Visual Novel / Henchman Story

Pictured: Kate, a rookie Henchman that Stan's tasked with mentoring

Henchman Story is a comedic/romantic Superhero Stories Visual Novel by Silken Sail Games. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the story was officially released on October 14, 2021.

The story focuses on Stan, a Henchman working under Lord Bedlam after struggling to make a living elsewhere. However, being a bumbling supervillain's henchman is a thankless job. The spandex chafes, there's tons of late nights, and your boss rarely remembers your name. But in this narrative adventure, Stan soon discovers that - sometimes - even the choices of the lowliest henchman can change everything.

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Tropes:

• Accidental Misnaming: Lord Bedlam is horrible with remembering names, which is one of the main reasons he assigns his henchmen numbers; he literally misnames people within two sentences of them telling him who they are. The only exception is if he sees you as a personal nemesis.
• Action Girlfriend: Either Nova or Scorpion can be this for Stan. It can be upgraded to a Battle Couple depending on players' choices.
• All Amazons Want Hercules: If Stan pursues a relationship with Madame Scorpion she makes it known that she isn't interested in dating a weak man she can just walk over. If Stan wants to pursue her then he has to step up to become her equal. This goes into Gameplay and Story Integration as if the player botches Stan's actions during missions and responds to her questions with indecisive answers, she will reject him.
• Alliterative Name: Stan has the option to introduce himself to Miss Dynamo with a fake alliterative name, which she makes fun of. It later turns out that Kate's real name is Victoria Vasquez, and if Stan used an alliterative name earlier, he can call Dynamo out on it.
• Ambition Is Evil: In the villain routes, Stan is motivated by Madame Scorpion to seek better career opportunities and rise among the ranks of villainy. In the hero routes, Stan forsakes his entire career path at Shining Nova's urging.
• Arch-Enemy: Gets hilariously invoked in the Super hero path; should Stan undergo a Heel–Face Turn and betray Lord Bedlam's organization to help Shining Nova, Lord Bedlam is first outraged over the betrayal but will then get giddy over the prospect that this will officially make Stan his nemesis. In the endings where Stan does end up becoming a Superhero, Lord Bedlam will reiterate that Stan is now his arch-nemesis.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • In all but one of the villain endings, Madame Scorpion soundly defeats her opponents and continues her reign of terror unabated. And in the one ending she doesn't, it's because Stan backstabs her and becomes an evil mastermind himself.
  • The two Road Untaken endings imply that Madame Scorpion succeeds in her villainous ambitions as well, with both her and Lord Bedlam still at large. The key difference here is that Stan decides to either quit his job as a henchman or refuse to help Nova out after escaping with her.
• Bad Liar: Most of Stan's lies aren't particularly effective, and he often gets exposed pretty quickly. A notable example can be found in the villain route, where Madame Scorpion tasks Stan with lying to Shining Nova during her interrogation to get her to reveal her backup plan. Even though Stan basically says the same thing regardless of whether or not he's lying to her, Nova will see right through his lie and only reveal her true plan if he genuinely turns against Scorpion. However, given that Nova still gets Out-Gambitted if Stan commits to being a villain, it's implied that the true purpose of Scorpion's test was less about Stan's effectiveness as a liar, and more about his willingness to lie.
• The Baroness: Madame Scorpion, an unrepentant domineering power hungry villainess. She's even designed to look like her.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Depending on your choices, this can very well be Dave's reason for helping you out during the latter part of the game, on no less than 2 separate occasions. If you've been supportive and friendly to him during your early interactions, the first time he'll look the other way during an alarm, provided you chose to talk your way past him rather than fight. The second time, succeeded directly by the above choice, at the very climax of the story he'll flat-out turn on his boss Lord Bedlam when ordered to fight you. Depending on how you look at it, this could also double as The Dog Bites Back as Lord Bedlam can't even bother to remember his name despite the fact Dave is easily his most enthusiastic supporter and practically worships the ground he walks on.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Lord Bedlam desperately wants to be respected as a threat and have a nemesis of his own, but between his low-profile crimes and the fact that big-name supervillainess Madame Scorpion is clearly using his organization to further her own schemes, only his own underlings give him proper respect.
• Bitter Sweet Ending: The A Real Dynamo ending. Stan undergoes a Heel–Face Turn after having a last moment change of heart. While he and Dynamo manage to save Nova's life, Scorpion escapes and goes into hiding with her Network entact. Stan is still forced to undergo probation as a form of rehabilitation program and he and Nova are on shaky terms due to his not following through on her request. Despite this, he actually does form a new friendship with Dynamo.
• Bland-Name Product: Stan and his coworkers play Spells & Swords, a tabletop roleplaying game which is clearly a stand-in for Dungeons & Dragons.
• Brain/Computer Interface: Villainess Madame Scorpion's master plan involves one, as by connecting herself to a supercomputer running an app she's having installed on every henchman's phone, she'll have access to enough processing power to outthink any superhero she's up against.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Stan gets scoped out by Madame Scorpion because despite his overall mediocrity, he is still uncannily Lord Bedlam's most competent henchman. The average duration for a henchman on a job is about a year tops and yet Stan has somehow managed to survive on the job for around 5 without getting arrested and only ever suffering minor injuries. An option players can choose is to reveal that Stan has gotten by because he learned to work smarter, not harder, over the years.
• Crazy-Prepared: Shining Nova, particularly if Stan's on the Heel–Face Turn route. In addition to how much she's obfuscated her true identity from the public, giving her suit an autonomous mode when she needs to be two places at once, she reveals to Stan that she's actually improvised flashy attack moves when she's being recorded on the news that she'll never use again, just to mess with opponents trying to observe her and counter her techniques.
• The Corrupter: Madame Scorpion sees a lot of potential in Stan and is quick to tempt him to the dark side with promises of power and excitement, and tries to motivate him into being more ambitious than the Punch-Clock Villain he starts out as. The only thing stopping her from being completely malevolent is that she genuinely respects and cares about Stan in her own way, and can possibly fall in love with him.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Lord Bedlam's an unabashed, if ineffectual example, as he openly tries to project a grandiose and intimidating persona, complete with bombastic (and incoherent) speeches and a villainous fashion sense. Madame Scorpion, while sharing many of the trappings of a Card-Carrying Villain such as her flair for the dramatic, sadism, and a similar fondness for theatrics, is actually an aversion as she never actually considers herself a bad person, and genuinely believes that her ruthless methods are the only real way to succeed in this world. This is driven home by her We Can Rule Together speech to Stan, where she explicitly dismisses the notion of genuine superheroes, claiming that they merely use the lie of righteousness to impose their will on others, and the honest way to live is to reject such false idols and ruthlessly pursue your ambitions no matter what. This is further deconstructed in the villain routes. Bedlam, who only embraced the villainous aesthetic to stroke his ego, is quick to form an Enemy Mine with Shining Nova when he realizes that Scorpion's about to take over his entire organization, and earns Stan's wrath and contempt as a result. While Scorpion, by virtue of having an actual philosophy and code guiding her actions, can become a supervillain Stan legitimately respects.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: If Shining Nova gets captured by Madame Scorpion during her escape, Scorpion will make numerous sadistic threats about breaking her spirit and taking off the "torture-kiddy gloves". The implications behind it are only addressed onscreen if Stan makes a last-minute Heel–Face Turn and tries to rescue Nova, as the villain routes don't focus on Nova again until she's already made her escape with Lord Bedlam's assistance.
• Deadpan Snarker: Basically Stan's defining characteristic. He almost always has a snappy or witty comment on everything that happens around him, and it's initially implied that he's developed this trait as a coping mechanism, given the absurdity (and beatdowns) he frequently faces as Lord Bedlam's henchman. When Kate is introduced later on, she quickly takes to this aspect of him and gives as good as she gets. Even Madame Scorpion has her moments.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: This is essentially what Madame Scorpion's motivation amounts to. She'll do absolutely anything she needs to in order to ensure that she's the one who has the power. After Shining Nova reveals her true identity and gets cornered, Scorpion will point-blank tell Stan that the game of power is zero sum, and that if people like her and Stan are to win, others like Nova have to lose. This gets brutally deconstructed in the Lord Stanley ending, where Stan takes this trope to its logical extreme by turning on Scorpion herself so that he can rule all by himself, and even throws her own words back at her when she tries to talk him out of doing so.
• Destructo-Nookie: Should Stan romance Madame Scorpion in the villain routes, their trysts are shown to be rather...messy. During Their First Time, Scorpion tears Stan's uniform to shreds, rendering it unusable, which is convenient since she was going to offer him an upgrade anyway. It gets even worse in the Twisted ending, where Scorpion freely admits to intentionally trashing the valuables in the room whenever they have sex.
• The Dog Bites Back: Dave might be a bit dumb, but he does remember. Snark at him too much and he'll turn on you; be nice to him, and he'll turn on Bedlam.
• Downer Ending:
  • The Road Untaken endings are probably the most somber of the endings. In this, Stan pulls a Screw This, I'm Out of Here! after either betraying Nova or deciding not to help Nova out any further either after escaping with her. In both endings, Stan ends up living off the grid in the forest, fearing for his life if Madame Scorpion is ever going to find him. In the first ending, it's implied that the captured Nova was killed by Madame Scorpion while in the second, Nova and Dynamo's infiltration attempt fails. The two end up having a falling out and Nova retires from super heroics entirely.
  • Agent Stan also offers another rather somber one; it comes about if Stan originally sides with Madame Scorpion but then opts to switch sides to help Shining Nova during the interrogation. After recruiting Dynamo to complete the mission, if Stan opts to stick to the original plan, he gets injured during the final escape. His body gets recovered by an organization, implied to be the surviving Scorpion Group, who experiment on him to turn him into a Super Soldier, an amnesiac special agent who carries out assassinations for them. He gets found by Nova and Dynamo but he has no memories of either, and though he doesn't fight them, he does warn them to stay out of his way.
• Easily Forgiven: As vicious as Miss Dynamo is to Stan during his henchman career, in the A Real Dynamo and Agent Stan routes, she's quick to forgive him once she realizes he's genuinely on Nova's side, even when Stan points out his role in getting her arrested. As it turns out, she genuinely does believe that Stan was just making the best decisions he could at the time, and if he's willing to help Nova now, that's all that matters. This is in contrast to her demeanor if Stan just escapes with Nova from the outset, with her briefly wondering if his Heel–Face Turn is some sort of elaborate trap.
• Enemy Mine: The villain routes have Nova teaming up with Lord Bedlam of all people, as he realized that Madame Scorpion was in the process of edging him out of his own organization, and Nova knew Stan was lying to her all along. The partnership goes...poorly.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Madame Scorpion's contempt for the concept of heroism bites her hard in the routes where Stan has a Heel–Face Turn. This is not because she's incapable of comprehending virtuous concepts such as trust, camaraderie, love or compassion. Indeed, she displays many of them in her own routes. However, her social darwinist beliefs have convinced her that superheroes must have only amassed so much renown through manipulation and ruthlessness, just like she did, and she's therefore completely blindsided when they genuinely put themselves at risk for those they care about, or show unstoppable determination despite all odds, or Stan refuses to buy into her characterization of Nova as a self-absorbed manipulator despite the fact that she did deceive him. As a result, she ends up outmatched despite having a clear advantage in terms of resources and manpower.
• Eviler than Thou: Two instances:
  • Madame Scorpion is a far more ambitious and dangerous villain than Lord Bedlam. While Bedlam himself would be content to do petty operations that never amount to anything and usually don't even put anyone but his own henchmen at risk, Scorpion is a former assassin who has already built a formidable power network and exploits Bedlam's resources for considerably more deadly ends. This extends to their influence on Stan; while under Bedlam, Stan was a harmless and ineffectual Punch-Clock Villain, under Scorpion he can become a dangerously effective operator who poses a major threat to the superheroes.
  • In the Lord Stanley ending, Stanley himself becomes this to Madame Scorpion, betraying her genuine trust in him and taking over both her and Bedlam's organizations for himself.
• Evil Is Easy: Zig-Zagged:
  • On the one hand, all Stan has to do to become a villain is stick to the career path he's already on instead of throwing it all away on a gamble at Shining Nova's urging. The villain route also has weaker antagonists, with Miss Dynamo the only one posing any real threat, and Nova herself rendered largely ineffectual thanks to a botched Enemy Mine with Lord Bedlam. In contrast, the hero route has Stan face the full brunt of Scorpion's and Bedlam's forces, including Scorpion herself who does not hold back.
  • On the other hand, Scorpion herself is much harder to pursue as a Love Interest than Nova, as you have to carefully manage her Relationship Values and repeatedly prove Stan's penchant for villainy, as well as his interest in her. Fall short, and she'll reject you. Furthermore, Scorpion's romance starts out as a Friends with Benefits arrangement, and there are even more dialogue checks you have to clear in order to unlock a Relationship Upgrade with her. Nova, by contrast, can be romanced in any route where you escape with her instead of arrest her, regardless of Stan's prior actions.
  • Furthermore, Scorpion in general is also a much more demanding person than Nova, as she fully expects Stan to hold his own in difficult situations and has no intention of coddling him. Even if Stan proves his loyalty to her by arresting Nova when she tries to escape, Scorpion still has him undergo a final test of character to see if he can fully sever his lingering attachments to Nova and commit to being a villain. Also, while Scorpion is tolerant of Stan being conflicted or indecisive (though this does make her harder to pursue as a Love Interest), she'll be utterly merciless if Stan turns on her, with no way to get back in her good graces. Nova, by contrast, is unconditionally supportive of Stan if he helps her escape and would gladly throw herself in harm's way to protect him, and even if you do initially arrest her, she'll still throw in a Last-Second Chance for him (overlapping with Scorpion's "final test"), albeit with some hard feelings.
• Evil Is Petty: In the Lord Stanley ending, Stan has betrayed all his bosses and is more powerful than ever, and Shining Nova and Miss Dynamo are shown to be utterly terrified of him as he picks off superheroes one by one. And what does he do to the superheroes he captures? Well, when Captain Commodore is brought before him, Stan reminisces about the time Commodore punched him in the face, but when Commodore starts getting defiant, Stan demands that his underlings...shave his mustache. He even acknowledges how petty he's being, but he no longer cares.
• Evil Pays Better: A major reason why Stan became a henchman in the first place was to get some job security and health insurance after his law-abiding early life ended up saddling him with mountains of debt. When Madame Scorpion enters the picture, she eagerly tempts him with lucrative opportunities to advance his career that could leave him both incredibly wealthy and powerful. By contrast, Shining Nova asks Stan to completely abandon his career path solely by appealing to his morality, and outright admits that she can't guarantee his prospects from the outset. Though Stan can make a decent living in the hero endings, the substantial risks associated with pulling a Heel–Face Turn can be reason enough for him to reject Nova's pleas.
• Evil Virtues: While Madame Scorpion is an incredibly ruthless and sadistic villain, she genuinely cares about her underlings who prove their value, which shows in her interactions with Stan. She's understanding of his pragmatic Punch-Clock Villain attitude, tries to work on better incentives for him rather than demanding unthinking subservience, encourages Stan to stand up for himself even while he's working for her, and wants a genuinely loving relationship with him rather than coercing him into one. In the villain routes, this can be the reason why Stan eventually chooses her over Lord Bedlam, as Bedlam really does care about nothing but his own ego and has pushed his underlings to suffer countless beatdowns for basically no good reason. Of course, Stan can also use Madame Scorpion's trust in him against her to take over himself, which she doesn't see coming until it's too late.
• The Faceless: The story is told from Stan's perspective, and when the player sees what he looks like in the introduction, his upper body is stuck in a trash can. In the ending CGs, his face is either out of frame, being blocked by scenery (or a sign Dave made), or is covered by a helmet as part of his new superhero or supervillain identity.
• Fate Worse than Death:
  • After critically wounding Miss Dynamo in the villain route and forcing her to retreat, Madame Scorpion says that even if she somehow recovers, she'll always live in fear of Scorpion's shadow, knowing that she could be vanquished at any moment, which in some ways is even more satisfying than killing her. Though Dynamo does survive thanks to Nova's intervention, the fact that the heroes never pose a serious threat again (with the Lord Stanley ending explicitly showing how Nova's still worried about Dynamo's safety) suggests that Scorpion's analysis was on point.
  • In the hero route, should you botch the final confrontation with Scorpion by triggering a network shutdown (which disconnects her from her supercomputer but leaves her faculties intact) instead of a feedback loop (which actively inhibits her ability to fight), Scorpion will gloat about how badly Stan's screwed up, and go into sadistic detail about how she plans to keep him alive in order to brutalize him in the worst ways imaginable. Thanks to Nova's last-minute intervention, she doesn't have the opportunity to go through with it.
• Faux Affably Evil: Madame Scorpion always puts up a charming front, even as she's taunting the heroes, especially Miss Dynamo who she refers to by her real name, about the horrible fate she has in store for them. This gets Zig-Zagged when it comes to her relationship with Stanley. She's initially polite, if a little secretive when gauging his potential, but if he proves his loyalty, and especially if he romances her, she'll warm up to him and show a more genuine, softer side.
• Flight of Romance: In some of the hero routes, Victoria will use her Shining Nova armor to take Stan for a romantic flight the night before their mission to take down Madame Scorpion.
• For Want Of A Nail: In the routes where Nova gets captured, small variables end up having massive consequences:
  • When Madame Scorpion asks Stan to manipulate Nova into sharing her backup plan, no matter what Stan does Nova will always find a way to outwit her, either by seeing through his lies, or successfully convincing him to actually change sides. The difference is that with Stan as her partner, Nova has an actual shot at turning the tables on Scorpion because Stan is good at what he does. If Stan is not on her side, however, Nova resorts to teaming up with Lord Bedlam instead, which thoroughly dooms her prospects from the outset. When Madame Scorpion finds out that Bedlam is acting suspiciously, she makes no move to stop him, correctly predicting that anything he tries to attempt is bound to blow up in his face sooner or later.
  • Should Stan genuinely turn against Scorpion at the last minute, he'll partner with Miss Dynamo. He then has to decide whether to stick to Nova's original plan of destroying Scorpion's supercomputer, or simply prioritizing Nova's rescue. If he destroys the supercomputer, Scorpion is permanently stopped, but at a heavy price, as Nova loses Stan who gets captured and brainwashed into becoming an assassin. If Stan decides to go straight for rescuing Nova, the operation goes off with far fewer hitches and no lasting damage, but at the cost of leaving Scorpion to fight another day.
  • In the villain routes, Lord Bedlam predictably does a horrible job of helping Nova out (only managing to secure her empty-handed escape at best) and Madame Scorpion scores a comprehensive victory against her enemies. However, while Bedlam himself was completely incapable of hacking into Scorpion's supercomputer, Stan is not, especially since Scorpion fully trusts him and will freely give out crucial information about her Brain/Computer Interface if asked. Stan doesn't have to betray her, of course, but if he does, he succeeds.
  • This is Played With should you choose the Road Untaken endings. In the villain routes, Scorpion will succeed in her ambitions regardless of Stan's involvement, though he has now become a loose end for her to hunt down. In the hero routes, however, Stan's involvement is critical, as without him Nova and Dynamo's mission fails and their partnership dissolves.
• Friendly Enemy: Stan has this dynamic with Miss Dynamo at the start of the story, as she's happy to exchange barbs and quips with him before brutally beating him to a pulp. This dynamic stops after Madame Scorpion enters the picture, as Dynamo truly loathes Scorpion, and Scorpion herself is happy to sadistically taunt her and make her even angrier. Scorpion later deconstructs this trope in a conversation with Stan, saying that having a friendly dynamic with your enemy doesn't give you any tactical advantage over them, but having the ability to psychologically toy with them them does.
• Friends with Benefits: If Stanley romances Madame Scorpion, this is what their relationship starts out as. Whether it stays that way until the end in the Casual Villainy ending, or develops into something more in the Twisted ending, depends on your choices and the Relationship Values with her by the end of the route.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Stan in the villain routes becomes a genuinely competent and dangerous operative who's a far cry from the ineffectual Harmless Villain he started out as. This is most apparent in the Twisted ending, where he and Madame Scorpion raid a superhero organization and completely reduce it to rubble, and the Lord Stanley ending, where Nova and Dynamo are clearly horrified and baffled at how Stan of all people could become so powerful.
• Godzilla Threshold: Mr. Fluke is a superhero whose powers cause everyone around him, himself included, to experience extremely bad luck whenever he snaps his fingers. Since he has no control over what form this bad luck takes, or who gets affected by it, the NWHA treats him as something of a weapon of last resort. Victoria mentions that he's Plan Z for stopping Madame Scorpion's plans if all else fails, though she hopes it doesn't come to that.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: This becomes a major Fatal Flaw of Shining Nova if she fails to convince Stan to make a Heel–Face Turn. She tries to appeal to Stan's better nature by telling him that just because circumstances pushed him into villainy, he doesn't have to stick with it and can make a new future for himself. However, she fails to understand just how legitimately tempting a career in villainy would be for someone like Stan, who has little reason to respect the law-abiding lifestyle after it saddled him with student debt and medical bills. This becomes especially true after Madame Scorpion enters the picture and genuinely offers Stan some enticing incentives to advance his career in villainy. When Nova sees the hold Scorpion has on Stan, she warns him about the dangers of staying around someone as Ax-Crazy and sadistic as her and seems utterly convinced that doing so can only end with Scorpion tossing him aside on a whim, despite her Evil Virtues showing that she genuinely values competent subordinates who can stand up for themselves. She repeatedly implores Stan to live for himself and not be subject to the whims of the supervillains lording over him, never realizing that Stan might genuinely share their ambitious nature, something that Scorpion directly calls her out on. If Stan does finally decide to commit to villainy, Nova at the very least does see through his lies and realizes the choice he's made, but she just assumes she was wrong about him and he was rotten all along, not realizing that he had genuine incentives and reasons to choose such a path.
• Heel–Face Turn: Depending on your choices, Stan can end up cutting ties with Lord Bedlam, and instead help Shining Nova and Miss Dynamo save the world.
• I Can Rule Alone: The Lord Stanley ending, where Stan, after defeating the heroes and securing Madame Scorpion's victory, turns on Scorpion herself in order to rule all by his lonesome. Scorpion, for her part, genuinely trusted Stan and is completely taken aback by his betrayal.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: In some of the hero routes, Miss Dynamo makes it clear that if Stan does anything to upset her best friend Victoria, his ass is grass.
  Miss Dynamo: I've run through brick walls for that little nerd, even ones she didn't want me to. So if you let her down, it won't be a mailbox or a dumpster you end up in — it'll be a volcano.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: A downplayed example occurs should you help Madame Scorpion arrest Shining Nova. As a "final test", she'll ask you to show up to Nova's interrogation and manipulate her into sharing her backup plan with you. Going through with it is required to fully unlock the villain route and Scorpion's romance arc.
  Scorpion: When the perfect opportunity lies before you, can you abandon your mercy...and seize it?
• Ironic Echo: In the Lord Stanley ending, Stan is all too happy to throw Madame Scorpion's own words back at her as she desperately tries to talk him out of betraying her.
  Stan: When the perfect opportunity lies before me, can I abandon my mercy...and seize it?
• Irony:
  • Should Stan successfully pursue a Relationship Upgrade with Madame Scorpion in the villain route, she'll threaten him with dire consequences if he ever betrays her. Gameplay-wise, pursuing a romance with Madame Scorpion is a surefire way to get locked out of the option of later turning on her, meaning that the only time Madame Scorpion considers the possibility of Stan backstabbing her is when he's already abandoned the notion completely.
  • Speaking of romancing Scorpion, in the routes where Stan does so, she'll emphatically state that she wants him to conduct himself as an equal to her, as she has nothing but utter contempt for the people who've propositioned her solely to fulfill their fantasies of being trampled on and degraded. If you botch the climactic confrontation with her in the hero route, Scorpion will go on a sadistic monologue about all the horrible ways she plans to degrade Stan.
• It's Personal: Scorpion and Dynamo are strongly implied to have some history together, as Dynamo constantly loses her composure around Scorpion, and Scorpion herself sadistically taunts her by referring to her by name and quite often successfully gets under her skin. Shining Nova also seems aware of this history which is why she goes out of her way to tell Dynamo to practice restraint in the hero routes, and may even be the reason she considers Scorpion Beyond Redemption.
• Just Friends: There's a special ending that actually focuses on Stan striking up an unlikely friendship with Dynamo. This can only be achieved by siding with Scorpion after Nova's revelations, but then switching sides once more during the Interrogation. Should Stan agree with Dynamo's plan to prioritize rescuing Nova, this will be the ending.
• Knight of Cerebus: Madame Scorpion becomes this in the routes where Stan turns against her, as compared to the other villains, nothing about her is Played for Laughs when she becomes an enemy. This highlights just how dangerous Scorpion can be to those who get on her bad side, and reinforces how much more dangerous she is compared to the rest of Bedlam's organization.
• Large Ham: Lord Bedlam's entire shtick. It's pretty much the one thing he's good at.
• Laser Blade: Madame Scorpion wields an energy sword with a blade made of red Hard Light.
• Last-Second Chance: Should Stan allow or help Madame Scorpion arrest Shining Nova during her escape attempt, Scorpion will later point out that Nova will likely still want to offer Stan one last chance to turn to her side if given the opportunity. As part of a "final test" for Stan, Scorpion decides to leave Stan alone with Nova in order to get Nova to do just that, and asks Stan to manipulate Nova's lingering faith in him to get her to reveal her back-up plan. Whether Stan follows Scorpion's directions and fully commits to becoming a Villain Protagonist, or has a last-minute Heel–Face Turn instead depends on the player's choice.
• Love Redeems: What happens with Stan if he pursues a romance with Nova in the hero routes. And even the non-romance paths, Nova's efforts to get Stan to defect from his henchman career are motivated by a genuine concern for him. Madame Scorpion will lampshade this when you encounter her later in the hero route by coldly mocking Stan for throwing away his prospects in villainy just because he fell in love. And Scorpion herself is also a clear aversion to this trope; the only way to romance her is to commit to being a villain, and no one even considers trying to talk her out of the path she's on.
• Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: In some of the hero routes, Victoria gives Stan a gauntlet which can project a Hard Light shield, so he can defend himself when they go up against Madame Scorpion.
• Meet Cute: Stan's first encounter with Kate/Victoria involves her kicking his ass and shooting him with an elephant tranquilizer. On purpose. When Kate first reveals her true identity as Shining Nova, she makes sure to arm herself with the same tranquilizer gun to drive the point home.
• Minion with an F in Evil: Stan being a literal Punch-Clock Villain starts off the game with an actual aversion to violence or killing. He doesn't even really believe in Lord Bedlam's ideologies, simply working for him for the job security. Shining Nova, sensing this, tries to bring the best out of Stan and convince him to turn good. Madame Scorpion, meanwhile, sees potential out of Stan to be a great villain and wants to bring the worst out of him.
• The Mole: The newest henchperson Kate is actually Shining Nova outside of her armor, trying to gain intel on Madame Scorpion's latest plan.
• Motive Rant: Scorpion has a brief one in the hero route, where she draws the parallels between her operations that steal and gather personal data, and corporations who do the same for profit, and questions why she's the one being targeted. She also points out that even if she's defeated, other villains will rise up to do similar things. When Nova calls her out and points out that she's also a sadistic murderer, Scorpion drops all pretenses and goes on the attack, but in a later scene, Nova admits that Scorpion had a point.
• Multiple Endings: Depending on how Stan reacts to the situations and people around him, he can pull a Heel–Face Turn and join the heroes, end up becoming a villainous mastermind, or somewhere in-between.
• Nerd in Evil's Helmet: Lord Bedlam is a big, imposing, and bombastic supervillain who is strongly implied to be a hardcore LARPer. He's also good at Spells & Swords, as Stan will discover if he decides to blow off Friday's heist in favor of game night.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: During the heist where Stan first encounters Shining Nova, he has the option of threatening the hostages in order to delay the superhero. However, doing so reveals that Stan has no real intention of hurting them, and Nova also sees right through his ruse. However, this incident comes up during his first review with Madame Scorpion, wherein she expresses sadistic glee at the thought of holding power over people's lives even as Stan makes it clear that he was not actually going to hurt them. This suggests that she herself has no such compunctions about protecting innocent lives, and wants to corrupt Stan into thinking the same way.
• Pet the Dog: Most of Scorpion's virtuous qualities end up serving her villainous ambitions one way or another, but in the Henchman of the Year ending, she agrees with Stan's request to award Dave with the "Assistant Henchman of the Year" title even though he was clearly struggling in his career. This doesn't serve her ambitions in any way, and she does it solely out of her goodwill with Stan. While she does almost lost her patience and draw her sword when Dave starts hogging the limelight, she backs down when Stan makes it clear that he's cool with it, even though she lightly remarks that he's being too merciful.
• Powered Armor: The superhero Shining Nova wears blue-and-white armor, as an Expy of Iron Man.
• Point of No Return: While the Relationship Values you develop in the game have an impact on what ending you get, there are certain decision points that will permanently lock you into a route:
  • The first point comes when Nova's escape is thwarted by Madame Scorpion. Both her and Madame Scorpion will ask you to decide your allegiance. Siding with Madame Scorpion or doing nothing locks out the standard hero endings, while siding with Nova locks you into the hero route.
  • The final choice that locks you in the villain route comes during Nova's interrogation, where Madame Scorpion will ask you to lie to her and get her to reveal her backup plan. Doing so locks you into the villain route permanently, while turning against Scorpion at the last minute opens up a unique route with its own endings.
• Pragmatic Villainy: During one of the first major story choices, Madame Scorpion offers Stan a gig via the Hench-Can app as a way to test his mettle. However, said mission also conflicts with a game night Spells & Swords session Stan had arranged with Dave and Kate. And while Scorpion fully approves of Stan wanting to wait and and consider his options, Stan also believes that she will not take it well if he turns down her offer. Should you actually choose game night over her offer, however, Scorpion will neither retaliate against Stan, nor write off his potential. Rather, she'll personally show up to the session and bring Lord Bedlam along in order to turn game night itself into an avenue for evaluating Bedlam's recruits. In fact, it's even possible to improve your Relationship Values with Scorpion during this event.
• Punch-Clock Villain: The somewhat obvious title aside, the story features a surpisingly well thought out and nuanced case of Playerand Protagonist Integration where the player can treat Stan's job as just that — a job, and you're given numerous opportunities to determine Stan's level of devotion to his job. Many of the game's endings are also determined by these choices, one even being appropriately titled "Henchman of the Year". Even beyond the player's control, this seems to be Stan's position by default, as he displays no inherently malicious intent or zealous devotion to his boss's cause. To him, being a henchman is just a job like any other, which is even reflected in the dialogue choices regarding his career path.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Madame Scorpion's Spy Catsuit is primarily black with a few red trimmings here and there. She also wields a red energy sword as her primary weapon. Should you romance her, she'll don a Little Black Dress with similar red trimmings.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The superhero team that Stan encounters have this dynamic, as Miss Dynamo is hot-headed and rushes into danger without forethought, while Shining Nova is less blasé and has a keener mind for strategy over brute force.
• Relationship Values: The visual novel tracks what other people think of you, which can influence which of the Multiple Endings Stan eventually reaches.
• Running Gag: Nobody knows if CC's current name is "Captain Commander" or "Captain Commodore..." or was it "Captain Colonel?"
• Sadist: Madame Scorpion, in spades. Her very first scene has her taunting Miss Dynamo with a surprise attack, and the vicious grin on her face clearly shows that she relishes how Dynamo immediately loses her composure upon seeing her. She generally reserves her sadism for her enemies, but still finds ways to toy with the feelings of even those who work for her, especially Stan. Shining Nova, of course, is on the receiving end of her vicious urges should she be captured, as Scorpion fakes an attempt to kill Stan just to mess with her, and then immediately pretends to proposition Stan just to mess with her again. If Stan commits to being a villain and romances Scorpion, she will admit that even her feelings for him are partially motivated by sadism, as she relishes the idea of Nova caring about Stanley, even as she claims him. And if Stan has a Heel–Face Turn in the A Real Dynamo route, he sees another instance of Scorpion's sadism that is played much more darkly; Nova being subjected to Cold-Blooded Torture.
  • In the villain routes, Stan actually sees some of the benefits her sadism can bring, as she quickly browbeats his Sitcom Arch-Nemesis Chef Antonio, as well as Dave, who can turn on Stan for not following protocol after Shining Nova's break-in, into giving him actual food and apologizing to him respectively. Stan himself adopts a sadistic attitude towards Dave in particular, repeatedly rubbing his newfound status in Dave's face, knowing that it's killing him inside.
  • In most villain endings, Stan softens up and never relishes sadism as much as Scorpion, but in the Lord Stanley ending, he becomes even more sadistic than she ever was, starting with subjecting her to a brutal Mind Rape so that he can take over himself. He then starts picking off the superheroes one by one while knowing how Nova and Dynamo are utterly terrified of him, and doles out vicious, and petty punishments to those he captures.
• Samus Is a Girl: Shining Nova's voice filter hides the fact that they are actually Victoria Vasquez... a.k.a Kate, the female rookie who Stan's been flirting with.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Early on, Stan can consider just outright quitting his henchman job. This leads to an early ending in which he lives in an RV in the woods.
• Secret Identity: Although Miss Dynamo "wears her cape to bed", AKA she's a full-time superhero, Shining Nova is able to hide their true identity due to their Powered Armor covering up their face and masking their voice. Her true identity is Victoria Vasquez.
• Secret Identity Vocal Shift: It turns out that Shining Nova has a voice filter that makes their voice deeper and less feminine.
• Shout-Out: Stan's introduction, having just been thrown into a trash can by Miss Dynamo as she walks away◊, is a reference to Peter Parker throwing away his superhero outfit◊ in "Spider-Man No More!".
  • Stan is sometimes called "Stan the Man", a reference to how a certain other Stan referred to himself.
  • There's a quick dig at a Sabotage Squad that goes through members so fast that it was once just one girl with a baseball bat and Jersey accent.
  • The Twisted ending has Madame Scorpion mention that Stan's been practicing a catchphrase that goes as "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, etcetera etcetera". The actual quote is from Conan the Barbarian (1982) and it says "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women!"
• Stealth-Based Mission: What the A Real Dynamo route amounts to, as Stan, after allowing Nova to get captured, has a last-minute change of heart and agrees with Miss Dynamo to prioritize her rescue. Stan convinces Dynamo to sneak into the base via a hidden entrance, and they make it a point to avoid confrontation as much as possible. The fight scenes in this route are noticeably shorter, with Dynamo frequently blowing past or one-shotting her enemies in short order, and even though Stan does get caught by Madame Scorpion (who makes her displeasure, very, very clear) Dynamo is quick to bail him out and hightail it out of there despite Scorpion's attempts to goad her into a fight.
• Super Team: Shining Nova and Miss Dynamo are members of the North Western Heroes Association, or NWHA. Most of the superheroes in the city seem to be members as well.
• Taking You with Me: Near the end of the villain route, Nova attempts a variant of this by remotely triggering her suit's self-destruct mechanism so that it can take down Stan, Madame Scorpion and the supercomputer that powers her network. Scorpion promptly slices the suit to bits, completely ruining the attempt and forcing Nova to escape empty-handed.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Nova gives an absolutely blistering one to Scorpion when delivering a final No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to her at the climax of the hero route.
• The Social Darwinist: What Madame Scorpion's philosophy amounts to. She runs her Hench-Can initiative as a lassiez-faire gig economy to gather up disposable recruits to help out in supervillain operations. She encourages Stan to follow her methods of treating teammates as expendable and prioritizing his own survival first and foremost. However, anyone who does survive such grueling operations and proves their worth is someone that Scorpion will genuinely value, becoming a Benevolent Boss to them and eagerly supporting the advancement of their career path in villainy.
• The Starscream: Stan becomes one to Lord Bedlam in the villain route, working with Madame Scorpion to slowly edge him out of his own organization, which Bedlam catches on to and retaliates by teaming up with Shining Nova. Depending on your choices, Stan can become one again by betraying Madame Scorpion in order to rule alone.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Near the end of the villain route, Nova furiously chews out Stan for lying to her, and his role in nearly getting Miss Dynamo killed, calling his actions unforgivable. Not that it amounts to much, as her subsequent attempt to blow up her suit and take down Stan and Madame Scorpion is quickly cut short.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: At the start of the story this is one of the few clear moral lines Stan has when working for Lord Bedlam, as his schemes never involve killing people. Superheroes also adhere to this rule. Madame Scorpion is a brazen aversion however, being a former assassin who openly gloats about killing her enemies. In the villain routes, her influence can cause Stan to get over his reservations about killing, and eventually even Shining Nova attempts to kill her in a last-ditch attempt at Taking You with Me.
• Unholy Matrimony: Given that Madame Scorpion is both a major villain and a romance option, successfully pursuing her is this trope.
• Unscrupulous Hero: Shining Nova becomes this in the routes where she gets captured. In the villain routes, she outright attempts to blow up the room Stan and Madame Scorpion are in as part of a last-ditch attempt to take them down. And in the Agent Stan route, where Stan has a last-minute Heel–Face Turn and executes Nova's backup plan, it's revealed that said backup plan also involves the destructive process of overloading the cooling tanks of Scorpion's supercomputer and blowing it up. This actually has pretty serious consequences, as Scorpion and Dynamo both get caught in the explosion, with only Dyanamo surviving, and it triggers the full-blown collapse of the base which causes Stan to get injured during his escape. As a result, he's captured and brainwashed into becoming an assassin, and Nova clearly blames herself for it when she finds out.
  • She's not above this in the hero route either; she'll unhesitantly shoot Bedlam in the nuts, or dupe Scorpion with a fake attack call, but only if she's the underdog.
• Victory Through Intimidation: In the Casual Villainy ending, Stan threatens to quit his job unless Madame Scorpion grants him a promotion. Scorpion asks what he'll do if resignations are not accepted. Stan then reveals that he's rigged the Bedlam Bots guarding the base with a self-destruct trigger, so she'll go down with him. Scorpion is thoroughly impressed with his ingenuity and grants him the promotion with no further argument.
• Violence is the Only Option: There is no route other than the Road Untaken endings where it's possible for Stan to avoid antagonizing Lord Bedlam and Chef Antonio. In the Heel–Face Turn routes, they're obviously trying to make Stan pay for turning against them, but even in the villain path, Shining Nova will form an Enemy Mine with Lord Bedlam and Chef Antonio will try to sabotage Stan and Madame Scorpion's efforts solely to act out his petty grudge against Stan. The shortest possible confrontation Stan can have with these two is in the A Real Dynamo route, as there Stan is focused on stealthily rescuing Nova from capture, and simply has Dynamo one-shot Antonio and toss Bedlam in his own jail cell when he encounters them.
• We Can Rule Together: Madame Scorpion spends much of the early game grooming Stan to be her underling, but this trope comes in full force when she thwarts Shining Nova's escape, with her speech to Stan being a classic example of villainous temptation. Depending on your choice, Stan can agree with her, stand against her, or comply with her only to backstab her later on (either by helping Nova from the inside, or taking over himself)
• Wilfully Weak: In contrast to the Unscrupulous Hero tendencies she develops should she get captured, Nova shows considerable restraint in the primary hero routes. When the time comes to hack into Scorpion's supercomputer, Nova has prepared programs for both shutting down her network, and triggering a feedback loop to cripple her combat capabilities. However, the feedback loop is specifically calibrated to prevent any permanent damage from occurring to Scorpion, which briefly works against Nova as Scorpion's able to withstand the onslaught and very nearly kills Stanley as a result, only being subdued thanks to one final No-Holds-Barred Beatdown. This is in contrast to the Lord Stanley ending in the villain routes, where Stan also figures out how to trigger a feedback loop, but since he lacks the moral restraint of his more heroic counterpart, he subjects Scorpion to a full-blown Mind Rape and she collapses despite her best efforts to push through it.
• You Are Number 6: As a Henchman (and one working for a boss prone to Accidental Misnaming on top of that), Stan is frequently addressed by his number in the organization. Siding with the superheroines leads to Stan getting an actual nametag.