The Evil Organization: Evil Geniuses | Henchmen | Minions
The Forces of Justice: Super Agents | Agents
General Tropes
The Henchmen, as their title may imply, are your seconds. They are far stronger than normal minions and have their own special abilities.- After-Combat Recovery:
- In Evil Genius, after a fight where they haven't been knocked out but have taken a lot of damage, every Henchmen will perform some kind of ritual to quickly regenerate their stats (Lord Kane reads a book, Eli Barracuda combs his Funny Afro, Jubei sharpens his sword, etc.).
- In Evil Genius 2, Henchmen have lost the ability to recover on the spot and must either retreat to the Inner Sanctum or take a seat at the Conference Table only available in said room.
- Bullying a Dragon: Quite a baffling amount of them will choose this strategy from the onset in 2 should the Geniuses wish to offer them a place in their council, because somehow almost all of them seemed to have the impression that they can outsmart these super-rich, super-cunning masterminds with vastly more numbers and money than they do. As a result, each Henchman also have an entire quest chain where you either defeat them enough times to make them see the pointlessness of trying to antagonize you, or your Genius realizing that the endeavor was a waste of their time and that they'd do better without said crime lord in the picture and getting in their way.
- Defeat Equals Friendship: In Evil Genius 2, your Henchmen start out as rival crime bosses and aspiring evil geniuses that you must take down to seize their empires. You can then offer them a seat at your table instead of killing or imprisoning them. Conversely, however, this will cause any other Henchmen still active on the World Stage to redouble their efforts to take you down, out of spite.
- The Dragon:
- Your starting Henchman in the first game is intended to be this to you- specifically, Jubei for Maximilian, Eli Barracuda for Alexis, and Lord Kane for Shen Yu.
- Similarly, the Evil Genius 2 offers your choice of four starter Henchmen to be your Dragon- I.R.I.S, Jubei, Janet Bombe, or Eli Barracuda Jr.
- Elite Four: A total of five Henchmen can be recruited in the second game. Since the first can be considered The Dragon, the remaining four take this position in your organization.
- Elite Mooks: They're your Elite Mooks, more specifically, and in very limited supply.
- Enemy Mine: In Evil Genius 2, after you've made your Doomsday broadcast to the world and are readying to fire your weapon, any remaining Henchmen still active and not recruited/defeated on the World Stage will set aside their differences to collectively attack your lair and attempt to take you down.
- Hero Unit: They are unique units meant to defend your base from intruders.
- Invincible Villain:
- Up to a certain point in the first game, Henchmen are unkillable. Being defeated by regular agents will only knock them out for a while, but Super Agents will take off one of their three lives. Losing all three means they're gone for good, which is the biggest reason the Super Agents are so dangerous.
- They are effectively this in the second game. Being defeated by any Agent, regular or Super, will cause them to enter a Wounded state where they can't move and will slowly recover about 20 health. Once they have reached a minimum of health, they'll get back to their feet and automatically try to run back to the Inner Sanctum to heal back up. Only the player can kill a Henchmen permanently, after having the Evil Genius execute the Henchmen personally.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Quite a number of them. Let's see, Lord Kane, Eli Barracuda, Dr. Neurocide, Dr. Ethan Asia aka The Butcher, Red Ivan...
- The only one averting this is The Matron, whose name is the least scariest out of all henchmen, and yet she's one of the most unhinged.
- Palette Swap: Crime Lords come with their own minions whom are edited versions of your own:
- Eli has white-colored Guards. His Underboss Julius Bird is a Hitman in a white suit.
- Jubei and Fugu Furukawa use black and white Martial Artists, respectively.
- Dr. Ming has green Guards wearing gas masks.
- Fittingly, Full Metal Jackie employs olive-green Mercenaries.
- Incendio's goons are red-clad Hitmen. His rival Ignacio is Incendio with blonde hair wearing white.
- Undying Loyalty: Upon declaring fealty to an Evil Genius in the sequel, usually after said Evil Genius has helped rebuild their criminal empire or aided in a life goal, they remain committed to their new leader without sign of betrayal or abandonment.
- Video-Game Lives: Only in the first game. If they are taken down by normal agents, they just pass out for a while, but this being done by a Super Agent will take one of three lives from them. If they lose all three, they're dead for the rest of the playthrough.
Introduced in Evil Genius
Colonel Blackheart is an arrogant, nasty, colonial big game hunter. For him, the hunt is everything and he views life as just one big hunt. His philosophy is a simple one, you are either a hunter or the hunted. Only those that are true to his jungle principles of survival and supremacy earn his respect; all others are prey to be tracked down, caught and killed. Such is the fate of those below him on the food chain. Blackheart himself has had a few scrapes, most notably losing his leg to a Bengal tiger that he ended up killing with his bare hands. Rumor has it that he cooked the beast with the remnants of his leg in a marmalade of tomatoes and local spices - a true hunter's stew in honor of such a magnificent and worthy opponent.
Colonel Blackheart was originally only available to players who purchased the World Domination Starter Kit of the original game. He was made available to all when the game was re-released on GOG.com, which comes with the Starter Kit included.
- Autocannibalism: When a tiger bit off his leg, he proceeded to kill it with his bare hands, then cooked it into a stew and added his severed leg to the dish.
- Action Pet: One of his abilities is launching Pendragon, his pet monkey, at nearby targets, damaging and causing them to panic.
- Bear Trap: He's capable of laying a few of these on the field to slow down agents.
- Egomaniac Hunter: His entire shtick. The good Colonel has gotten bored with hunting mere animals, and the Evil Genius' offer of allowing him to hunt all the people he wants is what gets Blackheart on the payroll. One of his combat lines is him joyfully exclaiming he'll have his human opponent stuffed to serve as a hunting trophy, with another being him stating "another one for the trophy case!".
- Expy: Of Van Pelt.
- Great White Hunter: He's a former big game hunter.
- High-Class Glass: Wears a monocle.
- Older Is Better: His gun appears to be an stylized version of a classic black powder rifle, complete with overly wide muzzle; which is still somehow superior to modern assault rifles and machine guns in firepower. His gun's only real drawback is its relatively short range, but it's much stronger to compensate.
- Quintessential British Gentleman: He certainly speaks like one, though in practice, he is anything but a gentleman."By Jove, I'll butcher him!
- Seadog Peg Leg: Not a sailor or a pirate, but has a sharp metal spike to serve as a peg leg, with a unique walking animation to emphasize it. It doesn't stop him from running during an alert, thankfully.
- Version-Exclusive Content: He's this for the original retail version, being exclusive to owners of the World Domination Starter Kit. When Evil Genius was re-released on GOG, the Starter Kit is bundled in by default, and Blackheart along with it.
- Worthy Opponent: The reason for the aforementioned Autocannibalism is so he would honor the beast that injured him so thoroughly.
- Wrestler of Beasts: In-game you'll only ever see him fight with a rifle, but his backstory claims that he once killed a Bengal tiger with his bare hands.
Before a tragic accident changed the course of her life, Dr. Valerie Neurocide was an accomplished scientist in two separate fields: biochemical weapon research and cosmetics. With hindsight, researching both products in the same lab was an accident waiting to happen, but at the time it made good financial sense, as the lucrative cosmetics sideline funded the more experimental biochemical research.
One morning, after a sleepless night of research, Dr. Neurocide absent-mindedly applied her foundation. Unfortunately, what she thought was her make-up was in fact a petri dish of an experimental compound, codenamed 'Evil Juice'. As the chemical seeped into her pores, her neural synapses began to change configuration. With her evil transformation complete, Dr. Neurocide merged her two interests and now devotes her time to developing a sophisticated range of evil cosmetics.
- Freak Lab Accident: This was her Start of Darkness. She researched experimental bioweapons and cosmetics in the same lab, as the lucrative cosmetics research was very useful to finance the more experimental bioweapons research. However, after a long night of research, Dr. Neurocide mistakenly applied an experimental compound nicknamed "Evil Juice" to her face instead of her foundation. The compound seeped into her bloodstream and remapped her neurons, turning her into a Mad Scientist.
- Inventional Wisdom: There's something to be said about Dr. Neurocide having a bottle of "Evil Juice" just lying around her lab.
- Knockout Gas: She can spray endurance-sapping gas around.
- Mad Scientist: The greatest example of this out of all of the henchmen, being an insane scientist of two wildly differing fields, and using her mind-altering research to further the Evil cause. She's one of the absolute best Henchmen for plotting on the World Map as a result.
- Mushroom Samba: In addition to her knockout gas bombs, she can also spray a hallucinogen over areas of your base. As long as the gas lasts, anything in the affected area temporarily loses its Heat rating; an agent can literally take a walk through a hallway filled with priceless stolen artifacts without taking note of anything suspicious.
Eli was born in a New York slum where larceny and murder were as common as really big hair. For a child growing up in this justice black hole, there were only two potential career choices: cadaver or ghetto bad-ass. Eli chose the latter. His career of intimidation and extortion began at school, where Eli ran a protection racket. He knew he was going to be something special in the underworld when, aged just nine, he had the headmaster pleading for his legs to be left intact after a missed payment.
Eli quickly became the uncontested local crime lord, ruling his den of iniquity with an iron fist, unleashing vengeance against those who would oppose him with his trademark silver revolver. Eli's criminal empire expanded with alacrity, and within a few years Eli was in unofficial control of New York City, pulling the strings on his puppet mayor, and shaping policies to suit his nefarious activities. One fateful day, the mayor spilled coffee on Eli's prized cream suit; Eli blew his top, and then proceeded to blow the top off the mayor. Even Eli couldn't cover this up, and soon his criminal organization was exposed and under federal investigation. Rueing his own hot-headedness, Eli retreated into the underworld, to wait for a new evil opportunity to arise.
Players who pick Alexis as their Evil Genius always start with Eli Barracuda as their starting Henchman.
- Afro Ass Kicker: He has a big afro and kicks as much butt as its size.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: Just don't spill anything on it.
- Berserk Button: Eli wears a white suit and he's very proud of it. Don't spill anything on it, as he'll kill you on the spot.
- Boom, Headshot!: His first ability has him do this, dealing high damage. He's also the only one of the three possible starting Henchmen to carry a gun, and is among the small amount of Henchmen who have ranged attacks.
- Break the Haughty: He used to be a feared crime lord until he shot the Mayor of New York, who stained his suit by spilling coffee on it. Not even his organization could cover it up, and he's forced to go underground... for the time being.
- Composite Character: For all intents and purposes he's essentially a combination of both Jules Winnfield in appearance and combat, and Undercover Brother in terms of theme.
- Disco Dan: His catchphrases are all right out of disco culture or blaxploitation movies. Notably abandoned by his son in the sequel.
- Disproportionate Retribution: He shot the mayor of New York for spilling coffee on him and staining his suit.
- Faux Affably Evil: He may be upbeat and enthusiastic, but there's no ignoring the fact that he is a bonafide crimelord who is unapologetically vicious, especially during his childhood.
- Jack of All Stats: Functions this way among the three possible starting Henchmen, representing a middle ground between Jubei's high combat power and Lord Kane's support abilities. He's much more threatening to enemies in direct combat than Lord Kane, yet has more utility than Jubei since he can use his Ghetto Posse ability to lead a dance party of enemy agents safely out of your base (or, if you're into that sort of thing, right into your traps).
- Jive Turkey: Oh yeah."Here comes yo daddy!"
- Magic Music: One of his skills is to pull out a boombox to hypnotize enemy agents into dancing and following him, leaving them helpless.
- Scary Black Man: Quite imposing.
- Top-Heavy Guy: He's quite muscular, and his legs are a little thin.
- Villain in a White Suit: Never seen without his white suit, and comes from a criminal background.
Jubei was born into a life of servitude, working at a prestigious Tokyo dojo he longed to emulate the young scions who attended the school. He admired their graceful combat from afar as he swept the floors. Desperate to prove himself, Jubei began to train alone. After he had finished his cleaning duties at the dojo, Jubei's broom swept through an altogether more deadly dance. He quickly discovered that he was a natural and was accepted into the dojo as a proper student. Everything went smoothly for Jubei for the first few years, until the time came for him to finish his novice training and progress to the more advanced levels. He was summoned before the dojo council, and told that although he was skilled in combat, he did not have the inner harmony to continue at the dojo. Incensed by this scandalous slur on his character, Jubei unsheathed his katana and proceeded to strike down the entire council. Pausing only to reflect that they might have had a point, Jubei fled the dojo to seek his fortune as a rogue ronin.
Jubei is the only henchman to return in the second game. Though he has grown old and has traded his sword for a staff, he is still a formidable opponent.
Players who pick Maximilian as their Evil Genius in the original game always start with Jubei as their starting Henchman. In the second game, he's one of the first Henchmen that Geniuses can select.
- Blind Weaponmaster: Heavily implied that he lost his sight in between games, with his small black spectacles often used to denote blindness in Japan. In far more pun-based fashion, his youthful hairstyle was a rather ludicrous set of Blinding Bangs of the Eyes Out of Sight variety.
- Blood Knight: In his youth, he's rather literal on the blood part, occasionally reacting to capture orders with, "WHAT?! No blood spray?!" As an older warrior, he will often bemoan the low quality of opponents that battling the Forces of Justice provides him with.
- Calling Your Attacks: One of Jubei's attack confirmation lines is, "Heron Rising Sword Technique!" In the sequel, he replaces "Sword" with "Staff".
- Cool Old Guy: In the second game. Jubei hasn't lost any of his edge from his youth and, if anything, he's become even more deadly.
- Continuity Nod: A lot of Jubei's catchphrases from the first game are imported into the second. Some with updates based on his weapon changing with his advancing age.
- Covers Always Lie: One version of the original game's box art somewhat infamously depicts him having three arms.
- Flash Step: He can learn the ability "Wind Walk", but it's more a teleport given he can appear anywhere. It makes him one of the more useful combat henchmen, because very few enemies short of a Super Agent can survive Jubei teleporting on top of them with his Critical Slash ability ready.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: He used to be a lowly janitor for his dojo, and taught himself swordplay by using his broom to mimic the training exercises he witnessed. Jubei then became a deadly samurai that killed the dojo personally, and is capable of fighting anyone toe-to-toe.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: It's what caused his Start of Darkness, as even though his masters recognized his swordsmanship, Jubei was too angry and violent to be granted a higher rank. He promptly struck them down and proved them right on the spot, which he himself realized. His older self is significantly more mellow, but no less violent, and if pushed too far will slowly begin to contemplate getting dangerous again.Jubei: [upon recovering from low heath] Time to contemplate violence.
- Heel Realization: Downplayed; It wasn't until after he was leaving the dojo that he realized maybe his dead masters were right about him, but he still went on to become a Ronin looking for work.
- Iaijutsu Practitioner: Exclusively attacks enemies using quick-draw slashes with his sword, resheathing it after every attack. His attack speed is slow because of it, but he deals significant damage with each swing to compensate. He ditches his sword in the second game, having replaced it with a ornate staff.
- I Resemble That Remark!: Slaughtered every member of his former dojo because the Dojo masters told him he lacked the sense of peace and tranquility needed to be a true samurai. He acknowledged that they may have had a point as he left the building.
- Master Swordsman: Presented as such, and he's the strongest of the starter Henchmen in melee combat as a result of his skill.
- Old Master: Confirmed to be returning in the sequel as this, now having gotten on in years and swapped his sword for a staff, but no less deadly. He regards passing on his knowledge to be his most meaningful task, and establishing a new dojo and giving him students is key to recruiting him if not taken first.
- Older and Wiser: He muses at his impetuous youth, and that it's better to preemptively kill pupils who exhibit the Challenging the Chief and Klingon Promotion traits he did in the past. As he puts it, students with talent and ambition get smothered in their sleep.
- Samurai: One who went rogue, at that.
- Serial Escalation: Jubei's abilities in the second game are copied from the first, but bigger. In the first game he had "Eviscerate" which allowed him to land a single devastating blow with his sword. In the second one it's replaced with "Flow", where he lands a devastating blow, which gets sequentially more devastating the more hits he combos on. As for his Wind Walk, he can now teleport in three dimensional space, as opposed to being on a 2D plane.
- Slain in Their Sleep: He becomes a warrior trainer inbetween the two games. To keep them from doing to him what he did to his masters, he kills the ambitious ones in their sleep.
- Supreme Chef: An Informed Ability. He's described as a samurai and a sushi master, but we never see him cook.
- Weaksauce Weakness: The second game reveals that he loses focus if he hears "Soul Bossa Nova".
Lord Kane is an almost mythic figure in the criminal underworld. Many urban legends hold Lord Kane responsible for pretty much every major crime or disaster this century, from the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand to the Hindenburg. Unlike most urban legends, they are actually true in this case, although Lord Kane is of course meticulous in ensuring that no evidence can ever link him to his deeds. He insists to this day that his biggest crime was simply the result of a deaf lackey who misheard his order of "A bit of light panic, I think, eh?" as "The ship Titanic, sink her."
With the European aristocracy wrapped around his little finger and the unwashed masses quaking in fear at his very name, Lord Kane is both a master manipulator and deadly combatant.
Players who pick Shen Yu as their Evil Genius always start with Lord Kane as their starting Henchman.
- Been There, Shaped History: Kane was responsible for various historic catastrophes in the world of Evil Genius, such as the crash of the Hindenburg, setting up the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, and the Titanic sinking.
- The Charmer: His Smooth Operator had him calm the target down, get all friendly, and assure them that nothing's wrong, resulting in the target losing all Heat immediately. Unlike Montezuma, the target might still wander around and regain Heat.
- The Dreaded: He can use his intimidating reputation and appearance to scare enemies into panicking.
- Evil Old Folks: Lord Kane is one the oldest looking Henchmen, and is an Evil Genius in all but name due to his previous historic crimes. He displays a dryly exasperated attitude about having to kill people on the Genius' orders, as if he's having to take out the trash.
- Expy: Of Keyser Söze. In-game files actually mention Söze as Kane's real name, and the announcement that plays after he gets recruited has the Chinese announcer refer to him as the Keyser.
- Historical Rap Sheet: He is suspected of having a hand in every major crime of the 20th century, including setting fire to the Hindenburg, the assassination of Archduke Fran Ferdinand, and sinking the Titanic (though he vehemently insists that the last one was not on purpose).
- Manipulative Bastard: Of the starting Henchmen, Lord Kane is the weakest in direct combat (relying on his fists, in comparison to Jubei's swordplay or Eli's gun), but Kane is the best of the three for support due to his expertise at manipulating hearts and minds. His skill Smooth Operator has him successfully convince anyone that everything they've seen is of no concern, allowing you to wipe an agent's heat. Psychic Terror has Kane cause an entire group of agents to become terrified for a short time, leaving them wide open for your other minions to take them out with no risk.
- Name of Cain: Well, he's called Lord Kane for a reason.
- Once Done, Never Forgotten: He has been blamed for sinking the Titanic but he has always vehemently insisted that his involvement in the incident was just an honest accident caused by a minion mishearing his words.
Voodoo is a religion and a way of life for the spiritual people of Haiti, a magical way of communing with the ancestral past. To the outsider, the principles and rituals of voodoo seem dark and sinister, but generally they are not. In the case of Montezuma, however, they certainly are. Montezuma raises zombies for fun, has a cottage industry in voodoo doll creation, and has been known to hex people just for smirking at his top hat. He also cooks a really mean gumbo, but for some reason he tends not to have many visitors to his mountain retreat. Montezuma is not averse to leaving his Haitian lair, as his propensity for placing curses on people has left the local population somewhat ravaged.
- Expy: Of Baron Samedi.
- Hollywood Voodoo: He uses the darker side of Voodoo to raise zombies for fun and torment people. That being said, the in-game almanac notes that Voodoo is usually not like this - Montezuma just happens to embody the worst parts of it.
- It Amused Me: He's one of the few henchmen who does not have a Freudian Excuse for joining your cause, since he's ultimately doing all of his voodoo because it's fun. One of the factors in him signing up is that he's cursed everyone around his lair in Cuba, and is essentially out of fresh victims as a result.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: His most notable ability is to wipe all Heat from a target and send them packing immediately. It's arguably superior to Kane's Smooth Operator since it makes them leave the island, but it can fail when the target has high intelligence.
- Supreme Chef: Cooks a real mean gumbo. Though just like Jubei, it's an Informed Ability.
- Voodoo Doll: His attack uses one of these; it's a ranged attack where he stabs a voodoo doll repeatedly.
High in the Peruvian mountains, the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu lay undisturbed for many hundreds of years. Upon its rediscovery early in the twentieth century, tombs were violated and sacred grounds desecrated by treasure hunters and archeologist. Amidst this gold rush, a supernatural guardian by the name of Moko crept, unseen from the shadows of the crypts. With a divine mandate to wash the ziggurats with the blood of the despoilers, Moko wrought his vengeance. With justice served in Machu Picchu, Moko wandered throughout his native Peru in a daze, shocked by the new and unfamiliar world he found himself in. Upon learning of the atrocities visited upon his Incan people by the Spanish Conquistadors, Moko's mind became addled with rage. He relinquished his role as divine protector and defender, and in doing so became mortal, adopting a nomadic existence fuelled by a desire for retribution against the civilised world.
- The Brute: A more traditional version, as Moko is a massive man that uses his raw power to fight the Forces of Justice in melee.
- Depower: Moko used to be a divine guardian for the Incan civilization, but relinquished his role and divine power after learning what the Spanish Conquistadors did to his people. He became mortal as a result, but still retained his size and strength.
- Face–Heel Turn: After learning what the Spanish did to the Incans, he essentially decided that the civilized world was evil and became willing to work with anyone who wanted to destroy it.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: He wasn't summoned for a few centuries after the Incans died out, and the world had changed to be unrecognizable to his eyes.
- Ground Punch: His "Monkey Smash" move has him hitting the ground with both fists, which causes everyone around him to fall onto their back and damaging them in the process.
- Revenge: His reason for joining up with the Evil Genius - he wants revenge against the Civilized World after they annihilated the Inca.
- Screaming Warrior: Well, he tries to be this. Most of his war-cries get interrupted by him running out of breath or burping.
'Red' Ivan, a former general of the Russian secret police, left the motherland after a series of disputes with his superiors, mainly regarding his questionable methods of personnel management. Not immune to the pleasures of wanton torture themselves, his secret police colleagues found even their dubious moral compasses pointing to 'depraved' in respect to Ivan's sadistic antics, and unanimously ejected him from his post and into exile.
Now Ivan has a grudge to bear against the whole world. His hatred for both the capitalist pig-dogs and for the Soviet betrayers has left Ivan's mind an ideological mess, confused in its loyalties and motivated only by blind psychosis and a lust for bloody vengeance. Ivan's disillusion with the superpowers makes him the ideal henchman - loyal to the evil cause, and with a sense of ethics even thinner than his patience. His physical presence is second to none - built like a T-34 tank and just as unstoppable, his easily stowed rocket launcher is his primary weapon.
For tropes relating to his appearance in Evil Genius 2, see the Evil Genuises page.
- The Ahnold: Obviously based on the various roles of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ivan speaks like him (even though he's supposed to be Russian, not Austrian) and his in-game lines are mostly quotes from Schwarzenegger's movies.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Yeah, he's big and scary and has a giant bazooka, but considering that he's prone to destroying everything in his path? He's more of a liability than anything. He may have blown up that squad of 8 soldiers, but he also set everything on fire and killed your minions who were fighting the soldiers in the first place. Plus with how he takes forever to line up a shot, he'll probably only fire twice before a squad of soldiers takes him out.
- Ax-Crazy: As the news report when you recruit Ivan says, "Ivan's a bloody psycho!"
- BFG: He's never seen anywhere without his trusty bazooka. Amusingly, it folds into a compact form for storage in his person.
- The Brute: One of, if not the most powerful Henchmen for direct combat, in both melee and ranged battle. His bazooka is naturally a strong Herd-Hitting Attack, and he can take on a group of Soldiers solo with it.
- Destructive Savior: Red Ivan can save the day by blasting any intruding forces of good to bits with his bazooka. The problem is that he's a major collateral damage hazard if he happens to be in your base at the time.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Not him, but, as detailed below, even his State Sec handlers were horrified at his brutality.
- The Exile: The Soviets formally exiled him to a gulag in the Siberian Wilderness for excessive brutality against dissidents, after sentencing him for 90 years of forced labor.
- Psycho for Hire: He's so psycho that the State Sec was dead scared of him and tried to lock him away on trumped up charges. The betrayal turned Ivan into a revenge-obsessed brute that hates the Capitalists he was trained to fight and the Communists who turned on him at the same time.
- Red Is Violent: On top of "Red" being part of his name, he's clad entirely in red, has the most destructive fighting style of any Henchman and is incredibly bloodthirsty and brutal, both in his backstory and in the present.
- Renegade Russian: Was exiled to a gulag because his sadism terrified his communist handlers. As a result, he's disillusioned by both Communism and Capitalism, making him the perfect tool for an Evil Genius wanting to cause global havoc.
- Sealed Badass in a Can: Due to how much collateral damage he causes if left to his own devices, many players lock him in a Topside Shack outside with high security clearance, leaving him banging on the walls and freaking out for being locked in a small house. But when the Forces of Justice come knocking, it's time to open the can.
- Stuff Blowing Up: His specialty, and the main reason he's a double-edged sword to the Evil Genius. His base attack is blasting enemies with his bazooka, and he can even learn a skill that has him chuck grenades everywhere while Cossack dancing.
Dr. Ethan Asia was a brilliant young medical student. Graduating at the head of his class, everyone foresaw a glittering future, at the very top of his profession. To his tutor's shock, Ethan snubbed all the prestigious clinics that offered him places, choosing instead to travel to Papua New Guinea to help the poor and the needy. One day, Ethan was tending to the village invalids, when a catastrophe struck. The native that Ethan was attending suffered a heart attack, and Ethan's own pancreas burst. In excruciating agony, Ethan did the only thing he could think of - he transplanted the dead man's pancreas into himself. Ethan passed out many times during the operation, but he managed to complete it and survive. There was a drawback; however, the deceased was a cannibal, and the pancreas was cursed! The new pancreas granted Ethan extended life, but it also turned him into a monstrous butcher with a hankering for human flesh.
- Ax-Crazy: Literally, too, since his weapons are two meat cleavers.
- The Butcher: Now this is getting redundant.
- Dual Wielding: Fights with two meat cleavers.
- Face–Heel Turn: Used to be a genuinely compassionate surgeon named Ethan Asia that operated in New Guinea, but after he had to transplant a cannibal's cursed pancreas into his own body, he turned into the Butcher; a sadistic murderer who's heavily implied to have turned into a cannibal as well.
- Lightning Bruiser: He's pretty fast, and his attacks really hurt, and come at quite the speed.
- Malevolent Masked Men: The Butcher wears a full Hannibal Lecter-esque hockey mask, but he has it painted to look like a clown's face.
- Mask of Sanity: His first skill, Facade of Normality, is this. Remembering his old bedside manner, he can pass for a sane person to get close to the Agents of Justice without immediately alerting them.
- Organ Autonomy: He inherited a curse due to receiving a pancreas transplant from a Papa New Guinean cannibal.
- Punny Name: Before adopting the moniker "The Butcher", he was a doctor called Ethan Asia.
- Self-Surgery: He once successfully transplanted another man's pancreas into his own body. Just a shame that it was a cursed pancreas, though.
Stanley Trotter was born into a working-class family from the East End of London. At the age of thirty he still lived in his parents' house and spent his days working in their pie shop, serving pies and jellied eels to the local cockneys. Utterly unremarkable in every sense of the word, Stanley was a mummy's boy through and though. It was widely accepted that the Trotters had been cursed with a genetic aberration for a son. A chance find in an attic lead to Stanley discovering an ancient tome entitled 'The Art of Hypnosis' and Stanley's life suddenly had purpose. As Stanley read the dark words written within the archaic tome, he realised that the better part of his life had passed him by. Twisted with bitterness, he became that most feared of stage performers - the arch hypnotist, The Great Mesmero.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Can inflict this on Agents.
- Evil Brit: Hails from London's East End.
- Magikarp Power: When the Great Mesmero first comes into your service, he only fights in melee, and Mesmero's vaunted hypnotic skills are locked behind the highest experience requirements in the gamenote . Unlocking those skills turns him from an adequate melee fighter to a superb support character that can take direct control of enemy agents (if their smarts are low), and sap the loyalty of agents en-masse.
- Psychic Powers: His hypnosis isn't all mind trick, he begins levitating as his idle animation.
For the majority of her life, Elsa Krabb was a kindly, well-disposed old dear, living a sedate life as a matron in a small Swiss mental institute, and lovingly restoring her patients to sanity. An unfortunate mix-up in the drugs cabinet one day led to Elsa swallowing some experimental psychosis treatment drugs instead of aspirin, and the effect on her personality was quite...shocking. Elsa's preferred curative method ceased to be restorative walks in the garden and quiet reading, and instead became electro-shock treatment, administered for as long as was possible without blowing the fuses.
Elsa lost her right hand to gangrene after a vicious bite from a convulsive patient, but even this setback could not derail her psychotic ambitions. With a prosthetic hand, Elsa found she could operate the electro-shock machine all day, whereas before she had to stop when the arthritis in her fingers flared up. Elsa's sadistic torturing was only uncovered when the Swiss electricity board decided to investigate just why a small village in the mountains was consuming more juice than Zurich. Elsa was subsequently captured and placed under house arrest.
- Ax-Crazy: She worked at a psychiatric hospital and became notorious for torturing and killing patients, and she is one of the most enthusiastic Henchmen when being told to kill someone.
- Beware the Nice Ones: For a sweet-looking little old lady who kindly waves and says "Hellewww" when clicked on, she's probably the most bananas-insane out of the Henchmen in this game.
- Boring, but Practical: She may look like your typical granny, but the fact that she lowers heat better than most minions in the social branch can be very helpful early in the game when you're required to gain funds for your base. Later on, she remains a stunningly practical option for her effectiveness in combat and her support skills.
- Dissonant Serenity: She always has a gentle smile on her face, and some of her lines are sweet-sounding, but she keeps that smile going while beating people to death or electrocuting them.
- Electric Torture: After accidentally taking some experimental anti-psychosis drugs, the Matron had a complete turnaround in her behavior. She started administering nonstop electroshock therapy to her unfortunate patients. One of her abilities is to electrocute a target until they're dead, or have their smarts drained if they survive the shock.
- Epic Flail: Has a spiked one built into her prosthetic hand, after she lost hers from a gangrene-infected bite.
- Evil Old Folks: Don't let that kindly exterior fool you...
- Expy: Of Nurse Ratched.
- Killer Rabbit: She looks and sounds like a sweet old granny, and yet she's an Ax-Crazy psychopath with a prosthetic spiked flail/tesla coil who's quite capable in melee combat.
- Needlework Is for Old People: Her recovery animation is pulling out some yarn and needles and knitting until she heals back up. One of her combat lines is being calm until whomever you tell her to attack apparently makes her drop a stitch, prompting her to scream in fury and try to kill the offending party.
- Spell My Name with a "The": Her real name is Elsa Krabb, but after her evil awakening, she insists on being called The Matron. That "The" is not optional, apparently.
- Team Mom: Bizarrely enough, yes. She's got a skill called Motherly Love, which sees her giving another Henchman a coddling treatment complete with face-pinching. It restores the other Henchman's special abilities immediately.
Introduced in Evil Genius 2
- Alliterative Name: Carl Cafard.
- Arch-Enemy: Does not like Clara Jones, due to competing criminal interests. As a result, they cannot be on the same team and her questline would vanish if you initiated Cafard's.
- Body Double: During the questline to recruit/kill him, the Genius manages to lure him to the lair, only to find out that the Carl Cafard they have in a cell is another man entirely. The real Cafard apparently has body doubles ready for when he's getting chased and only gets discovered because the body double accidentally reveals that Cafard is in Paris.
- Guide Dang It!:
- If the player never does "The P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Gains" mission, which stops being available after a certain point, they’ll never get the chance to recruit Cafard.
- Cafard and Jones have an established rivalry due to their incompatible interests and refuse to work with each other. As a result, even initiating his questline (itself hidden behind a Loot mission) at the game's launch caused Jones' questline to permanently disappear, well before you even learn of the rivalry or the existence of the other Henchman at all. Even if either one is executed, their counterpart's quest would not reappear. After a later patch, recruiting Cafard requires Jones to be killed in the process, and the same is true of recruiting Jones. These two Henchmen are the only ones in the game that had such a mechanic.
- Master Forger: He is the best forger in the world, capable of perfect (or nearly so) imitations of practically anything manmade, which also includes identification papers and people. He'll only come to your Genius' attention after they steal the Declaration of Independence from P.A.T.R.I.O.T., where they get notified that the Declaration they have is a forgery, eventually discovering that he stole the original and left this fake in its place.
- His in-game skills are both related to his mastery: he can make a "cunning" trap (i.e. a hopscotch game with a landmine at the end) that fools all Agents and takes off a hundred health of the victim, and make fake, worthless art that will fool Rogues who see it and cause them to leave with the forgery instead of something actually valuable.
- Wicked Cultured: Cafard's focus on the finer things in life has left him with a ready knowledge of cultures around the world. He's one of the more refined Henchmen as a result, and all of his in-game lines reference famous artists or their works while doing the Genius' bidding.
- Adventurer Archaeologist: She certainly fits the archetype, being an adventurer who scours the globe raiding for rare treasures hidden in ancient tombs. With that said, she isn't explicitly stated to be an archaeologist.
- Arch-Enemy: Does not like Carl Cafard, due to competing criminal interests.
- Bamboo Technology: Picked up a thing or two from her days raiding tombs, and so can buff your own traps with Wisdom of the Ancients, making them more likely to hit their next victim. Great for the late-game where high-skill Agents will frequently just ignore your traps.
- Corrupted Character Copy: Of Indiana Jones and Lara Croft. Like those heroes, she travels the world finding ancient artifacts, fighting minions, and butting heads with a diabolical villain plotting to take over the world. But unlike them, she's only doing it for selfish gains and thrills without any nobility, and she can be recruited by the evil Genius as a henchman advancing rather than stopping their evil plan.
- Dual Wielding: She carries a pair of gold-plated submachine guns.
- Every Man Has His Price: Her ability "Heirs and Graces" reduces an Agent's suspicion and resolve with a hearty bribe.
- Guide Dang It!:
- A shared example with Carl Cafard early on in the game's life, as they dislike each other and will not tolerate each other's presence. Initiating her questline would originally cause Cafard's to disappear entirely (if "The P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Gains" mission is done) permanently, long before you learn that Jones despises the forger. Going through Clara Jones' recruitment mission results in Cafard's summary execution (via interrogation). These are the only two Henchmen in the game who have such a mechanic.
- She also is associated with two pieces of Loot, the Arabian Jars, and the Terracotta Army. The former only becomes available if the player starts her first mission, and the latter will never become available without recruiting her, which is also not hinted at in any way.
- Old Money: Daughter of wealthy aristocrats.
- Ornamental Weapon: Carries around a bullwhip like you-know-who, but never uses it.
- Phantom Thief: Leaves calling cards and operates as one. Unlike other Crime Lords, she's not at the head of a worldwide criminal organization. Instead, she's a fabulously wealthy woman who enjoys the thrill of robbing museums, jewel exhibitions, and ancient treasure vaults. Whenever she needs a little muscle or disposable distractions, she hires mercenaries.
- Shout-Out: Her name's a parody of both Lara Croft and Indiana Jones. Sure enough, her questline involves raiding a number of tombs to beat her to an ancient treasure, which either of those characters would be doing in their own works (a lot of the time the mission objectives involving her are even listed as "raid the tomb"). The fact that she is an heiress seems to point more toward the former.
Doomhilda's destructive voice is legendary, possessing the power to stop her enemies in their path – or even inspire her allies to victory.
Doomhilda is a DLC Henchman, available as part of the "Rise of the Valkyries Pack".
- Brawn Hilda: She's patterned after the classic depiction of this trope, with a winged helmet and a nice set of armor. Helps that her name is initially Brunhilde, too. Unfortunately, while she physically appears to fit the brawny part, her health is her lowest stat.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: An example of the trope in action. Normally the Evil Genius personally exchanges dialogue with major rivals. This isn't the case with Doomhilda, who's waging a deeply personal crusade of revenge against the Genius... but the Genius is too busy to deal with her, and is likely not even aware of her invasions (they order a robbery at a major opera then move on with other schemes, and they don't get notified of her attacks) note and instead she only gets to talk to the minions.
- Doomy Dooms of Doom: The opera singer Brunhilde's show gets incidentally interrupted by the Genius' minions robbing the attendees with sleeping gas. She immediately swears revenge and upon getting rebuffed for the first time, begins to call herself Doomhilda.
- Expy: Of Inga Wagner from No One Lives Forever.
- Make Me Wanna Shout: Her abilities revolve around her singing voice, which she can use to buff her allies or stun her enemies.
Eli Barracuda Jnr. made his name In the New York underworld as a savvy businessman and ruthless negotiator. Unimpressed by the evil geniuses of the world, Eli knows that anything those mad scientists can do with super science, he can do with his legendary charisma or his silver revolver. He's a king among kingpins, more than willing to defend his throne against any evil genius who comes for it.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: On the receiving end, as he is one of the four henchmen that can receive a new outfit if Espectro is recruited.
- The Charmer: His "Silver Tongue" lets him deal Resolve damage to enemy agents while regenerating his stats.
- Even the Guys Want Him: Eli’s been seen romantically charming both men and women. And his charm is just as effective on both genders at tricking agents into leaving.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Has a notably deeper voice than his dad.
- First-Name Basis: Mr. Barracuda was his father's name. Call him Eli.
- Generation Xerox: He's a near-exact duplicate of his father, down to his Afro hairstyle, cream suit, and revolver.
- Hand Cannon: The Silver Lady revolver he carries is utterly devastating, capable of one-shotting Agents well into the mid-game.
- I Call It "Vera": Refers to his gun as "the Silver Lady".
- Jack of All Stats: Like his father, he's competent in both combat and support. Aside from carrying a revolver, he also has the unique ability to damage enemy resolve via smooth-talking.
- Legacy Character: The Eli Barracuda in Evil Genius 2 is the son of the original Eli.
- Shout-Out: His recruitment mission (if not the player's initial choice) is called "The Man With the Silver Gun".
- Supermodel Strut: His walk animation is an exaggerated and cocky strut, swinging his whole torso from side to side.
- Warmup Boss: He's one of the earliest crime lords that can be recruited, with his final mission becoming available near the start of the game. If he's not the Genius' first henchman, recruiting him right at that very point is necessary for getting access to a piece of loot that will expire beyond that point.
- Weapon Twirling: Spins his trademark revolver on his finger after being told to draw it. He also deals with the gun's recoil by pulling the same trick.
Little is known of the man who's come to be known as Espectro. What is known for sure is that they grew up somewhere in S.M.A.S.H. territory, and from an early age they developed a fascination with the heroes and Super Agents who once liberated the world. Espectro is theorized to have a scientific background; the hard light projection technology he uses is too sophisticated for just anyone to use. But it's unknown if he worked on it during its development, or simply acquired the skills after he discovered the tech for himself. Espectro first came to the attention of S.M.A.S.H. by using his technology to turn a gang on each other. While they tore themselves apart fighting against their own shadows, he stood back and patiently watched.
That was when he realized that even a false story could have power in the real world. Espectro is a patient and methodical planner. His schemes often take years to come to fruition. Heists and suspicious activity that seem unconnected will collide in the most unexpected ways when they're revealed to be part of something larger. His long-term strategic thinking is unparalleled. Espectro wants to be the greatest hero in the world. He craves that importance and power, and he's willing to do whatever it takes to get it. If the world won't let someone like him play the role of the hero, then he will change the world into a stage where he can.
Espectro is a DLC Henchman, available as part of the "Cabal Pack".
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: One of the benefits for recruiting him is a piece of Loot called the "Indoctrination Device", which gives the four Crime Lords he works with (Eli Barracuda Jr., Sir Daniel, Full Metal Jackie, and Janet Bombe) alternate skins. And that's it.
- Cast from Hit Points: Espectro's body double requires him to spend some of his healthpoints to activate.
- "Eureka!" Moment: The Genius mocking him for having "no one behind him" after his first clash with them causes him to realize just where he can get some friends... by hiring on other Crime Lords and criminals to help assault the Genius anew and wreck their operation, ostensibly to salvage his Super Agent career.
- Expy: With his fishbowl helmet and focus on illusions, he's one for Mysterio.
- False Flag Operation: Late in his questline, Espectro becomes so desperate to repair his reputation that he starts faking terrorist attacks and heists using hired goons so he can come in and "save the day", and the Genius' response is to either take the wind out of his sails note or to humiliate him in another fashion.
- Genius Bruiser: While it's deliberately ambiguous in-universe if he's the actual creator of his illusion technology, he nonetheless understands it well enough to continue developing it and use it to its fullest extent. It augments his natural brawn and makes him very hard to track down, and his abilities and stats (including very high damage resistance) as a Science-aligned Henchman are oriented for offense.
- Heroic Wannabe: Unlike all the other Crime Lords, Espectro starts out as a prospective Super Agent and he considers his first attack on the Evil Genius as his audition to become the second Super Agent for S.M.A.S.H.; he even sheepishly admits that his paperwork for the position hasn't been processed yet, but he's eager to prove himself. After getting defeated by the Genius, he swears revenge on them spoiling his one chance at heroism, and starts sliding into dubious waters by collaborating with Crime Lords.
- I Just Want to Be Badass: In-universe. Espectro wants to be a world-renowned and esteemed Super Agent, but his hunger for respect and fame is so great that he's perfectly willing to do anything for this goal, including throwing in with criminals that he's supposed to be fighting and going rogue to trick the world into loving him. The Genius casually buttering Espectro up and offering him a place at their table once causes him to completely drop his redemption quest and turn to Evil, purely due to Espectro's need for anyone to acknowledge his talents and having no-one else left.
- Master of Illusion: Utilizes technology to create optical illusions.
- Pile Bunker: Equipped with mechanical arms that can deliver powerful physical strikes, allowing him to charge up for a powerful, singular strike.
- Self-Duplication: Can create an illusionary duplicate of himself using hard light projection.
- Alliterative Name: Fugu Furukawa.
- Animal Motifs: Her attire and eyes evoke an octopus, which happens to be a dish in many sushi shops.
- Card-Carrying Villain: Fugu takes great pride in her ability to discretely kill anyone in the world and get away clean, gleefully threatening the Genius for interfering with her culinary empire. She's also darkly smug about causing agonizing food poisoning in her victims or outright murdering people.
- Chef of Iron: A sushi chef assassin who fights like a ninja.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Double-subverted. On her own, she was expanding her restaurants globally to help her assassination work, which made her both internationally famous and able to strike at targets worldwide with no-one the wiser. Recruiting her gives you access to special money-making Schemes where you finance new restaurants, making money legitimately. But you're also expanding your information-gathering and assassination capabilities at the same time, so it's not purely legitimate.
- Dragon Lady: Has a strong Japanese accent that sounds contemptuous. Though not overtly revealing, her attire is a form fitting sushi chef uniform that shows she has a slim athletic physique.
- Exotic Eye Designs: Has inexplicably bright purple eyes with slit pupils, similar to an octopus (or a snake).
- Evil Chef: She's a sushi chef who happens to be an assassin who can potentially serve a psychopathic supervillain. She takes particular glee in the suffering and death caused by her poisoned food.
- Geisha: Her makeup is the most overt indicator. She also walks and sits in a "prim and proper" manner.
- Graceful Loser: If defeated, Fugu will humbly admit her loss and offer to join your forces as a Henchman. Unfortunately for her, the Genius probably has other plans.
- Hime Cut: Maintains the traditional Japanese woman haircut.
- Master Poisoner: Specializes in weaponized poisonous sushi, and both of her abilities center on poison: offering one of her dishes to a target (draining all their stats rapidly due to food poisoning, raises no suspicion), and a poisonous smoke bomb that can incapacitate a group of people (allowing her to either run or get free hits in). She is thankfully immune to the latter, but nobody on the Genius' side is.
- Ninja Run: Has a running animation with one hand forward and the other extended behind her.
- Pungeon Master: Has many lines that reference her profession as a sushi chef. Examples include: "you have an order for me?" "you're floundering," and "let me rest my appetite... for death!"
- Punny Name: Fugu is the notorious poisonous blowfish
that requires special qualifications to serve in Japan. - A Taste of Their Own Medicine: If you decide to kill her, then the Evil Genius will force her to eat her own poisoned sushi. When recruited, the Evil Genius will threaten that any attempts at betrayal will have the Evil Genius force her to eat her own food.
- Villain with Good Publicity: She's a famous sushi chef turned assassin with a network of well-regarded restaurants and a name known world-wide. One of the biggest parts of recruiting her is destroying public goodwill towards her, and her price for loyalty is the Genius repairing her reputation and silencing the loudest critics preventing her from doing so.
The woman known only as Full Metal Jackie is an Australian air force vet who saw that selling weapons was a lot more profitable than using them. She sets up shop wherever there's a warzone... or maybe it's the other way around. She's ticked off a lot of folks over the years, but she doesn't mind. Full Metal Jackie will happily make an enemy if she can make a sale.
- 11th-Hour Ranger: Even with updates to the game allowing her to be recruited without the caveat of not recruiting certain other Henchmen, her first recruitment mission never becomes available until much later in the game, around the time when the Evil Genius' Doomsday Device goes under some serious upgrades.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: On the receiving end, as she is one of the four henchmen that can receive a new outfit if Espectro is recruited.
- Arms Dealer: After leaving the air-force, she became a black market arms dealer. This is reflected by one of her special abilities called "Hand Guns", which allows her to arm minions with guns. If recruited, she then continues her work while giving the Genius a significant cut of the profits, through her repeatable Schemes.
- Badass Bandolier: She wears one loaded with grenades for her launcher.
- Expy: Of Tank Girl.
- Grenade Launcher: Her weapon of choice.
- Guide Dang It!: At the game's launch, Jackie's Side Story would never become available if the player recruited any of the following four Henchmen or did any of their associated missions: Eli Barracuda Jr., Jubei, Dr. Magnolia Ming, or Sir Daniel. Two of these Henchmen are offered to the player at the start of the game (out of four choices) and the main story cannot be advanced until one of these four are recruited. Her Side Story only became available after recruiting Quantum Chemists, which is past the mid-game. All of this meant it was likely that the player would lock themselves out of her questline and never find out why, let alone know she even exists until they try to take over the world and she invades with the other Crime Lords. This was mitigated after the 1.30 patch, as Eli and Jubei can be hired on without locking the player out of the questline, but the conditions about the other two Henchmen still remained. A later patch averted this entirely by making it so that all four of the aforementioned Crime Lords can be recruited without failing her quest, it just means you skip their steps in her questline.
- Made especially more irritating when you realize that the Red Ivan Gameplay trailer, which was released prior to the games' launch shows Ivan with his henchmen, including Jackie, Jubei, Eli AND Sir Daniel. While that setup could be done in-game at the game's release, it required the previously mentioned precautions, and contributed to the impression that Jackie can be freely recruited with them.
- Made especially more irritating when you realize that the Red Ivan Gameplay trailer
- It's Personal: Her raids against the Genius are initially motivated by greed, since their Doomsday Device would give her a huge payday. Midway through the questline, Jackie takes issue with how the Genius has been talking down to her and admits that she's no longer completely in it for the money; Jackie starts using her connections to make it near impossible for them to source fuel for the Device until her quest's resolved.
- Not Completely Useless: Certainly not Jackie herself, but various missions pop up when going through her missions that yield Doomsday Device fuel. By now, the Evil Genius will certainly have accumulated enough already making these missions rather useless...except for Polar, whose fuel can only be found in J.A.W.S territory, allowing her to gather her fuel the traditional way without committing submarines.
- Only in It for the Money: Jackie became an international arms dealer specifically because it pays better than her military posting. She's noted to go where war is brewing to sell arms to both sides. Jackie initially does business with the Genius since they promise to be her best customer, but starts to attack and invade the Evil Genius' lair because their Doomsday Device is one of the most valuable weapons she could ever hope to sell.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Her real name is unknown, and she's only referred to by her code-name from her time in the Australian air-force. She apparently considered "Lock, Stock and Carol" at one point when she became a gun runner.
- Punny Name: A trigger happy soldier who commits war crimes, named after an iconic American war film that features the same.
- Spotting the Thread: Jackie realizes that the Genius is assembling a Doomsday Device because of them buying particular things all at once that nobody would buy unless they were aiming for the big leagues (i.e. generators, hypercondensors, and alloy slabs).
- Stuff Blowing Up: She uses a grenade launcher in combat, and her "Fire Sale" ability unleashes a barrage of incendiary attacks on enemies.
People say this fire spinner once robbed the vault of a Macau casino while simultaneously cheating at the blackjack table. It seems impossible, but Incendio always has at least one trick up his shiny sleeve. After a string of bad choices, and bad fortune, this elusive exhibitionist is on the run. Before the smoke clears from his fiery performances, Incendio has moved on to his next job.
- Abnormal Ammo: His basic ranged attack is to throw playing cards. The cards explode on impact, doing trivial damage but knocking the target and everyone near them down for a short bit.
- Collateral Damage: His range attack and magic tricks are very useful against enemies, but it will also inadvertently destroy stuff around them. Considering that he mostly spends his time at the Cover Operation, this means rebuilding the casino (and paying money) every time a group of soldier coming through the front door is dealt with.
- Death Dealer: His ranged attack is chucking playing cards.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: Be wary when executing him. Upon death, he will explode and set everything around him, including your Genius, on fire.
- Exact Words: He did tell the Genius that he would make their resort the hottest place around and draw attention from everyone. Setting everything on fire certainly does make everything hot and draw attention.
- Gone Horribly Right: When first recruiting him for the express purpose of getting attention, he works his magic, and it brings too many witnesses as a result. And then he sets your base on fire.
- Magicians Are Wizards: He has the look and act of a stage magician, though like Mesmero, his powers are real.
- Only Known by Their Nickname: "Incendio" is merely his stage name. His real name is never revealed.
- Playing with Fire: If his name didn't tip you off, he'll certainly show you his pyrotechnic abilities in his side-story. And his ranged attack results in a fireball that can stunlock enemy agents. He can also cause a lot of damage to the Cover Operation, as he likes to hang around there and will likely be the first one to meet any Agents or Soldiers coming in the front door.
- Squishy Wizard: His abilities are suited mostly toward distracting agents and tourists, not fighting, which is why he spends his time patrolling the Casino instead of the lair like other Henchmen. He can fight, but like the Genius themselves, he goes down pretty quick.
- Support Party Member: His cards' area-effect knockdown ability make him great for supporting ranged allies and his abilities are more suited to making sure enemies never get into your base than they are for dealing with them once they get there.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Of the Great Mesmero.
- Warmup Boss: Like with Eli Barracuda Jr., he can be recruited incredibly early in the game. He's the first Deception-based henchman available.
Naomi Sorayama has been constantly let down by humanity, but now she knows the secret to saving our race; stop being human. Robots don't laugh at clothes, cyberbully on social media, or pretend they don't know you at the school dance. She's working to bring about the plastic perfection of the robot age, and while they may not love Naomi, they'll never hate her either.
- Action Bomb: The assault robots she sends after the Evil Genius explode if brought down to 0 health, causing everything around them to start burning.
- Decoy Protagonist: Follows the formula of becoming a Henchman, but instead builds I.R.I.S. a body and permanently departs.
- Guest-Star Party Member: Though you can fight and capture Naomi like any other Crime Lord, she will not actually join up with you. Rather, she is the one who will build I.R.I.S. her robot body if the player chose not to have her as their first Henchman. Once her work is done, Naomi leaves the lair. Strange, given how when she does she mentions the Genius should keep an eye on her work, which will be getting bigger. Hinting very strongly she'll show up again later in the game, but she never does.
- Shout-Out: A homage to Hajime Sorayama, the Japanese artist who popularized the Fembot that are nude women with silver skin, iconic in cyberpunk media.
Do androids dream of electric death? That's the question IRIS must now ask and put to the test. Repeatedly. IRIS remains your personal digital assistant, keeping you organized, but carrying out orders for mayhem across the globe. IRIS 2.0 also comes with new features like Murder 2.3, Torture 3.5, and Abduction 5, now with photos and notification to your feed.
- Affectionate Nickname: She calls her Evil Genius "Boss."
- Defeat Equals Explosion: She will violently explode when she dies. Because Henchmen death from Super Agents was removed after negative feedback from beta testers, this only happens if she's executed by an Evil Genius (or from patch glitches).
- Distaff Counterpart: To T.I.M. from the first game, though she predates him by several years in-universe.
- Fembot: Metal robot hair and all.
- Flat Joy: She has a series of battlecries like "wow" and "wahoo" delivered in her omnipresent Machine Monotone.
- Fun with Acronyms: The name stands for "Integrated Robotic Intelligent System".
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Part of Zalika's plotline has her doomsday weapon being infected with a virus that spreads to IRIS. If she's been given a body to serve as a henchman, the player loses control of her until the research to correct this problem's been completed.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: Zalika's bio claims that she was the one who built I.R.I.S. (at the age of six), but she's the lair A.I. for every Genius.
- Japanese Ranguage: I.R.I.S. will sometimes pronounce words that begin with "L" with an "R" instead, as if she were programed with a Japanese accent. While the builder of her physical platform is Japanese, I.R.I.S. spoke like this to begin with and will continue to do so even if you decide not to have her robot body built.
- Killer Robot: Patrols your base as a walking long-range security camera and laser turret.
- Meaningful Name: One of her special abilities involve use of her eyes, and she's always watching your base and reporting on what's going on inside it.
- Mook Carryover: Zalika's profile states she was I.R.I.S.'s creator, but I.R.I.S will work for any playable Evil Genius.
- Motor Mouth: As the Voice with an Internet Connection and Mission Control for the Evil Genius lair, if a lot of activity is occurring at once, she will rant a long laundry list of everything going wrong in the base... sometimes repeatedly. Averted after the 1.30 Patch, where a cooldown was placed on her responses so she couldn't do this anymore.
- Required Party Member: Not so much "required" as her being there all the time and cannot be dropped regardless of your chosen Genius or side story decisions. I.R.I.S. is actually your Evil Genius' base AI. She is available from the get-go and her "recruitment" mission is just you finding a roboticist to build her a physical body to directly interact and intervene with matters inside the Lair. This means that even if you do decide to execute her, all this will do is destroying her physical chassis and freeing up a Henchman slot, with her programming still remaining intact afterwards.
- Sexy Stewardess: She wears a pink Pan Am uniform from the 1960's era.
- Support Party Member: Though she can hold her own in a fight alright, I.R.I.S's abilities make her more of this than a true damage-dealer. Her mobile security camera ability is nifty for calling your muscle minions straight to where the fight is at and her other ability restores her health so rapidly for several seconds (while disabling her ability to attack) that she makes a very good tank to draw enemy attention while Lair security rushes to her location and allies open fire on the enemy from a distance.
This criminal hacker's true last name remains a mystery, but press branded her with the "Bombe" moniker after she dismantled a British Wartime decryption machine and sold its secrets to the highest bidder. Janet's love for taking things apart has a tendency to backfire however, and a particularly explosive encounter has left her with a permanent magnetic field. Only the Degausser she keeps strapped to her back prevents Janet from erasing any data she touches.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: On the receiving end, as they are one of the four henchmen that can receive a new outfit if Espectro is recruited.
- The Cracker: Rather than going on the offensive, focuses on slowing investigating agents down, or wiping their evidence.
- Didn't Think This Through: If the player chooses to kill her during her questline, this trope rears its head. Janet spends the entire questline (playfully) taunting the Evil Genius, interfering with their plans and schemes, and showing that she can casually induce massive issues in the Lair from anywhere in the world by interfering with its power grid. While she does this all to prove herself to their cause, Janet also gives a very dangerous person plenty of reasons to see her killed instead of recruiting her, and the Genius clearly lets her know that she's on thin ice in spite of her usefulness.
- Loony Fan: Of Evil Geniuses in general, making her a very eager recruit. She sends one of them a message through an alarm clock early on, which impresses them enough to consider hiring her. If not recruited first, Janet steps up her efforts to be noticed and starts actively interfering with various base functions, with the worst being constant blackouts. She's not doing this maliciously, but just to prove how useful she can be to a Evil Genius.
- Non-Indicative Name: Her name might make one assume she's the Mad Bomber type, rather than a master Hackette. It instead refers to the Bombe was the device built by the British cryptography organization to decrypt the ENIGMA device.
- Shout-Out: One of her battle phrases is "I'm invincible!" This would seem to be a reference to the (misplaced) catchphrase of fellow hacker Boris Grishenko from GoldenEye.
- Situational Sword: Her Remote Detonation skill deals bonus Vitality damage to Soldier and Saboteur-type agents that ignore armor, up to 50 per hit (30 for Soldiers), making her more effective when fighting them, or on rare occasions Super Agents like Wrecking Bola, Blue Saint, and John Steele...and that's about it. Saboteurs in general aren't even that hard to take down at the front door with mobs of well-armed Muscle minions, assuming they even made it that far to begin with if your cover operation is effective. Remote Detonation also only hits one target at a time, so unless you're looking for a means to do incredibly high single-target Vitality damage to these specific enemy types for some reason, feel free to hire just about anybody else.
- Support Party Member: Janet has no effective way to directly contribute to a fight, only having basic punches and kicks. Her true talents lie in damaging key targets before they start fighting the player's forces, and removing an Agent's collected evidence before they can escape from the Lair and bring more deadly reinforcements. Her Remote Detonation ability can also be used in combat to briefly lock a target into the helpless reaction animation state, which stops them from attacking your minions on top of any damage they take from the ability itself.
- Why Am I Ticking?: Her Remote Detonation skill causes whatever ammo her target carries to explode, with varying results.
Magnolia Ming was drummed out of environmental circles when she unleashed gigantic lab-grown super plants in an effort to reclaim the world's cities for Mother Nature. Forced underground, she continued to pursue a renewed paradise on Earth. Denied access to legitimate funding, she's turned to crime to finance her cure for Earth's most fatal disease: humanity.
- Alliterative Name: Magnolia Ming.
- Badass Bandolier: She wears a pair loaded with toxin bombs.
- Combat Medic: One of her abilities is a red gas that rapidly heals any friendly unit it touches, but she's fully capable of killing whole swathes of agents with her other poison gas. This makes her the only person in the Lair that can heal fallen Henchmen or nearly-dead minions without an Infirmary.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: If you kill her, the Genius will point out that they agreed with everything she was doing, honestly wanted to help her, and that they intended to hire her onto their staff before she bolted, right before executing her for being an Ungrateful Bastard.
- Fishbowl Helmet: She wears a green-tinted one similar to that of the Biologist minions.
- Gaia's Vengeance: Dr. Ming performs her experiments and commits her bioterrorism to save the planet from pollution and destruction, viewing humanity at large as "weeds" or a "plague" on nature.
- Poison Is Evil: She's a biochemist who cultivated poisonous plants and spores, and her combat ability is unleashing poison clouds that indiscriminately hunt down people nearby and kill them (this includes your minions, by the way).
- Pungeon Master: Oh lordy. Every other line of hers is making some kind of pun about gas or weeds, like "I'll see you inhale!" (see you in Hell).
- Ungrateful Bastard: Her Side-Story begins with the Genius helping to advance her research in hopes of forming a mutually beneficial partnership. Dr. Ming repays this kindness by taking her research, unleashing her newly-improved toxins within the Lair, and fleeing to the World Stage. She then spends the rest of her questline trying to kill the Genius and their entire army using said research.
Yes, THAT Pyro. The Pyro is a dangerous, uncontrollable force of destruction who acts without regard for the lives of those around them. Considered maniacal by some, the Pyro is a law unto themselves. They sow fear in their wake. None dare oppose them... maybe you have more in common than you care to admit.
The Pyro is a free DLC Henchman, available as part of the "Pyro Pack".
- Ambiguous Gender: As usual, the Pyro's heavy, shapeless suit and gas mask prevent anyone from knowing what gender they are.
- Blow You Away: Like their home game, they can fire a blast of compressed air from their flamethrower to extinguish any burning allies. Unlike their home game, they can also use the airblast to make enemies on fire burn hotter — by way of feeding it extra oxygen — and therefore increase the damage they take.
- Crossover: The Pyro is a character from Team Fortress 2, making a guest appearance as a playable Henchman in Evil Genius 2. You also get three loot items from their quests; the Payload cart, the Intelligence Briefcase, and a case full of Australium.
- The Dreaded: The minions express fear about having to recruit the Pyro, and for good reason; it’s established that the Pyro's own teammates fear them, and the surviving Pyro (either BLU or RED) apparently killed a number of minions and their friends on a random rampage previously. Sure enough, their flamethrower is very likely to swiftly kill friendly minions if they're fighting the same target.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: As always, this is the Pyro's bread and butter. They come packing their classic homemade flamethrower, but can also use the Armageddon killtaunt — which, in their home game, can only be used with the Rainblower — to cause huge, fiery explosions.
- Friendly Fireproof: Entirely averted, unlike their home game. The Pyro's flamethrower can and will set friendly minions and Henchmen on fire, easily killing the former (depending on their specialty) and taking the latter out of a fight until they put themselves out or the Pyro extinguishes them with their airblast. The flames will also damage furniture, which can cause severe issues if they're fighting in a vital room (like the Power room).
- Palette Swap: You can recruit a Pyro from either RED or BLU, with you having to kill the Pyro belonging to the other team before you can recruit the Pyro of your choice. This choice also changes the color of the associated Loot from their quest, since you're stealing it from the opposing Team.
- The Voiceless: The Pyro has never really been able to speak due to their gas mask; but it’s taken to an extreme here, where they flat-out don’t say anything at all. As such, I.R.I.S. serves as their voice instead, on the basis of being the Pyro's handler.
Contrary to what he learned in school, the most dangerous game is not mahjong, but hunting, and not animals, but people, and not just any person, since there's no sport in taking down tele-marketers, but the ultimate predator. Sir Daniel has the heads of big game and even heads of state on his walls, but he lacks the most fearsome head of all: an Evil Genius.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: On the receiving end, as he is one of the four henchmen that can receive a new outfit if Espectro is recruited.
- Artistic License – Gun Safety: One of his poses for cutscenes is using his gun as an impromptu cane, with the stock on the ground and him resting both of his hands over the barrel. At all other times, he does practice proper gun safety out of a fight (keeps his rifle pointed at the ceiling while walking around, his finger off the trigger).
- Bear Trap: One of his abilities is hiding a beartrap in a row of jungle plants. As you'd expect, it causes severe damage to anyone who sets it off, roots them in place until they get free, and it also automatically flags them to be Captured.
- Blue Blood: His mannerisms indicate an aristocratic upbringing. Also he is called Sir Daniel.
- Boss Rush: His recruitment mission has you fight all six Super Agents in a row.
- Brick Joke: Sir Daniel's description mentions how he learned the most dangerous game isn't mahjong, but hunting people. After killing Sir Daniel, the Genius and one of their minions will muse that he wasn't the most dangerous game after all, mahjong is.
- Challenge Seeker: Initially targets the Genius for his hunt since they're currently the most dangerous human alive, and they earn his respect for repeatedly defeating him. If recruited, he settles for hunting the "second most dangerous humans alive" (the Super Agents) just so he can keep doing what he loves while stuck inside the Lair. He prefers to let Super Agents escape alive because the Super Agent will return stronger than ever, increasing the challenge to do it again.
- Egomaniac Hunter: Hunts the most dangerous of prey, Evil Geniuses. And, after he learns it's better to be on your side, Super Agents.
- Expy: With his outfit, mustache, rifle, and his love for Hunting the Most Dangerous Game, he’s a dead ringer for Van Pelt.
- Evil Brit: While very polite and honorable, he kills people for both fun and because to his mind, life's nothing but one big hunt. The Genius compares him to a wild jungle predator if the player tries to recruit him, and he's one of the more bloodthirsty Henchmen due to his hunting obsession.
- Great White Hunter: Dressed like the stereotypical Victorian safari hunter.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: While he has a long career of hunting people for sport, he has his eyes on the biggest prize of all. In the world of Evil Genius, the most dangerous prey is an Evil Genius. While he resents being trapped inside the Lair after being recruited, he settles for hunting the second most dangerous game of all, Super Agents.
- Large Ham: Delivers his lines as if he's a Shakespearean actor.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: His "Camouflage" skill is him sticking some frond leaves on his helmet and walking much more slowly, but it makes him invisible to Agents (and the Minions, incidentally). His next attack in disguise will do increased damage, encouraging him to ambush his target.
- Quintessential British Gentleman: Well spoken and rather friendly. Enjoys the thrill of the hunt more than the actual kill. His banter includes stock British phrases such as, "tally-ho," "spot of tea," and "dilly-dally."
- Shout-Out: His name is a nod to famous writer Ernest Hemingway, who was also an avid outdoorsman and hunter in life.
- Sniper Rifle: Employs a safari hunting rifle as one. Uniquely, he has a much longer range than everyone else in the game and can fire his gun in melee, unlike everyone else who has to put their gun away for melee combat.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Of Col. Blackheart from the first game, another British man who hunts humans for the thrill of it.
