is an anarchist and revolutionary at heart, not to mention a pacifist; maybe he declined those offers and lost his job. Another reason he is bitter. He wants people to acknowledge his genius, but instead they're all cheering for a smarmy jerk who lives on government funding (the Hammercycle, the Ham-jet).
*** Or, just throwing this out here, he doesn't have a job because he's ''publicly plotting to take over the world''.
** Is there a chance that Dr. Horrible's last name is actually Horrible? That's got to limit your career options.
*** Nope. It's Buddy. It's in the credits, and also mentioned in ''Slipping''.
**** Is it? I'm pretty sure on the cast list the character's identified as "Dr. Horrible" with no reference to his given name, first or last.
**** I've just read through the entire credits; nowhere is the character referred to as anything other than "Dr. Horrible". However, [[http://strangewindx.blogspot.com/2008/07/dr-horrible-billy-buddy-and-melville.html this blogger]] makes a good case for the name being a reference to Melville's "Billy Budd", which points to "Billy Buddy" being the character's full name. None of the writers or cast appear to have made any statements one way or the other at this point.
**** Penny tells Billy to "keep your head up, Billy buddy". This is the reason for the "head up Billy buddy" line in Slipping -- Penny encouraged him to keep going and strive for his goal (not knowing what the goal was, of course) when going for the "job" he was trying to get.

[[WMG: Captain Hammer will become Mal Reynolds]]
After experiencing pain he becomes slightly more humble and retires, but is still a bit of a jackass. Due to his superhuman nature, he outlives all memory of his being a Superhero, and he fights against the Alliance during the war to redeem himself...and well, this one needs to be said.
*Fuck Yeah!
*Instead of just retiring, he becomes a pro-{{Muggle}} political crusader with a strong dislike of anyone who meddles with normal folk. His anti-super efforts are so successful that by the twenty-sixth century people with strange powers are considered witches once again.
*Alternatively, the entire thing was a ShowWithinAShow in the ''{{Firefly}}'' Verse (as per the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgJxGKBad3M hacking of the Emmys]]; see, Penny's there!) and a younger, more innocent/stupid Mal agreed to play the part for some easy cash. And I'm not [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4470365/1/A_New_Discovery the only one]] who thinks so.

[[WMG: Captain Hammer will become Caleb]]
The First Evil was empowering him from birth. Once he gets over the pain, he'll don the priestly collar and go after Buffy.

[[WMG: Captain Hammer will become [[SkyHigh the Commander]].]]
After recovering from his humiliating defeat, Hammer reforms and goes back to being a superhero, with a new name: the Commander (who has a cape, see below.) He becomes well-loved once more, and then ends up settling down with Jetstream to have Will.

Their powers are basically the same, so it's not too much of a stretch. As well, he might take the name Commander to help himself recover from his humilation, signifying that he's now "in command" of everything in his life.

[[WMG: The purpose of this show was to show the reality of the relationship between Lex Luthor and Superman]]
Think about it. Superman/Captain Hammer is born with endless power. He has never felt pain or fear, and he is spoiled by the universe. He's not going to be a good person; he's going to be a pathetic jerk who is convinced that he can do whatever he wants, and who upholds the status quo because it's easy and people love him for it. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor/Dr.Horrible has nothing but brains and money, coupled with a desire to change a world enforced by a superhuman. He has to be a strong person with real goals and ability because he has to change the world with nothing to go on but what he makes for himself. Only in comic book land is Lex Luthor evil and Superman good; in the real world, or in Dr. Horrible, the roles are reversed. Dr. Horrible is a villain and evil, but is not a "bad guy".
* Wait. The man who can go into Hell itself uncorrupted is evil, but the guy who goes into restaurants and gives (fiscally) poor married waitresses 30 minutes to decide "have sex with me for millions for a weekend or not" and then ditches before they can decide to give them gnawing guilt for years is a good guy? Oookay then.
** We all know that ''[[SuperDickery Superman Is A Dick]],'' and we have the comic book covers [[http://superdickery.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=28&Itemid=45 to prove it]].
*** That ''would'' [[ReverseFunnyAneurism give new importance to]] "the hammer is my penis."
** "Not become corrupted" doesn't necessarily mean he is completely pure. In fact, it could mean the exact opposite: Superman is already as corrupt as he can get, and Hell has no effect on him. But that's WildMassSpeculation for another series entirely...

[[WMG: Penny is [[spoiler:not dead.]]]]
This leaves room for Dr. Horrible to [[spoiler:accidentally kill her ''again'' in the sequel when he blows up a hospital or something!]] Oh, snap!
* Seriously, we never [[spoiler:saw her die.]] She could have just passed out or gone unconscious; we know that the media there isn't particularly reliable, either...

[[WMG: The entire show is a {{Deconstruction}} of CannotSpitItOut.]]
Billy suffers from a common hero affliction -- he can't tell the girl he loves how he feels about her. In a "straight" example, the hero tells the girl he loves about his feelings near the end, and they defeat the bad guys and live happily ever after. In Dr. Horrible, Billy ends up indirectly killing the girl he loves without ever letting her know how he felt despite her obviously liking him, and it all could've been avoided if he'd asked her out for frozen yoghurt during the first song.
** It ''would'' have been avoided; Penny was waiting for Billy at the laundromat and doubting her relationship with Captain Hammer ("This is perfect for me - So they say/I ''guess'' he's pretty okay...") in "So They Say". If Dr. Horrible didn't get whipped up into a frenzy and start plotting Hammer's death, he would have got the girl, no problem.
** It would have been avoided even before that! If Billy had stopped fiddling with the remote control for the van, ignored the whole Wonderflonium heist idea, scrapped the freeze ray plans, and said: "Gee Penny, I really am interested in this homeless shelter idea of yours! Tell me more!", they'd both be living happily ever after by now. (If they also hadn't both had the misfortune of being in a Joss Whedon production, that is)

[[WMG: After his humiliating public defeat, Captain Hammer becomes the next member of the Evil League of Evil]]
Hammer's reputation is shot to pieces. The media will look for a new "hero" while Hammer is in therapy. Even if Hammer tries to return to his role, he'll never dare antagonize Dr. Horrible for fear of what Horrible will do next. Cut off from the government honey pot, Captain Hammer decides to turn to a life of crime, where he can do what he loves best (beating people up). He sends his application to the Evil League of Evil, commits some atrocities, and is accepted almost instantly, which will piss Dr. Horrible off big time. Once he is part of the League, Hammer starts intimidating and upstaging Dr. Horrible ''again'' because Hammer has a natural talent for being a jerk. The rest of the League watches in amusement. Either Dr. Horrible leaves the League in disgust, muttering about falling standards, or he gets his eye-twitch again and shoots Hammer with his latest disintegrator gun.

[[WMG: Billy/Dr. Horrible is an {{alternate universe}} version of Toby from SweeneyTodd]]
Both were played by Neil Patrick Harris (in the Concert version, that is), both were sweet if slightly neurotic, and both [[spoiler: became crazed and murderous after the death of the woman they love (who in both versions is killed by her boyfriend)]].

[[WMG: Billy can't control which persona is in control]]
One of Horrible's trademarks (besides the goggles and lab coat) is the squinty expression he gets when annoyed, or happy, or... whenever. But we see Billy get this expression, if only for a split second, at several points -- in the middle of the significant pause when he's talking to Penny and says the power needs "to be put in ... different hands," when Captain Hammer is taunting him, and so on. By "Slipping," Billy is having serious trouble keeping his Dr. Horrible persona in control, but it could be triggered before that. After [[spoiler: Penny's death]], the tables are turned; Dr. Horrible usually is active, but Billy pops up from time to time -- hence the ending.

[[WMG: The Fangirls [[spoiler: killed Penny.]]]]
We know that the Fangirls "have a problem with her". When Captain Horrible fired the malfunctioning Death Ray, they took advantage of the situation and [[spoiler: murdered Penny]] with some loose shrapnel. When they saw that Captain Hammer had fled the scene but ''Dr. Horrible'' cared, they switched loyalties.
*Why the hell does this make so much sense?
**Shrapnel flying fast enough to dig into the walls would probably leave a larger wound than the ones Penny had.
***Devil's advocate - maybe the walls were just really flimsy material? (It's a homeless shelter, who's going to notice and complain? And they got it fixed pretty fast; there could've been some corner-cutting.)
****Penny's petition at least partly involved taking over an existing building for use as a shelter, IIRC. So the building might be decrepit, but was probably built to code at one time.
* The fangirls would have to move fast. Weren't they panicking and hiding under chairs?
* [[spoiler:[[SouthPark "They killed Penny!"]] "Those bastards!"]]

[[WMG: He'll get over it.]]
How well did Billy even know [[spoiler:Penny?]] He stalked her from a distance for a while but only knew her in person for a few weeks, at most. He didn't even know her well enough to realize that taking over the world wouldn't win her love. By watching her creepily for so long, he's developed an entirely different personality to associate with her face - simply a fantasy woman who would love him exactly the way he is if he could just be BETTER at who he is. When he hears about her petition, he scoffs at her idea of social change but goes right back into his little act immediately. If he paid closer attention to the real [[spoiler:Penny]], he'd eventually realize that they just don't fit. Now that she's dead, he'll probably mourn for a while and then attach that fantasy persona to some other girl (one of the fangirls, maybe?). At worst, he'll just build a clone or a robot that'll look like [[spoiler:Penny]] and praise him for everything. At best, he'll accept what has happened and be just fine...well, as fine as a supervillain can be, anyways.
*Maybe if he'd gotten to know her better, he might have decided they weren't compatible; that's beside the point now. Now that she's dead, she can go on being his ideal fantasy woman in his head without those annoying real personality traits getting in the way. If anything, he's ''less'' likely to get over her now that she's dead.
**Depth and nature of Billy's feelings for [[spoiler:Penny]] aside, there's still the issue that he's at least partially responsible for the death of an innocent person. Even if the loneliness goes away, the guilt will probably linger.
* See, I interpret it differently. He was attracted to Penny ''because'' she represented real goodness in the world he was disillusioned with. His feelings for her were real. He scoffed at her "signatures" because of his cynicism, sure, but he ''wanted'' to believe in that kind of goodness. He knew what she was really like, but simply failed to give into the better nature that could embrace it. And he seemed to know, deep down, that taking over the world and doing evil deeds wouldn't really impress her, as evidenced by many of his his lines ("No sign of Penny, good I would give anything not to have her see"). Deep down he knew she wouldn't like what he was doing, and that the path he was taking would probably lead to him not getting the girl ("There's no happy ending, so they say, not for me anyway"). That was sort of the point. Had he not been selfish and let his pride and ambitions get in the way, he could have gotten the girl, he ''would'' have gotten the girl. The fact that the woman who represented the idealism he longed for died (and the idealism along with it) is not something that will be easy to overcome, especially since he was indirectly responsible. I imagine it will absolutely ''HAUNT'' him.

[[WMG: Dr. Horrible [[spoiler: killed Penny]] on purpose.]]
If the above theories about multiple personalities are true, then the Dr. Horrible persona realized that Penny holds great influence over Billy's ability to suppress Horrible, Incredible Hulk-style. Dr. Horrible intentionally designed the Death Ray to explode if anyone other than Dr. Horrible used it - including Billy. Its shell contained a pair of small smart bombs keyed into Captain Hammer [[spoiler:, Penny,]] and at least two other targets, if the other conspicuously large bits of shrapnel in the wall are any indication. Dr. Horrible then blocked Billy from understanding how to operate the Freeze Ray, which he could have used to [[spoiler: keep Penny stable for the nearby paramedics and any other medical personnel nearby.]]

[[WMG: Dr. Horrible [[spoiler: didn't kill Penny.]]]]
From how things play out, we see a "zoned out" Billy at the start of the second episode. You know it's Billy and not Dr. Horrible by the look on his face. It is likely that he is starting to rethink his life of crime and is running the scenario of hatred through his head. The conclusion he gets is that "this isn't worth it at all," and he discards the "Doctor Horrible" persona. The sparseness of the lab in the last shot with Billy, the look of abject horror on Billy's face, finally blended with the last words sung and HOW they are presented bring Billy to the horrible (sorry about the pun) revelation of the futility of his situation.
*What you're saying with this theory is that everything after the beginning of Act II happened in Billy's head. Up until the very end of Act III, where Billy has given up on supervillainy, and being Dr. Horrible, after realizing just how badly things could go. Is this correct?
** To a "T".
* It makes more sense to draw the distinction right before he starts singing "Brand New Day" (which, itself being indisputably in his head, effectively means Act III was imagined. . . which is already all over this page).

[[WMG: Billy [[spoiler: killed penny]].]]
He's really unstable anyway, and Doctor Horrible doesn't seem to care about any of the things Billy does, even joining the Evil League of Evil (he just wants to rule). Based on an idea several guesses above, [[spoiler: Billy ''did'' realize that he and Penny wouldn;t match, maybe as early as the time she was sitting alone in the laundromat with the two frozen yogurts. He wanted to keep the real her from ruining his image of her without letting it look like it was his fault, or he could get her back.]] The Death Ray only stopped firing forward when it broke, everything else worked exactly the same, and Doctor Horrible tries to stop him not because he's back to Billy and [[spoiler: worried about the explosion, but because he doesn't want to die]]


[[WMG: Bad Horse is trying to destroy the human race.]]
Notice that in his songs, he seems awfully eager for new members of the Evil League of Evil to prove themselves through murder. Bad Horse's plan is to have them slowly but surely wipe out humanity for him, whereupon he will kill all the members of the League and make horses the rulers of the world.
* Which clearly ties this in with Gulliver's Travels.
** Bad Horse being the last living descendant of the Houyhnhnms makes perfect sense: it explains his great intelligence, his powers of speech--plus his general disdain for much of the human race.

[[WMG: This is not Dr. Horrible's true StartOfDarkness.]]
That occurred before he got his [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate Ph.D. in Horribleness]], when [[TheyMightBeGiants someone kept moving his chair.]]
* Does that make Captain Hammer the last surviving Ugliness Man?

[[WMG: Fake Thomas Jefferson isn't fake.]]
He faked his death to escape debt and then realized he could get away with whatever he wanted because he was supposedly dead. The name is to throw people off so they won't realize he's the real Thomas Jefferson and, subsequently, almost two hundred years old.

[[WMG: Wonderflonium is [[spoiler: Silly Putty.]]]]
That's right! It can't be bounced. Why is that? If it is bounced, it goes from its meta state that is a power source to its original state upon the next use. The bounce destabilizes the molecular bond of the Wonderflonium in such a way that the next electrical pulse triggers its explosive return to [[spoiler: Silly Putty.]] If it's not kneaded or pressed against paper, then the return is the safer, more familiar method of return to the original state.

[[WMG: The Billy in the final image is Billy's deeper core.]]
Remember the pie analogy? There's a deeper part of us past our deep part, that is just like what is on the surface. Pie consists of top crust, filling, and bottom crust. In Billy's case the top and bottom crusts are Billy, and the filling is Dr. Horrible.
* This would mean that he's going to become Billy again in the sequel (it being his true self), possibly via a MoralityPet girl who seems like Penny as a child, a girl whom he desperately wants to ensure does ''not'' meet the same fate as Penny. He'll end up fighting not only the Evil League of Evil but Captain Hammer, whose need for therapy drove him to villainy in the frantic search for true invincibility (can't handle pain of any sort, physical or emotional). In the end, he makes a HeroicSacrifice and thus achieves [[RedemptionEqualsDeath Redemption]]; his sacrifice empowers the girl to become a hero in her own right, and she becomes the lead of another strong-female-lead series.
**However, the Morality Pet girl could also watch Dr. Horrible make his noble sacrifice and blame society for forcing this turn of events, turn inward in a quest for answers, and stumble upon Dr. Horrible's original beliefs, thus spawning a new Dr. Horrible and starting the cycle anew. It mainly depends on whether you prefer European Linear storytelling or Asian Cyclical storytelling.
* Alternately, the crust is Doctor Horrible. The Billy shown in the final image is a last dribble of Billy left on the bottom crust, after the top crust and filling were scooped out and thrown away once the dead beetle of heartbreak was discovered. The original Doctor Horrible is the top crust, that Billy used to keep from seeming like a completely soft, overly sweet blob of emotion jelly, and the DarkerAndEdgier Doctor Horrible is the original, bottom crust, which supports the top crust and uses the filling to entice people to accept it, since the bottom crust may be uncomfortably crispier or even unpalatable compared to the lighter, slightly flaky top crust.
** (Original Poster) Great, now I want some pie.
** This theory doesn't work, unfortunately. "There's a third, even deeper level, and that one is ''the same'' as the top, surface one." If the third, even deeper level, namely Doctor Horrible, differed from the top, surface one, you would not have a pie at all, but a fruit flan. Additionally, the bottom layer of pie is delicious.
* Pumpkin pies don't have a top layer that's the same as the bottom layer. And you know what's cheesy on the outside, and has a bottom layer that's different from the top layer and the filling? Quiche. I don't know what this says abotu Captain Hammer, though.
**[[SidetrackedByTheAnalogy It says he's made of eggs?]]

[[WMG: The entire show is a Silver Age style Imaginary story.]]
It's a bad dream being had by Dr Awesome ("I have a PHD in awesomeness!!!"), a Tom Strong style gadgeteer hero, whose CrimeFightingWithCash has not only reduced crime to a minimum, but whose wonderful inventions and push for social reform (aided by his girlfriend and later wife Penny) have created a utopian society despite the constant intervention of his archnemesis, the loutish and fascist Mr Hammer. He wakes up right at the conclusion of "The Nightmare's Real", and promptly goes up from his underground HQ/basement to his mansion, kisses his children Billy and Penny Junior (who are already training to take up the mantle) goodnight, and slips into bed beside his wife Penny.

And they all lived happily ever after.
* Aw shucks.
* I'd say Captain Hammer sounds more like a [[RedScare Communist supervillain]] possibly with a sidekick called Little Sickle.
* Well, tehre are the hammer-nazis from Pink Floyd's The Wall. That's actually what his insignia made me think of.

[[WMG: Penny is SnowWhite]]
As long as we're talking about HappilyEverAfter... Penny's clothes look specially chosen to make her look markedly like SnowWhite. Ergo... she's, what, Snow White, who didn't get woken by a kiss, but slept in the enchanted slumber until modern days, and was... woken... somehow... quite possibly by someone who was decidedly ''not'' Prince Charming, hence her unfulfilling life. She's been expecting Prince Charming and hasn't found him yet - even sings about that - and this provides us with one of two obvious endings:
* First, by having sex prior to True Love's Kiss, she has broken the magic that enables all {{Disney}} heroines to find True Love and live HappilyEverAfter. Hence, it was [[spoiler:DeathBySex, and a just death too]]; had she managed to wait around long enough ''without'' losing her VirginPower, she'd be fine and in Billy's arms right now.
* Second option: No DeathBySex, but she's still waiting for True Love's Kiss to wake her. She might be [[spoiler:dead]], in which case some extraordinary efforts will have to be used; else, she's simply comatose (which isn't ''technically'' "sleeping"). So this story will be completed in the sequel when Billy finally gives up "everything he's ever wanted" while trying to raise her; finally, in despair of ever undoing the damage he's done, he'll kiss her corpse in final parting (much like a certain current animated [[{{WALLE}} movie]]). This love, for which he has given up money, fame, respect (even self-respect)... this love, which prompted Billy to forsake The Evil League of Evil even on pain of death (so now they're after him, and he's in hiding with Penny's body)... this love which has more than proven its redemptive capabilities will bring Penny back to life. (Heck, X-Men never shied from adding a little magic on top of the super-hero stuff.)
** [[RomeoAndJuliet And she will wake to find Billy's freshly death-rayed corpse]] [[IrreparableMentalTrauma pressed against her lips]], as he wanted to go out kissing his OneTrueLove. With the [[ThereAreNoTherapists expected result]], of course.
* Unfortunately, WordOfGod is that the outfit was completely unintentional.
* Also, there ''are'' therapists, though given Captain Hammer's experience with them and the general CrapsackWorld they're probably incompetent.
* Damn. I stuck this somewhere else and then came across this Guess and now I feel like I'm dumb for sticking it in the wrong spot to begin with, but here goes: I haven't fully thought this out, which makes me suck, but I think this might be right. The e-mail that leads into 'Freeze Ray' is from someone called dead_not_sleeping. Later, Penny is wearing what essentially amounts to a SnowWhite costume in the laundromat when she sings her song in the second act. I have no idea what this means, but I feel like it's important. Maybe. Also, hang WordOfGod. I like this half-baked theory way too much to let it go.

[[WMG: Captain Hammer Is Cursed]]
...and the explosion... somehow... broke the curse. Note that the explosion released not only physical pain but emotional pain ("it hurts... in my heart"), neither of which he could previously feel. His inability to connect with girlfriends or sympathize with the down-and-out wasn't a personality flaw; it was a curse that kept him from feeling any sort of pain of any level. (This is somewhat akin to the tale of ''TheLightPrincess'', who was disconnected from "gravity," such that she floated in the air, but also could not cry and could not take anything seriously; once she learned to love, she also learned to cry and tumbled back to the ground, the curse broken.) Now that he can feel pain, he might be able to sympathize with others (eventually) and thus become a better person.
* Didn't he say "in my ''arm''"?
** That ''would'' spell the end of the theory... but according to Hulu's closed captioning, Hammer's exact line is, "...in my heart and it hurts..."

[[WMG: Half the story is Billy's delusions due to his concussion.]]
Take a look at the coloring of the scene where he explains "I need to watch what I say on this blog." It matches the coloring of that final shot of Billy in normal clothes, although the camera angle is somewhat tilted. Tilted ''and fuzzy'', which increases the chance that he's begun hallucinating. After Captain Hammer threw a car at Billy's head (witness the bruise - Billy must be a little hardier than he seems, or else the car only grazed him), Billy managed to make it home, only to lapse into severe hallucinations due to his concussion. This came directly after the phone call from Bad Horse, and so the need to kill or be killed is what drives the rest of his vision. ...not so sure on what caused the costume switch, but possibly he was already somewhat hazy when he got back and only imagined that he had his costume on.

[[WMG: Captain Hammer will become an accomplice to Dr. Horrible]]
After finally feeling pain for the first time, he decides that he never wants to have the feeling again. This is sometime after therapy, and by then, the bad doctor has made a reputation as a supervillain, using his fans as test subjects and such. Hsmmer turns to Horrible, who performs an experiment that makes him stronger and unable to feel pain. Hammer swears allegiance to Horrible afterwards.
* Horrible has also made other beings more powerful. He made Moist into a water-based being who changes from solid to liquid form. Since then, Moist is no longer in the henchman's union and is a member of the Evil League of Evil.

[[WMG: In his later years, Dr. Horrible/Billy will build a secret lair on [[http://www.jonathancoulton.com/primer/listen/ Skullcrusher Mountain]]]]
After a while, Billy and Dr. Horrible merge into a single (twisted) persona who tries to replace Penny through supervillainous means and also wants to destroy the world as punishment for taking her away in the first place.

[[WMG: The ending is the start of a HeelFaceTurn for Doctor Horrible, who will destroy the Evil League of Evil from within ]]
The fundamental goodness of Penny, so much that she asks Billy if he is okay even while [[spoiler: she herself is dying]] and doesn't hold any grudge against him, is coupled with [[spoiler: her death]] to fundamentally affect Horrible/Billy. The lyrics he sings as he [[spoiler: carries Penny's body]] indicate that Doctor Horrible thinks that Penny believes in a fundamentally good world and that he has inherited it from her. As they cart her away, Billy is choosing to reject the fundamental driving nature of Doctor Horrible while adopting the persona for his own ends. When he enters the League's chamber and sings about making "you quake with fear", he isn't singing to the world, he's singing to the League that he is going to destroy in Penny's name. The final shot of the blog, with Billy wearing his normal clothes, is a sign that Billy has rejected Doctor Horrible. In other words, Billy is about to get [[ThePunisher Frank Castle]] on some bitches.
**Captain Hammer will become scarred and cynical of the real world and, after going through major {{Character Development}}, [[CodeGeass he'll build giant mecha with rollerskates and TAKE OVER THE WORLD.]]

[[WMG: Billy's plan was the same as the one {{Angel}} revealed at the end of the fifth season.]]
He doesn't want to be a supervillain. That's just a means to an end: [[spoiler: joining the Evil League of Evil so that he can find out their secret identities and assassinate all of them ("cut off the head"). In the beginning, he doesn't hate Captain Hammer; he just thinks he's misguided, which is why he's always looking for non-fatal ways to defeat him.]] His blog is not 100% truthful, as [[spoiler:he started it to fool Bad Horse. This explains the contradictions in his ideology--he keeps tacking on references to his own personal ambition when he just wants to help the world. He's cagey with Penny because he suspects her of being a Bad Horse spy.]]

[[spoiler: Now, whether he'll carry out the plan is anybody's guess.]]

[[WMG: Bad Horse is the one of the horses of the apocalypse.]]
Plague, to be specific. [[http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=o7sWSyKK6ug The Evil Germ-Man]] was his rider before Bad Horse cast him off. The singing cowboys are the other three riders after Bad Horse killed and stole the powers of their horses.

[[WMG: The entire show takes place in the {{Watchmen}} universe.]]
The only way Captain Hammer would be looked at like [[Main/TheCape a paragon of virtue]] is if he exists in a world where he is that much better than the other heroes. Compared to The Comedian, Ozymandias, Doctor Manhattan and Rorschach, he looks like a paragon.
* This would also explain Captain Hammer's distrust of "brainy" people if we assume that it's now common knowledge that [[spoiler: the so-called "Smartest Man in the World" killed half of Manhattan in one fell swoop.]]
**[[spoiler: Ozymandias]] was never found out. Because of [[spoiler: the squid monster]], the Keene Act was withdrawn; the world needed superhuman symbols to rally behind. But to prevent the Superheroes from ever becoming a political issue, the government secretly funded a group of costumed criminals: The Evil League of Evil.

[[WMG: Act III takes place in two halves of a forked universe]]
As per the theories above about one part or the other of Act III being a delusion or a hypothetical. Both of these are true, and the delusion/hypothetical aspects are a residual connection between the halves linking Billy with Dr Horrible. Hey, why not? In Dr Horrible's universe, Penny returns [[spoiler:as a ghost]], like in the extensive and elaborate backstory of Main/DonnieDarko. Naturally, this means that Moist will end up tasked with collapsing the tangent timeline. Or something.

[[WMG: Everything in Brand New Day happened, and everything shown after is Dr Horrible speculating on how things would have gone if he hadn't grown himself 50 feet tall]]
Because somebody needed to say it.

[[WMG: Penny was Main/BlessedWithSuck]]
Twice in the play, malfunctioning technology made a beeline for her. First, the van managed to go straight towards her instead of crashing into anything on the way (like a ''wall''). Next, an explosion ''defied the laws of physics'' to hit her with shrapnel. The likeliest explanation is that she has the ability to attract malfunctioning technology, and no knowledge or control over it. Moist demonstrates that superpowers don't have to be particularly impressive in this setting, so if anybody is uncomfortable with the Main/DieForOurShip situation speculated about above...
* So Penny is a WalkingTechbane and a ButtMonkey?
** Well, if she has other powers to back it, that power could have been part of a quasi-reasonable set and theme. Give her regeneration, and you get a living crash-test dummy. Some sort of machine-empathy kind of thing, and she could be a Friend To All Machines, with... super-fixing powers, or something. This could be the reason the van stopped right in front of her: once it was that close, repair powers kicked in, and the van started responding to the remote again. Unfortunately, she wasn't close enough to the death ray; the shrapnel accelerated in defiance of logic too much, and the repair powers could conceivably be limited to circuitry. This leads to the slightly odd conclusion that she died because she was ''too far away'' from the explosion. Granted, if she'd been closer, Billy would only have lived if she'd moved to stop Captain Hammer.

[[WMG: Captain Hammer will return with a cape.]]
It doubles as a security blanket.
* This is now canon in my mind.
*As an addendum, his clothing may be all black (with some white), and he will be [[DarkerAndEdgier GRIMMER and DARKER.]] Like [[ThePunisher Frank Castle.]]

[[WMG: One of Bad Horse's superpowers is teleporting ghost cowboy assassins]]
It's the only way those Bad Horse couriers work and one of the reasons Bad Horse is so feared: he can have a three-man squad of singing ghost cowboys (they have to be ghosts because you can't see the lower halves of their bodies) teleport wherever he wishes to kill anyone who opposes him.
*Aren't those the writers? Therefore, Bad Horse's ability to control the writers makes him an extremely powerful foe.
**Only one of them (Jed Whedon) is a writer. The other two were supposed to be Joss and Zack Whedon, but they couldn't do it for reasons I don't remember, so the other two cowboys are Rob Reinis and Nick Towne, who also play the two moving guys from "So They Say."

[[WMG: The exploding death ray took away Captain Hammer's superpowers.]]
First off, while explosions aren't fun, odds are that can't be the first blow of that magnitude (or even NEAR that magnitude - he jumps from never having felt any pain to unbearable pain) that a seasoned superhero would take. And even if it was just a much harder blow than his super-strength could keep him totally protected from, he is ''still in crippling pain'' days later when he talks to the therapist. That doesn't sound like one painful blow. That sounds like the ''removal'' of his inability to be hurt. Since he has not had a lifetime to get used to everyday bumps and bruises, this new sensation is too much for him to bear. It also explains why he hasn't even tried to get back on his feet and has hidden from the media; he can't continue being Captain Hammer.

Either that, or it severely injured him, probably internally since we can't see it. The pain is now omnipresent and, again, is something he's never had before even in small doses. He's in no shape for heroics and in perfect shape for someone to come finish the job if he doesn't drop off the radar.
*"Blow of that magnitude"? It's a ''death'' ray. The explosion is more than heat and kinetics. It's an explosion of ''death''.

[[WMG: Penny will return in the sequel.]]
She will only appear sporadically for a while, causing Dr. Horrible to believe she is a hallucination. She will turn out to be real, but her personality will be a complete reversal of what it had been - bitter, cynical, angsty, and suicidal - though she will seem to possess Penny's memories. It will turn out that [[spoiler: she was a clone designed to be short-lived, which would be accomplished by her lacking the will to live, with her learning of Billy's new nature and actions being what pushed her over the edge.]] Furthermore, [[spoiler: it will turn out that the clone was created by Bad Horse to fuck with Billy's mind and drive the last vestiges of guilt and morality out of Horrible, making him the perfect asset to the League.]] Of course, [[spoiler: this will work ''too'' well, causing Horrible to go on an unstoppable rampage which will destroy Bad Horse and the rest of the League's inner circle, leaving Horrible in complete control, and allowing him to lead the League to a new glorious age of villainy which will bring the world to its knees.]]

[[WMG: Dr. Horrible is set in the {{Firefly}} universe.]]
In "Brand New Day", when Horrible sings about giving Penny "the keys to a shiny new Australia", he means "shiny" as in the slang for cool used in the Firefly 'Verse; the new Australia refers to the fishy planet of New Melbourne. Dr. Horrible destroys the Earth in a rage, and Firefly is set in the future. The same unreliable and interfering authorities who lock up children for showing signs of high intelligence (as seen in the Captain Hammer comic) later decide to start experimenting on them instead. Mal is the descendsnt of Captain Hammer, which explains how he's able to endure the pain he receives.
** The Death/Stun Ray became the basis for the designs those guards carried in "Ariel".
** For that to be true, either you'd have to have time machines, or a designer of the Firefly cruisers would have to be a Doctor Horrible fan. If you look in the background as the good doctor does his blog, you can clearly see what appears to be Serenity.

[[WMG: Bad Horse is the horse once made a senator by Caligula.]]
He became so accustomed to power that he became an immortal supervillain.
* I don't know who you are, but that's ''brilliant''.

[[WMG: Dr. Horrible, TheTick, and TheVentureBrothers all take place in the same universe.]]
First, take a look at [[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/07/18/DI2008071801208.html this]] interview with Joss, which places The Tick and Dr. Horrible in the same universe via {{Word Of God}}. Getting from there to The Venture Brothers is a bit of a stretch, but Ben Edlund (creator of The Tick) has written for the show, and in one episode a passing reference to a minor Tick villain, Pigleg, is made. Naturally, this would also place all of these shows in the JonnyQuest continuity as well. The relationship between David Bowie of the Guild of Calamitous Intent and The Evil League of Evil's Dead Bowie would have to be explored.

[[WMG:Johnny Snow is (or was) Dr. Horrible's biggest fan.]]
Young, shy Johnny loved Horrible's blog so much, he wanted to become his sidekick. But when he was heartbroken to discover that position taken up by a sweaty guy, Johnny became a superhero in a desperate attempt to try and get Horrible's attention. In a way, he's the anti-[[TheIncredibles Syndrome.]]
* Alternately, he never stopped admiring him. Since approaching the guy and asking to be his sidekick just isn't the way these things work, Snow wants desperately to get the chance to fight Horrible so he can invoke DefeatMeansFriendship.
* Alternately, Johnny Snow is one of Dr. Horrible's own little group of fans, and in denial of his man-crush.
* Alternately, Johnny Snow is a villain - no one said that villains can't have other villains as nemeses. "Slipping" implies that Captain Hammer's the only hero around. (maybe the fee's too pricey/for them to realise/your disguise is slipping) This basically makes Snow the Syndrome.

[[WMG: Billy is Doogie Howser.]]
Alienation due to his unnatural intelligence as well as the frustration at being called ''Doogie'' led him to change his name and undertake a life of crime. Come on, people, it's ''obvious''!
*My god, this makes so much sense!
**It seriously does. The entries Doogie makes into his journal [[OnceAnEpisode at the end of every episode]] -- remind you of a certain villain's blog? And anyone who's seen Doogie express his views on the state of the social system and homelessness and the like can easily see the parallels. For example, in the episode "Every Dog Has His Doogie," Doogie is [[WellIntentionedExtremist perfectly willing to break the rules or his friends' and family's expectations of him to achieve what he thinks is morality]]. This happens a lot. His [[PosterGalleryBedroom poster in his bedroom]], "Save the Humans"-- sound familiar? It also brings up the possibility, or ''probability'', that Horrible's doctorate is not [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate morally ambiguous]] at all, which can be evidenced by the gizmos around Horrible's lab (brain scans, models of the digestive tract, etc.)! Also, both Doogie and Horrible live(d) in the same city -- Los Angeles!
*Watch [[http://www.hulu.com/watch/14512/doogie-howser-md-doogenstein#x-0,vepisode,1 "Doogenstein"]] and tell me that is NOT a young Dr. Horrible.

[[WMG: Bad Horse is the main character.]]
He orchestrated everything through his agents Penny and Captain Hammer (see above). The goal was to turn Dr. Horrible's super-intelligent brain to the side of evil.

[[WMG: The story is an allegory for anti-intellectualism, especially in politics]]
The only things that we see as the world being mad are Captain Hammer being accepted (by people and Penny), and Dr. Horrible and other intelligent people being rejected (by people and Penny). It's similar to how in many facets of life, especialy American politics, charisma is valued over intelligence, and intelligence is often seen as a negative trait. But the intelligent respond to this by being self-righteous, socially awkward, know-it-alls, etc., which only makes the problem worse. Campaign rhetoric, when interpreted logically. When you choose people solely based on charisma, you get flaws similar to Captain Hammer (philandering, taking credit for everything).

[[WMG: Billy/Dr. Horrible is a reincarnation of Alexiel from AngelSanctuary.]]
Even before the whole love-triangle with Penny and Captain Hammer, he still had a pretty crappy life: Getting beaten up by a smarmy jackass is humiliating, and he gets severe injuries at least part of the time (dislocated joints essentially cripple the limb until you get to a doctor--you can't just shove it back in, or else you'll mess up your nerves). His compassion for others (refusing to fight near a park because children play there, and refusing to kill a young future President ''or'' his mother) may be a residual trait of Alexiel's, which was purposefully brought out because, while basic decency is expected for normal people, Billy's compassion specifically conflicts with his hopes to get into the Evil League of Evil--another source of frustration for him.

Once he starts to get resigned to his DesignatedVillain status, he is no longer (as) tormented; YHWH makes sure that he's still miserable by setting up Penny and Captain Hammer. Hammer being aware that he's dating Billy's dream girl was the icing on the cake. Penny herself may be a reincarnation of Jibril, who "protects" Billy in this life by helping him keep his morality and compassion; but her protection is slowly eroded due to Alexiel's required misery and YHWH's manipulation, and Penny's last attempts to help Billy fail because of her death. After that, YHWH's job is done because Billy killed an innocent person ''and'' the love of his life without ever telling her how he felt. His acceptance into the ELE will always remind him of that, and he will spend the rest of his life suffering because Penny isn't there to help him through it--and ''[[ItsAllMyFault it's his fault]]''.

Billy's a CosmicPlaything to the max.

[[WMG:The entire cast is CListFodder]]
The newspapers reporting "Country Mourns" and "Worst Villain Ever" is hyperbole used by overzealous reporters and journalists. Captain Hammer is an incompetent SuperHero who only works in a single city. Billy desperately tries to be taken seriously, but there's nothing he can do to compare to the likes of [[{{Superman}} Lex Luthor]], [[{{Flash}} Zoom]] or [[GreenLantern Sinestro]]. The Evil League of Evil is the local crime syndicate who stay local because they know that the moment they get the attention of an A-List superhero, they'll be [[FinalFantasyI knocked down]] faster than a house of cards.

[[WMG:The Blog is a huge analogy for the Writer's Strike]]
Think of it--a poor, sympathetic protagonist sacrifices everything, including his principles, to join a prestigious league, while crazed fans just chomp down on whatever fodder comes their way, and jerks called "heroes" run the entire system? And to take a leap of faith, would that make Joss Horrible, or... Bad Horse?

[[WMG: It's all a product of Billy Buddy's imagination (save the last 2 words)]]
He's just a lonely, possibly clinically insane, man with nothing but an overactive imagination.

[[WMG: Bad Horse is SuzumiyaHaruhi]]
Pretty much the ''only'' major fantasy Haruhi hasn't lived out yet is [[EvilIsCool being a supervillain]], and Bad Horse's heraldic cowboys look [[AuthorInsertion suspiciously familiar]].
*Also, becoming a horse might appeal to something from her childhood. When a young girl in a cartoon wants something unreasonable, often it's a pony.

[[WMG: Billy is The Master of Doctor Who fame]]
Toward the end of the Doctor Who episode, ''Utopia'', the Master is [[spoiler:posing as the kindly Professor Yana]], his personality sealed away as a method of keeping him imprisoned. Possibly, Billy is in the same situation, a future incarnation of The Master thrown to some far-flung corner of space and time with the "evil" personality sealed away, leaving a well-meaning but rather wet young man with an amazing mind.

However, as life takes its toll on Billy and he suffers humilation and defeat, the mental blocks break down; the older personality reasserts itself, leading to a progressively more dominant "Doctor Horrible" (possibly a reference to his old foe, and his thoughts on him?) taking complete control, with the cover personality removed. Give it a few more weeks and Doctor Horrible will be dancing to ''I Can't Decide'' as he torments Captain Hammer.

[[WMG: Billy read ''{{Twilight}}'']]
Think about it: he thinks that stalking a girl and generally being evil is the way to win her heart. If you get your love advice from ''{{Twilight}}'', that kind of impression is to be expected. Even if you like ''Twilight,'' you can't disprove this theory because, even if he liked the book and considered Edward a role model, he would still try to mirror his actions.

[[WMG: Captain Hammer became a good guy]]
After falling in love, he means what he says about everyone being a hero and only threatens Dr. Horrible after fearing for Penny's life. The therapy is for his subsequent mental breakdown. He'll try to kill Horrible next time when he realizes how dangerous Billy is.
*Except that what he says about everyone being a hero is incredibly arrogant, setting himself up as always a better hero.
*Baby Steps.

[[WMG:The series is a Blog Suicide Letter]]
The parts where the doctor is talking to the camera are pieces from his blog, the fantasy sequences were taken from his mind by some machine he invented and the events happening in reality were taken by nanite-cameras he built to document his joining of the Evil League of Evil. Moments after making his final entry he kills himself.
* The Evil League of Evil is in or in charge of hell, hence supposedly-Fake Thomas Jefferson and Dead Bowie and everyone looking like a Tim Burton villain reject. The EvilCostumeChange isn't because he's dead, it's just one of hell's [[CustomUniform dress]] [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience code]]! "There will be blood, it might be yours, so go kill someone, signed Bad Horse"... It's not IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten, the only way to get there is by dying!

[[WMG: There is a Neutral League of Neutral in charge of both the supers and villains.]]
The Evil League of Evil isn't as Evil as it could be, especially considering Captain Hammer seemed to be the only superhero that mattered to the press, and completely disappeared after the Death Ray incident. Captain Hammer doesn't look like the kind of guy who would stay a superhero instead of using his abilities for MundaneUtility (at least becoming a movie star), or even becoming a villain, so there's probably someone in charge to make sure the heroes don't get bored and the villains don't get away with any unacceptable casualties.

[[WMG: The car did hit Billy directly in the head.]]
He went limp when he saw the car flying at him, and the car merely pushed him under it. He likely had more pain in his neck than his head, even if it only grazed him. Possibly, [[GogglesDoSomethingUnusual the goggles saved him]] by absorbing the excess kinetic ([[YouFailScienceForever but somehow not heat) energy, similar to the freeze ray]], so it was more like a mylar ballon hitting him at 30mph than a car.
* He said Captain Hammer threw the car at his head, but he never said the car actually made any contact. All he's saying is that the car came in his direction.

[[WMG: Brand New Day with Giant Doctor Horrible was a flashback, not a daydream.]]
He can survive having cars successfully thrown at his head due to an inversion of the SquareCubeLaw's use in most media.

[[WMG: Members entering the Evil League if Evil must kill their loved one to enter the Evil League Of Evil, and resurrect and turn them to advance in the ranks.]]
This [[{{WMG/StarWars}} sith-like]] "subjugation of nature" attitude explains Dead Bowie (By Tie Die?) and supposedly-Fake Thomas Jefferson (probably brought back by an unseen and possibly [[{{Permadeath permadead]] former member). Penny may be the future [[MeaningfulName Fro-Yo]], or Nurse Horrible, assisting the doctor with his freeze ray.

[[WMG: The entire show was created for the sole purpose of making Neil Patrick Harris the definition of cool and encouraging people to emulate him.]]
In "Everything You Ever", Dr. Horrible sings, "Now Dr. Horrible is here / To make you quake with fear / To make the whole world kneel". However, once you remember that Horrible is played by Neil Patrick Harris, you can also interpret that last line to be, [[spoiler: "To make the whole world Neil". In the end, he "won't feel a thing" because Neil will have lost his uniqueness and individuality in a sea of inferior impersonators. (All the better for Joss Whedon or Nathan Fillion to fill the power vacuum after Neil steps down.)]]
Hey, it's called [[{{Main/WildMassGuessing}} Wild Mass Guessing]] for a reason. Also, [[{{Main/Moonraker}} people have thought of stranger plans]].
* [[{{Tunod}} This Troper]] had a very similar idea, and in fact came to this page just to pose it. To wit: [[spoiler:The entire musical is in fact Neil Patrick Harris's coming out as a supervillain, in disguise ("Now the nightmare's real / Now Doctor Horrible is here..."). His entire diabolical plan will be to release some sort of genophage which will resequence the entire world's DNA to turn them into Neil Patrick Harris clones, so that they know what his life is like, and as he is the 'original', they will have to defer to his greater level of experience at being Neil Patrick Harris. And because he's already Neil Patrick Harris, he won't feeeeeeeeeeeel... a thing~.]]
** [[{{OODavo}} This troper's]] extrapolated the above theory: [[spoiler:Assuming that this plan exists, Neil would carry it out at some point. Since DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog is TheReveal of his plan, no doubt CommentaryTheMusical is the best place to execute it, no? To be specific, [=NPH=] activated the "Make-The-Whole-World-Neil-O-Tron" at the beginning of the song "Neil's Turn". Everybody else turned into duplicates of Neil, which is how he could "sing my own harmonies". He's alone not because everyone left, but because everyone's Neil. ThePowerOfFriendship reverses the transformation at the end of the song. Most of the world dismissed the Neil-ness as a hallucination or bad dream (or good dream? Neil's CrazyAwesome, after all), but everyone in Commentary! knew about it. This, incidentally, is why Felicia calls Neil a douche immediately afterwards: he just put a Plan of Ultimate Evil into action, after all.]]

[[WMG: Doctor Horrible will use {{How I Met Your Mother}}'s Barney as his civilian persona.]]
Both characters begin as well-intentioned but timid, have something go very wrong with a girl, and in response seal up their hearts and become soulless bastards... though [[MagnificentBastard Barney]]'s is [[HeroicSociopath played for laughs]]. Admit it: [[FaceHeelTurn it's creepily possible]].
* That's been a part of this Troper's personal canon since he started watching HowIMetYourMother.
* It's been a part of this Troper's canon, too, ever since reading the magnificent fanfic [[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4666548/1/Billy_Stinson Billy Stinson.]]

[[WMG: Captain Hammer was physiologically scarred by a homeless person when he was a child.]]
The way he flinches from the homeless, describing them as "a bunch of scary, alcoholic bums"...

[[WMG: Captain Hammer never had any superpowers]]
The online comic is from his perspective, and notably over-the-top, so him throwing Dr. Horrible that far could easily be an exaggeration. His ability to avoid pain and defeat villains could be attributed to his ability to get the first punch consistently, and we never actually see him "throw a car" at Dr. Horrible, so that could be an exaggeration too. For all we know, he's just a very strong braggart who's never experienced real pain before.
* Apart from there being no real reason not to take Dr. Horrible at his word, Captain Hammer surviving the exploding death ray at point blank at all, the sheer distance he got tossing Penny to one side, and his general reputation as a full-fledged superhero, it says a lot that he was fully prepared to stop an out-of-control van with his bare (well, gloved) hands. Turned out not to be necessary since Dr. Horrible managed to get the brakes working, but he was clearly banking on super-strength and invulnerability at that moment.
** There's also a brief scene during his date with Penny where he pedals a two-person pedal-boat around comically fast.
* It's worth pointing out that ''Captain Hammer: Be Like Me!'' was indeed exaggerating his Horrible-throwing-ability. We see the same event in ''Moist: Humidity Rising'', and according to Moist, Hammer just punched Horrible to the ground.

[[WMG: Penny is actually [[BuffyTheVampireSlayer Vi]]]]
She was on a mission to redeem Dr. Horrible, possibly as part of a larger plan to get at the Evil League of Evil. Her dating Captain Hammer was meant to communicate to Billy that she likes good guys. The idea was to inspire Billy to outdo Captain Hammer at being a good guy (not that difficult, honestly). They also had an insurance plan in case Captain Hammer went evil after Penny left him for Billy - Dr. Horrible and a Slayer would easily defeat Captain Hammer.
* This also increases the chance that Penny has survived the ending due to Slayer toughness. Once she recovers, Buffy will order her to kill Dr. Horrible.
* This would explain her babbling at Hammer after being rescued. Her Slayer powers would have meant she'd be able to easily survive being hit by a van (Buffy herself was hit by a truck once and got up with barely a scratch on her). When Penny was saying thank you she wasn't in shock, she was [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial overcompensating]].
--> '''Penny:''' Thank you Hammer man, I don't think I can/Explain how important it was that you stopped the van/I would be splattered, I'd be crushed into debris/Thank you sir for saving me

[[WMG: Penny is actually [[TheGuild Cyd Sherman]]]]
While we're randomly guessing that every role played by FeliciaDay is the same person (see above), let's add that Penny is actually [[TheGuild Cyd Sherman]]. After the events of DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog, Penny got [[BackFromTheDead raised]] using a magic spell from the RPG the Guild play. [[CameBackWrong As a result of having magic from the game cast upon her]], Penny became incredibly addicted to the game. She tossed away her old life and name, and started playing the game 24/7. Speaking of games, you just [[spoiler:lost TheGame.]] [[EvilLaugh HA!]] ([[CommentaryTheMusical That's just how I laugh.]])

[[WMG: The Newswoman is an [[{{Dollhouse}} Active.]] ]]
Captain Hammer hired her to say nothing but positive things about him to boost his PR. He's certainly got the clout. And in the song "So They Say," she has the line "Let's all be our best." Eerily similar to "I try to be my best."

[[WMG: Captain Hammer really is just a good guy.]]
And Dr. Horrible is just deranged. The only evidence we see for the world needing social change is that everyone likes Captain Hammer. Sure, he's a bit of a git sometimes, but he's a legitimately good guy, he even tries to help the homeless, it's unlikely that he's just helping them for Penny as he already has a fanclub of people willing to "do the weird stuff" with him, and he was interested in her before he found out that Horrible was. The only bad things he does are being mean to Dr. Horrible (a supervillain and criminal who logically should be in jail), brushing off his shoulder after that guy touches him (So he likes being clean), and his song "Everyone's A Hero," which to me seems more like he's failing at public speaking than someone whose obsessed with himself.
*While I admit that "Everybody's a Hero" sounds more like someone who sucks at public speaking, it is also extreamly self obsessing. Really, everyone is completely apathetic except Penny, although I wouldn't say that Billy/Dr. Horrible cares about that.
*Hammer lets the runaway van nearly careen into Penny because he's busy singing about how great he is. In the comic he encourages reporting smart and weird kids to the cops as potential supervillains. As for the homeless shelter business, it might still have been to get with Penny, because he directly states he's just dating her to piss off Horrible. Besides, one of the moving guys notes that the shelter is the only time he's used his fame to help people ("about time").

[[WMG: The Evil League of Evil is a cover for [[{{Runaways}} The Pride]].]]
Captain Hammer is really one of their agents disposing of superpowered compition under the guise of a hero. It is because he got accepted into the leauge that Hammer stopped picking on Billy not because he was defeated. Besides LA isn't really a hot spot for super activities in most universes and they both had Joss Whedon writing about them for a while.

[[WMG: Wonderflonium is used to focus ray devices.]]
Think about it. Before Dr. Horrible got the Wonderflonium, the only ray he had that worked ''at all'' was the transmatter ray. It snatched up soup instead of gold bars because it wasn't sufficiently focused to get into the vault, and hit someone's lunch instead. The muscle-ray just clicked, and didn't work at all. It's outright stated that the freeze ray requires wonderflonium. Finally, "Do Not Bounce". Clearly, the death ray used wonderflonium, because it exploded immediately after bouncing.

[[WMG: The car missed.]]
Captain Hammer through a car at Dr. Horrible's head. He missed. The end. No hallucinations. No exagerrations. He just missed.
* That seems to be the general consensus, especially considering that Dr. Horrible still has a head.
* Because, for whatever reason, the [[BloodlessCarnage standard laws of comic book combat]] are assumed not to apply in this world. Go figure.
* It's a {{Deconstruction}}. Of course the combat is more realistic.

[[WMG: Dr. Horrible is a younger version of Nathan from Repo!TheGeneticOpera.]]
...just imagine how screwed-up that would leave a guy...

[[WMG: Wonderflonium is an isotope of [[TheoryOfNarrativeCausality narrativium]].]]
Specifically, wonderflonium is the common term for narrativium-14 - although it has differing physical properties, it retains the most basic feature of all elements in the narrativium family (other elements include alliterium and tropium) - narrativium-14, wonderflonium, behaves in certain ways simply because the plot says so. Examples: In Act I, Captain Hammer completely destroyed the Horribe Van Remote receiver. It only started working again because the wonderflonium inside the van generated a field of... [[BuffySpeak plotness]], and the plot said that the remote worked again just in time. In Act II, the freeze ray fails, because it runs on wonderflonium. The plot states that Horrible's heist in Act II must fail, or Act III would never have happened, so the wonderflonium's failure following the plot. In Act III, the freeze ray fails ''again''. Not only that, but it fails at ''exactly'' the perfect dramatic moment in terms of plot. How can this be? Because the plot says that it does, and narrativium-14 follows the plot.
* That's also why the Death Ray exploded and killed Penny. The plot said that it was supposed to work and Captain Hammer killed Dr. Horrible, which would become Penny's own StartOfDarkness, but the Wonderflonium in the gun had been bounced, so it screwed up the plot.

[[WMG: The entire show is from the perspective of Dr. Horrible narrating the event in his blog.]]
This is why Billy's painted as the victim, Hammer is such a blatant jerk/idiot, the townspeople don't catch on, and Penny's idealized to the point of being a flat character.

[[WMG: Act III, from the shelter onwards, was from the perspective of the Reportress.]]
Yes, the Reportress (of TerrorIsland fame), disguised as a normal reporter. The one who wrote "Horible", specifically. Her superpowers are: mis-spelling "horrible" without assistance, and Mad Reportin Skillz™.
*With her Mad Reportin Skillz™, the Reportress could tell that Captain Hammer was a total jerk. He didn't actually sing "Everyone's a Hero", despite being a huge jerk - he sung an actual inspirational song, and the Reportress "embellished" the lyrics with her knowledge of his character.
*When Doctor Horrible arrives, the Reportress uses her Mad Reportin Skillz™ to discover his actual motives ([=ELE=], Penny, etc.). Because "Slipping" is incredibly [[RuleOfCool awesome]], the Reportress simply recorded the lyrics as they were, no embellishment necessary. When she's mis-spelled "horible" (sic) on her journalling paper, she's not writing ''about'' Doctor Horrible. She's actually written: "Anarchy! That I run!/It's Doctor Horible's turn!" (sic), and when Doctor Horrible spots this, he helps her correct it.
*Finally, the Reportress fled the scene when the death ray exploded - she did see the shrapnel's destination, however, and wrote "Everything You Ever" based on the evidence of the shrapnel, and the knowledge of Horrible through Mad Reportin Skillz™. She wrote the tune based on Mad Reportin Skillz™, and most of the lyrics based simply on supervillain cliche statements.
* After all this work, the Reportress found Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day. She got them to do a re-enactment of the shelter scene, based on what she'd written down. This is what we see in Act III. What really happened in the shelter? We may only learn in the sequel.

[[WMG:The entire Blog was created to advertise for TheGuild.]]
If Penny wasn't killed, she couldn't have "shilled for TheGuild" in [[CommentaryTheMusical Commentary!]]. Therefore, the entire plot of DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog is merely a front to allow FeliciaDay to insert advertising into something by JossWhedon - since anything by JossWhedon is watched by nerds, they're exactly the target market for TheGuild as well!

[[WMG: Billy's full name is Billy Horrible.]]
And he has a [=PhD=] in [[AppliedPhebotinum Applied Quantum Physics]], not in Horribleness. Captain Hammer was made a captain when he signed up for the military's Super-Hero Home-Front Initiative, like [[FullMetalAlchemist state alchemists]] and possibly [[NeonGenesisEvangelion EVA pilots]] automatically get an officer rank.

[[WMG: The entirety of Act 3 was an imagination spot...]]
Where Billy was trying to prove to himself that he didn't need to feel, and failed. That's what the last part of the final line was- getting choked up at even just imagining it, and knowing he couldn't [[spoiler: kill Captain Hammer just to settle a grudge and get into the Evil League of Evil.]]

[[WMG: The Death Ray works by [[MadeOfPlasticine making people into plasticine]].]]
Not literally. Captain Hammer became vunerable because of this, and Penny was killed because the shrapnel was still charged with the plasticination-power. If Captain Hammer's powers work in a way similar to the AT Field of NeonGenesisEvangelion, it could easily be that his field is strong enough that is can't be dented with knives or bullets and disrupt his physical body]], which seems quite likely considering it hurt in his heart. This could be backed up by "it's gonna be bloody" in the song. If it worked like a typical (for a non-explosive) death ray, it would most likely have simply killed him to death instead of anything bloody. It could have been that Doctor Horrible didn't know if it was going to just make Hammer really weak and vulnerable to the point he couldn't stay alive, or if it would completely destabilize him (though, Evangelion Spoiler: [[spoiler: Instrumentality Tang would not normally be described as bloody]]).

[[WMG: The Death Ray had no wonderflonium.]]
It didn't bounce, it just cracked. The energy hit Captain Hammer through the cracks and made him vulnerable to shrapnel.

[[WMG: In the final scene, Doctor Horrible's new gloves are the same as Captain Hammer's.]]
Probably just from the same Super Costumes Outlet, but they could be a trophy. And we don't see Captain Hammer after the scene at the psychiatrist's office, so they don't ''have'' to be another pair.

[[WMG: Captain Hammer wears gloves to keep from breaking the skin of his knuckles.]]
Only his skeleton is invincible, and his muscles became unusually-but-not-necessarily-super-strong to compensate. He has an inability to feel pain, so he just makes sure to rely on his boots and gloves to keep his bones from ripping through his skin when he punches a villain too hard. The death ray jump-started his nervous system instead of shutting it down.

[[WMG: [[http://www.warehousecomic.com/ TheWarehouse]] webcomic is the future of Doctor Horrible.]]
Ball, Peen, and Super Dick were separated from Captain Hammer. Hammer acts just like Super Dick would with a bit more motivation. What caused this lack of motivation? Ball and Peen being separated into their own characters. If you recall, the hammer is his penis, and Captain Hammer's motivations appear to be primarily getting sex. Doctor Horrible became Charles the Raver after he tried to kill himself, but took psychotropic drugs instead of sleeping pills and decided he liked the feeling enough that life was worth livign and the world was worth saving (his full name is William Charles Horrible). The various themed characters would seem to fit perfectly with the supers theme in Doctor Horrible (that is, puns and uselessness), as would the villains (numerous and ineffectual).

[[WMG: Doctor Horrible is the good side and Billy is the evil side.]]
He always shows the most remorse and is much less manipulative as Doctor Horrible. He sings ''Brand New Day'' as Billy, and the closest thing Doctor Horrible gets to a VillainSong is ''Slipping'', which could be about his roles slipping (like WMG has assumed), but in the other direction. Billy wants to be a super villain, and stalks Penny and puts on a false front to make her like him, but Doctor Horrible only once makes anything stronger than a stun ray and shows what appears to be genuine emotion the one time he interacts with Penny.

[[WMG: The Hammer is his yacht.]]
Captain Hammer's "the Hammer" [[FreudWasRight is his penis the same way a knight's lance is his penis]], or [[{{Shrek}} Lord Faarquad]]'s castle was [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar his height]]. That's why he's Captain Hammer. And it answers Penny's question of what he's captain of.

[[WMG: The Guy Who Smells Like Poo is a spy for the Evil league of Evil.]]
He was standing by the fire drum behind Billy at the same time that he was in the homeless shelter having soup. There are at least two of him, probably psychically linked and possibly a Multiple man. The smell that smells like poo may be a side effect of his power, or it could be method acting.

[[WMG: DoctorHorriblesSingAlongBlog is a ShowWithinAShow.]]
Specifically, it's within CommentaryTheMusical. Simple.

[[WMG: Everything after Brand New Day was a what-if scenario.]]
(Yes, it's another one of these.) Billy headed back to his apartment/lab, intent on bringing about Hammer's demise, but something made him reconsider. Maybe Moist talked him down, or maybe he just needed some time to cool off. He decided that it was too risky, and the likelihood that someone innocent would be harmed was too high. But he didn't want to abandon the idea completely, especially since the ELE would [[spoiler: kill him]] if he did. So he and Moist paid a visit to Hourglass, whose conveniently only-vaguely-alluded-to powers include not only seeing into the future, but living it or allowing others to. Hourglass put Billy into a trance, and in his mind he went through with his plan - of course completely unaware at the time that it was a what-if. (This could also explain why time seems to pass so quickly in the last part of Act III.)

Shortly after the last shot, Moist and Hourglass manage to snap Billy out of it. He is horrified, and, naturally, decides not to go through with it.

[[WMG: Dr. Horrible and JohnathonCoulton's song "Skullcrusher Mountain" describe parallel universes.]]
It's just that in Dr. Horrible, he met Penny before he completed his rise to supervillainy, mostly because Joss is an evil, evil person.

[[WMG: "Johnny Snow" is, in fact, a woman.]]
With the name Joni Snow.
* This troper would like to ascribe to this theory as well, and propose an alternate form. Johnny Snow is a woman (or an androgyne) who thinks she'll get by better in the whole superhero-supervillain thing with a male persona.

[[WMG: Caption Hammer really was falling in love with Penny]]
He's never been in love with someone before so he's not used to it. If she had lived then she would have dumped him and he may have realised that he's a jerk and actully attempted to improve himself.

[[WMG: The sequel will be "Penny's Sing Along Blog"]]
We will see the story from her point of veiw, including what made her think that Caption Hammer wasn't a complete jerk among other things. This will also explain her final comment.

[[WMG: or the sequel will be ''Caption Hammer's Sing Along Blog'']]
Same as above except with Hammer.

[[WMG: Penny is the true hero in this show]]
I know it's a little sappy, but think about it. She's not perfect like Billy wants to believe, but she is the true hero. She is the only selfless person who desires is to be a symbol hope for others. Her death repesents the end of true heroes as everyone just shifts over from apathetic hope to apathetic fear. Penny repesented true change for the better.

[[WMG: Penny would have dumped Hammer if not for....]]
... the fact that he help her get the building she needed for the homeless, and she would have felt terrible and others would have assumed she slept with him to get what she wanted.
* For that matter...

[[WMG: Penny slept with Hammer to get what she wanted]]
All for the sake of the homeless. I can't bring myself to hate her....

[[WMG: "Johnny Snow" is Jon Snow from A Song of Ice and Fire]]
Which makes the entiredy of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog actually a commentary on the wars in Westros. Penny as Sansa Stark? Moist as Tyrion?

[[WMG: In the sequel Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer will go at each other.]]
Ok, I know this one sounds obvious, and most people seem to be expecting Joss to do something unexpected, but I think going the obvious route would actually be appropriate in this case, given some of the above theories. After all, now that Penny's dead, the real Dr. Horrible is awake, and he won't be holding back. Furthermore, for the first time in his life Captain Hammer had been beaten, and so for the first time he'll actually be recognizing another person as a threat to him. So, I think the results will actually be the two being absolutely ruthless for 40 minutes.

[[WMG: The ELE uses a blood-in blood-out system.]]
For those unfamiliar with this, its a system common in prison gangs, where you must commit a murder to get in, and are killed if you leave. It helps to filter out cops, who wouldn't kill for admission. It seems that the Evil League does the same, at least to an extent. Apparently they were willing to let Dr. Horrible in if he committed sufficient crimes without killing at the very beginning, which presumably would have still required him to wreak more havoc than a cop would be willing to, but it explains why they decided a single murder was enough to get into a major supervillain organization.

[[WMG: Captain Hammer is Superboy Prime.]]
That's why he has sweater vests - he's trying to be like Superman. It also explains why he's such a dick.

[[WMG: Billy and Dr. Horrible are the same person. Gasp!]]
Just throwing it out there. Dr. Horrible and Billy, are in fact, a single coherent mind, not a split personality. This would explain why he has exactly the same mannerisms and shows the same goals and emotions, except for being slightly less shy as Dr. Horrible (which is to be expected, since he's using a costume and alter ego), and even then it's only because until the end he has no direct interaction with Penny in costume to MAKE him go ShrinkingViolet. It would also explain why he's just as likely to act evil while dressed as Billy (starting Brand New Day) and can cry remorsefully as Dr. Horrible (Everything You Ever). Really, it should be a ''given'' that there is no split personality, merely a single character who experiences a tragedy brought about by his own myopia, but because of the prevalence of the {{Fanon}}, I'll just lump this in as another theory.
* Some people also feel empowered by wearing the costume. His so called evilness is him being confident. It's not a split personality, it's a sad story. Just like in Watchmen with Dan and Nite Owl. He's only confident as Nite Owl, but Nite Owl is essentially Dan Dreiberg.
**Yes, this is what I was getting at. He's not as shy as Dr. Horrible because he is empowered in costume and because there are few Penny scenes to make him crumple. Almost everyone experiences it in some form. Taking on another persona who is meant to be greater than you and is made to appear "separate" from you is of ''course'' going to be psychologically liberating in many ways.

[[WMG: Dr. Horrible has a superpower, and it's simply being MadeOfIron.]]
I have some evidence to support this one. When he's hit by a car, all he has are a few bruises. When the Death Ray explodes, killing a person and injuring [[MadeOfIron Captain Hammer]], he's completely uninjured. Hammer also beats him up by slamming his head on a truck repeatedly, as well as what's shown on A Brand New Day, as well as a punch right after Slipping. This makes perfect sense, (more than 99% of the things on this page) and explains what was formerly just a way for JossWhedon to indulge in his trademark girl murder. And that's not even talking about his personal life.
* This actually ''does'' make perfect sense, as surprised as I am to say it. Many people just HandWave the "threw a car at my head" thing as Captain Hammer threw a car and ''missed'', and Billy was just pointing out how extreme that was. On the other hand, he has a gigantic bruise over his face, showing his face and head were hurt. This was usually taken as Captain Hammer beat him up afterwards. But the line is funnier and simpler if you interpret the bruises as the car actually hit him. In which case he would need such powers to even have a head still on his shoulders. It would also explain how a guy who can pick up and throw a car could punch Billy and show intent to kill in Act III, and send Billy across the room, without leaving so much as a scratch. Or we could just chalk it up to the MST3KMantra in a comic-book style world allowing a non-powered Billy to take the abuse.
* It's also been said before.

[[WMG:Captain Hammer becomes a true hero in the sequel]]
The guilt and physical pain from the shelter incident, coupled with the therapy, make Hammer feel empathy for others for the first time. The sobbing he was doing in therapy during the ending montage happenned when he realized what a bastard he was. He becomes a humbler, more compassionate hero (but still an idiot), parallelling Horrible's descent into true villainry.
* The sequel will be about his fight with Dr. Horrible, who he can never defeat because of guilt over what Horrible became. Hammer may find a new LoveInterest, which [[RevengeByProxy Horrible will kill in revenge]], causing Hammer to kill Horrible, and give up the concept of being a "hero".
**Or not.

[[WMG: Moist is gay]]
Well, I'm only basing it on one tiny bit, but, it's the room with the whole girly motif and the guy in pink latex right next to him. [[{{Squick}} But, then again, now he has a use for his powers of making things moist... and slippery... ''lubricated''.]]
* So why is he friends with the [[TransparentCloset Pink]] [[BuryYourGays Pummeler]], eh? (Whose room I'm assuming it was, by the way, since Moist is shown in the comics to live in an undecorated one-room apartment, including the restroom).
** Am I the only one who got the vibe off the Bait & Switch double-date thing that one of them (probably Switch) was a guy? He doesn't sound disappointed, just a little weirded out.

[[WMG: The Transmatter ray didn't transport a gold bullion after all]]
It transported the person who was guarding it. As people are made up of many more different elements than gold, they simply re-arranged themselves in-transit and turned the poor guard into slop. He also sniffs it as says something suspiciously like 'Smells like human...'
* It's ''cumin'', as in the spice. [[DontExplainTheJoke It's supposed to be a joke about gold bullion/bouillon.]]
*Cumin is a yellow spice, which would look quite a lot like gold. Since we know that Captain Hammer and the police watch Dr. Horrible's blog...

[[WMG: Doctor Horrible is [[CaptainScarlet indestructible]]!]]
That car that Cap. Hammer threw at him ''did'' give him horrendous wounds and/or broke his neck, [[IGotBetter but he got better]].
* Captain Hammer is not indestructible (at least not by that much), and look what happened when he tried to imitate him!

[[WMG: There was a considerable amount of time between the explosion of the death ray and Doctor Horrible coughing.]]
Given the above theory, Retrometabolism is not an instant deal, and that explosion was a freakin' ''big one!''.
*Captain Hammer has [[NighInvulnerable another type of immunity to death]], but that explosion was a little too much... the kind that left him with a [[BrokeYourArmPunchingOutCthulhu closed head-injury type of energy feedback]]. He probably couldn't feel his legs for a while, and even then, as he said... in his heart, it hurts.
*[[spoiler:Penny might also have Retrometabolism, but the [[BackFromTheDead regeneration process]] probably'll render her [[CameBackWrong a little twisted]], [[EvilAllAlong just like it has to Dr. Horrible]].]]

[[WMG: Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog was produced by Doctor Horrible and was a work of fiction in-universe.]]
And if the broadcast hack during the 2008-2009 Emmy Awards broadcast means anything, he's from (or came to) our universe. Captain Hammer (or Nathan Fillion in costume) is also a villain or henchman, and Penny is aware of the bad Doctor's identity. The main clue that it can't be before the end of the Blog is that Penny knows who it is. The main clue that it can;t be after the Bllog is that [[spoiler: Penny's still alive]]. Although it could just mean that [[spoiler: Penny survived]].

[[WMG: Doctor Horrible/Billy actually became the [[BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold Music Meister]] ]]
Think about it, both characters are voiced by Neil Patrick Harris, both love to sing... hell, Music Meister's abilities are decidedly non-lethal as well ''(fitting with most of Horrible's schemes)'', not to mention a similar taste in main outfits. The only real difference is that the Music Meister claims to have a different background. This alone can be solved by claiming he used his newfound sound powers to brainwash himself into a different persona.
The next episode of BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold that features the Music Meister will have to address this.

[[WMG: Bad Horse is Khartoum from TheGodfather ]]
He was reaminted and pure evil as a result. He has a complete disregard for human life after humans killed him for little reason. the cowboys are the stable boys who used to tend to him and have been bent to his evil will. this would also explain hows he's a Thoroughbred horse after all Khartoum was a 600k stud horse...

[[WMG: Dead Not Sleeping (the second e-mailer) is Captain Hammer...]]
... trying to find out who Dr.Horrible likes, in order to crush his hopes with her.
* This actually makes quite a lot of sense.

[[WMG: Dr. Horrible is the cause of, and product of, a StableTimeLoop]]
Dr. Horrible enlists the aid of Hourglass to go back in time and rescue Penny before the events of the Sing-Along Blog. However, he overshoots his mark by a couple of decades, ending up before Penny is even born. Frustrated at failing again, he sinks deeper into the Dr. Horrible persona and does what any good supervillain would do -- take over the world. He is eventually overthrown, and a world now fearful of super-science villains begins persecuting anybody who shows even the slightest spark of scientific aptitude. It's into this world that Billy Buddy is born, and after a lifetime of torture in a CrapsackWorld, he comes to see Dr. Horrible as a misunderstood benevolent dictator, takes up his mantle, and vows to fix the world... and the cycle is complete.

[[WMG: Billy/Dr. Horrible is [[CodeGeass Lelouch vi Britannia]] if the timeline hadn't changed.]]
Both of them are geniuses who want to change the world through revolution, but the Horribleverse follows a more similar timeline to ours, and Dr. Horrible/Billy has a much harder battle to fight because changing the structure of a 300-year-old government is harder than getting a revolution of a people that have been conquered and discriminated against by Britannia. Penny is Suzaku (she also wants to change the world, but through less anarchic means), and Dr. Horrible is probably Clovis.

[[WMG: The whole show is a fictionalization of a talented but unpopular high school student's life.]]
The student (Billy/Dr. Horrible) lives with his equally unpopular brother (Moist) and is trying hard to get accepted to a table of drama geeks who are highly intelligent but very elitist. Penny is pretty much herself and Captain Hammer is an arrogant jock. The freeze ray is actually an act of humiliation and the death ray represents the student's decision to injure the jock as well as humiliate him. When Penny dies, it represents the girl moving away/becoming inaccessible to them both.
* I agree, with a few additional remarks:
** Billy Horrible: straight A student. His geekiness coupled with an unfortunate last name makes him withdraw in on himself and study even harder. He decides to use his last name as a TakeThat and styles himself Doctor because he intends to pursue a doctorate later in life, when he gets out of this [[CrapsackWorld crapsack High School]]. He starts to devise pranks, such as stealing cumin-spiced soup from the cafeteria.
** Bad Horse: John Horse, a DM. Billy is trying to get in on a DungeonsAndDragons game, but they all ropleplay as Evil (Dead Bowie is Neutral Evil, Fake Thomas Jefferson is Lawful Evil.) He has to prove he can role-play evil, and starts a Blog where he acts like a supervillain. Bad Horse's parents own a western-themed singing-telegraph buisness.
** Captain Hammer: Matt, Captain of the football team (The Hammers) and known bully. He has a habit of taking Billy's lunch money: notice how he always takes him to the same corner at recess to punch him? Referred in the school as Captain Hammer, or Hammer for short.
** Penny: the Lunch Lady. She wants the school to build a new Cafeteria, but the board is indifferent. Billy has a crush on her. Hammer offers to drive her home just to make Billy jealous. Things get out of hand. The lunch lady knows what she is doing is wrong because she is much older. She becomes very guilty. Instead of giving the extra frozen yogurts to Hammer she tries to give them to Billy, but Billy stops going to the cafeteria while he is plotting his revenge.
** Moist: Billy's roommate. Moist doesn't shower often.
** Billy's rant about the system: school sucks. No one notices when Hammer punches Billy at recess, or cares. Hammer is the idol of the school because he wins football games, so they let everything slide. He suspects Hammer is using amphetamines and cheating, and that the school knows and lets him play anyways, because they have a chance at winning the title. The school board has gone insane.
** Hammer convinces the Principal to build a new Cafeteria. He doesn't really care about a new cafeteria: the football team has its own dinning room. After all he doesn't want to mingle with the bums (other less-cool students).
** Hammer *DOES* throw a car at him the day the principal breaks ground on a new cafeteria. It's a Tonka Truck. It smarts.
** During Hammer's speech at the inauguration of the new Cafeteria, Billy sets his plan in motion. It is a very elaborate pratical joke that involves acid pilfered from the school's chemistry lab. Everyone gets to see Hammer's use of amphetamines had a negative effect on his... [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean hammer]]. Hammer is utterly humiliated in front of the entire school and runs away crying, shattering his jock image completely. Also, the acid hurts in a way slamming into someone wearing full protective gear and a helmet doesn't: it's the first time he feels that burn. The prank is in so poor taste the lunch lady is disgusted and actually quits, and moves to another town. Billy's ruthless pranks and pratical jokes make him a terror on the schoolyard. He gets accepted at the D&D game, but he realises he's no longer acting, he really is Chaotic Evil.

[[WMG: Capatain Hammer is an alternate version of BoosterGold.]]
Their personalities are just way too similar (most of the time).

[[WMG: The whole show is an adaptation of Hamlet.]]
* The protagonist is undone by his hesitation to take revenge, destroying basically everything he cared about in the process, despite achieving his goal.
* Penny is an amalgamation of Ophelia (TheIngenue caught between the men in her life, who dies as a result) and Queen Gertrude (romantically involved with the antagonist, who accidentally kills her in an attempt to off the protagonist).

[[WMG: Dr. Horrible is [[CalvinAndHobbes a grown-up Calvin.]] ]]
We see numerous instances of Calvin showing tendencies to Evil Overlord-dom, but also of him showing compassion (the baby raccoon) and concern at the state of the world, to the point where he's willing to leave Earth entirely for Mars. When he grew up, he assimilated Hobbes' persona - this also hampered his natural scientific tendencies, because Hobbes was always holding Calvin back from such (never willing to be transmogrified or duplicated, remember). When he grows up, he goes by his middle name instead of his first name (Calvin William Buddy becomes Billy Buddy), but still finds himself beset by thuggish bullies and enamored of quiet, smart girls. He puts his overactive imagination into action by trying to become Dr. Horrible - just the descendant of Spaceman Spiff and Stupendous Man, hampered by grown-up uncertainty and doubt. However, when he snaps, he snaps ''but good.'' And finally, what is the color of the lab coat that Dr. Horrible dons in the last scene?

[[WMG: The wheel fell off ]]
..and hit him in the face.

[[WMG: Doctor Horrible is a grown up DoogieHowser]]
Both played by Neil Patrick....both doctors...

[[WMG: Doctor Horrible is a grown up Charlie Brown]]
Charlie Brown is light haired, Horrible has blond hair. Penny is a red-head. Charlie Brown's love is the little redhead girl. Horrible wants to tell Penny he loves her hair.

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