Western Animation / League of Super Evil

Clockwise starting from left: Doomageddon, Red Menace, Doktor Frogg, and Voltar.

"I demand to be acknowledged!!"

— Voltar

League of Super Evil^note sometimes called The League of Super Evil (acronym L.O.S.E.) is a Canadian All-CGI Cartoon created by Nerd Corps Entertainment. A parody of the superhero genre, it differentiates itself from the studio's previous works by being a straightforward comedy instead of an action-driven series with a lot of humor, using Nerd Corps' distinct style of CGI to pull off zany slapstick gags and other physical animation tropes rarely associated with comedic 3D cartoons. Also unlike Nerd Corps' previous works, it was the brainchild of animators Peter Ricq and Philippe Ivanusic-Vallee, with Nerd Corps founder Asaph Fipke (credited as creator for Nerd Corps' other shows) instead only developing their concept for television.

The show about a Quirky Miniboss Squad made up of an inept Comic Trio of Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains. The team is led by the diminutive Pointy-Haired Boss Voltar, a proudly Card-Carrying Villain and all-around Large Ham who believes himself to be the world's greatest supervillain, but is largely incapable of doing anything more serious than Poke the Poodle deeds. Forming Voltar's posse of henchmen is the Mad Scientist and luckless pain magnet Doktor Frogg and Dumb Muscle Red Menace (who is anything but a menace). Their Team Pet is Doomageddon, a pandimensional "doomhound" and Extreme Omnivore able to change size, turn invisible, and teleport in a flash of fire.

Every episode they pull some harebrained scheme in an attempt to be evil, but usually manage only to be annoying. So far their most ambitious schemes have been to annoy the neighborhood, steal $5 to open a bank account for a free toaster, host a neighborhood barbecue and not invite the neighbors, and sneak their way into a fancy restaurant. They have also sold Evil Lemonade and Evil Pinatas, and stolen an ice ray that can turn the planet into an ice cube, but only to use it as an air conditioner.

The show premiered in 2009 on YTV and finished its run in 2012, lasting 3 seasons and 52 episodes. Outside of Canada, it also aired on Cartoon Network in the States as one of several Canadian imports prominent on the channel's airwaves at the time (the second series after previous Nerd Corps creation Storm Hawks to be from YTV instead of Teletoon). However, only the show's first season aired on that channel before the series vanished from American airwaves.

---

League of Super Evil provides examples of:

• Accidental Hero: Voltar refuses cookie sales from a Suzie Scouts member. Neighbors praise him. Go figure.
  • Also the episode where Voltar and his crew is credited for "saving" a bunny that they captured under suspicion for overhearing a plot.
• Adaptation Expansion: Logical. It was based off of a sketch entitled "When We Were Heros."
• Affably Evil: This trope pretty much defines the show.
• Affectionate Parody: Force Fighters V, of the Power Rangers. One of the elements on their Combining Mecha is a hand.
  • Heck, probably everyone. The Cougar is Catwoman.
• A Hell of a Time: In one episode, L.O.S.E. decide to go to the center of the earth to escape a bitterly chilly day. There they find a hotel for villains where Doomageddon is a special guest. It's run by a red man with horns, a goatee, hooves, and a tail and fire is everywhere.
  
• Ambiguously Human: The plot of the show presents Voltar as at least something close to human, but he has a few traits that might say otherwise. His black eyes actually are black rather than just looking that way because of his mask, his skin is unusually pale, he doesn't appear to grow at all with age, and for whatever reason his urine turns pool water purple instead of blue.
• Amusing Injuries: Usually Doktor Frogg as he is the resident Chew Toy.
• Animal Superheroes: Villainous variant: The Cougar.
• Arch-Enemy: One episode invoke this by having L.O.S.E. finding their perfect arch enemy so they can have more challenge every time they do an evil scheme. They rejected every candidate they see, but finally have one, Glory Guy, the city's best hero, but it's proven to be very hard having one when he's around and almost caused Skullossus, Glory Guy's arch-enemy, to destroy earth. The two soon get back together because Skullossus felt the same thing earlier in this episode.
• Arm Cannon: Skullossus possesses one of these.
• Art Imitates Art: Frogg and Red imitate the American Gothic Couple as part of a disguise, while Voltar and Doomy dress like farm animals.
• Badass Adorable: The Dolphin can probably rival Perry the Platypus in levels of Animal Government Agent Badass. Especially the fact he has a laser beam installed in his head. But also at the same time, being a Dolphin he is totally adorable.
• Bad Guy Bar: Er, Bad Guy 5-star Restaurant, Villaynes.
• Bad Santa: Subverted, as there is actually a variant of Christmas for villains called "Chaos-mas," where bad people get presents from Kinder Kreep for being bad all year.
• Balloon Belly: The mutant Bunny after swallowing Doomageddon. (It's a long story)
  • Also Doomageddon after eating an entire freezer full of Fudgy Yummy Fudge Bars.
• Bank Toaster: The League once schemed to steal $5 so they could open a bank account to obtain a free toaster.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: "Helicopters in space? That's just ridiculous."
• *batteries not included: The Henchbot Elites look fancy and feature-packed, but then you learn they require many different add-on upgrades to even be useful!
• Beware the Nice Ones: Red Menace unleashes his anvil-sized Fists of Judgment only on those who really got it comin'.
  
• Bigger on the Inside: Lampshaded by Red Menace when the League of Super Evil went inside the ice ray in "Escape from Skullossus."
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: Red Menace, Dr. Frogg, and Voltar (respectively).
• Borrowed Without Permission: In "The Bank Job", the League of Super Evil are about to rob a supervillain bank since they have no money. Red Menace tells Voltar that robbing the bank is wrong, but he said they are going to "borrow" the money.
• Brown Bag Mask: Voltar, after Humongo steals his helmet. He was seriously desperate to get it back.
• Butt-Monkey: Doktor Frogg. He's electrocuted, spat on, run over, and eaten more than any other character, usually by his own inventions or the Team Pet, Doomageddon.
• The Can Kicked Him: The one and only time L.O.S.E. is considered a serious threat is the time Frogg invents a machine to back up all the toilets in the city.
  
• Captain Ersatz: The Cougar is an ersatz of Catwoman. Or at least she thinks she is.
• Card-Carrying Villain: If they didn't keep telling you, it would be hard to tell they are evil.
  
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "VICTORY!"
  • "Bad Doomageddon!"
  • Steve: "I don't care!/Still don't care!"
• Characterization Marches On: In the early episodes, Frogg takes just as much pride in mildly inconveniencing people as the rest of the League, and shows none of the genuine evilness that would later become one of his defining traits.
• Chase Scene: Parodied, when the team is running away in their golf cart from a guy on a Segway. Really slowly.
• Chew Toy: Doktor Frogg, sometimes literally if Doomageddon is involved.
• Classy Cat-Burglar: The Cougar, who is a Catwoman parody who is just as competent, but is actually an old lady.
• Color Character: Averted with Red Menace, who wears green. Lampshaded when the Legion turns up, and his counterpart Green Menace wears red.
• Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: The Cougar bears a strong resemblance to Eartha Kitt, one of the actresses who played Catwoman in Batman.
• Company Cross References: In the episode "One Zillion", a crude drawing of the cast of Storm Hawks (also from Nerd Corps Entertainment) can be seen on Voltar's TV at one point.
• Compressed Vice: In "Henchbots on Strike," every single supervillain and superhero is completely idiotic and unable to function without minions.
  
• Create Your Own Villain: A flashback episode set in a Superhero School where Everyone Went to School Together shows that the likes of Voltar and Skullossus were once hopeful superheroes in training until they were bullied by Glory Kid and his cronies, which eventually leads to their Start of Darkness and the creation of nearly every villain active in the present day.
• Creepy Circus Music: This type of music serves as the Leitmotif for Chuckles, a deranged robot clown who tortures people on their birthdays. It sounds pretty unnerving with his high-pitched voice and constant laughter.
  
• Dating Catwoman: Almost literally. In the Season 3 episode "Chez Voltar," Batman-Expy Nightshade is seen dating with Catwoman-Expy Cougar.
  
• Dead TV Remote Gag: Subverted: An RC truck was set up for an elaborate prank. The controller did not work, but then something happened at the last minute that gave the crew a second thought about actually doing said prank. Then someone accidentally dropped the remote: It worked.
• Death Course: Doktor Frogg attempts to convert a normal obstacle course to this during the pet competition. It backfires and every trap either doesn't go off at all or hits Doomageddon instead.
  • The entire crew also does this to thwart the pizza guy's journey to their house in 10 minutes or less.
• Decoy Protagonist: Red asserts himself to be the team leader for Henchmen Appreciation Day, complete with antennae. Voltar is not amused.
• Depending on the Writer: Voltar is either a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and A Father to His Men, or he's a completely selfish, arrogant jerk without the slightest regard for anyone but himself.
• Determinator: When Voltar wants something, whether it's to throw an "evil" barbecue, steal a highly desired ice ray to use as a air conditioner, or get to eat at an exclusive restaurant for super villains, then no amount of danger or common sense will dissuade him.
  • One episode takes it to the illogical extreme: Voltar wants to get in to Villaynes (the restaurant all supervillains go), even going so far as to steal the blueprints to the restaurant (which are hidden in the kitchen), and plans their theft of the book so they can get their name in it to get in... While seated at one of the restaurant's tables.
• Dirty Communists: Not really used in the actual show, per se, but this is likely the origin of Red Menace's name.
• Do-Anything Robot: Subverted, most of the robots shown so far are just Mooks.
  • The Henchbot Elites can do a lot of things, but they required several expensive add-ons to even do one task!
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In "Trashpocalypse Now" the scene where Voltar and Frogg catch Red Menace cleaning in the bathroom is played out like catching someone doing something else in the bathroom.

  Red Menace: Don't look at me! Don't look at me!

• Doomy Dooms of Doom: Anything and everything involving Doomageddon.
• Dramatic Thunder: (Thunderous Underline variant) Parodied when Voltar is boasting to the neighborhood kids about how many TV channels their lair gets. It turns out there really was a storm producing the thunder.
• Dub Name Change:
  • In Spanish, Doomageddon got his name changed to Apocalipsis, inverting his bowdlerize.
  • Also in Spanish, Red Menace got his name changed to simply Amenaza^note  Menace. The communist references aren't prohibited, but Red Menace would actually be a too long name ^note  Amenaza Roja
• Dumb Muscle: Subverted with Red Menace, who is not dumb, but rather bright and resourceful. One episode showed Red scoring higher on a computerized intelligence test than Voltar.
  • Also Frogg for one episode, when he decided to use a device to convert his brain power into strength. Of course, while becoming extremely badass as a result, he also became extremely dumb.
• Establishing Character Moment: When we get introduced to Voltar in the first episode, he's gleefully explaining his "most diabolical scheme yet": a neighbourhood barbecue where none of the neighbours are invited. This quickly establishes him as a Harmless Villain who imagines himself to be a much bigger threat than he actually is.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Obviously bad is a stretch, but Red Menace is very protective of Mama Menace. Late in her titular episode, they team up to defeat the Monster of the Week.
• Eviler than Thou: Frogg ends up creating clones of L.O.S.E. that turn out to be far more evil and competent than the originals.
  • Also, Mal, the one-time guest henchman for L.O.S.E. who apparently has the authority to demote Voltar.
  • Revisited somewhat in "A Lose/Lose Situation" where the Legion of Supreme Evil move in across the street.
  • Justice Gene does this unintentionally in his debut episode, when the League realize that he's so smug about his completely ineffectual attempts to help people that he's actually ruder and more annoying than they are.
• Evil Laugh: Lots of it. Doktor Frogg in particular does this every couple sentences.
  • In one episode, two of the Hero Antagonists perform one of these, and afterwards basically saying: "No wonder bad guys love doing that"
• Evil Is Petty: Several of LOSE's schemes fall under this. One very successful scheme was to wake up the entire neighbourhood at night which causes them to decide to flip their morning lifestyles to night that ends up disabling a nocturnal and renowned superhero for the express purpose of getting a soiled superhero cape from him which was originally a trophy of Voltar's.
• Evil Twin: The Legion of Supreme Evil, although it turns out they're about as evil as each other. Not very.
• Evil Versus Evil: "Evil" is a stretch regarding LOSE themselves, but they're still trying, and whenever they're opposed by other villains much more qualified, they will fight back as well.
• Expressive Mask: Everyone. Doktor Frogg has Expressive Goggles.
• Expy: Voltar seems to be Zim in a Power Rangers outfit. Or, alternatively, Strong Bad.
  • Red Menace resembles Syndrome.
    
• Face–Heel Turn: Justice Gene briefly becomes Injustice Gene in one episode.
• Failure Is the Only Option: "League of Super Evil." Yeah...
  
• Food Fight: When a Monster of the Week claims that black licorice is one of the most powerful forms of dark matter in the universe, he ends up capturing Voltar, posing as him, and making a cannon that shoots a concoction of it at people. The final battle between him and Voltar, is fought with the substance.
• Fun with Acronyms: Among others, L.O.S.E., S.W.E.A.T., and U.N.C.O.O.L. Voltar is completely aware of his organisation's acronym and doesn't mind it.
• Gentle Giant: Red Menace enjoys gardening and Bouncy Castles.
• Girl Scouts Are Evil: When Voltar refuses to buy cookies from the Suzie Scouts in one episode, they don't take it too well. However, his action gets him praise by his neighbours...
  
• Handy Remote Control: Used to control a flying stick used to win a pet competition.
• Happy Fun Ball: Black licorice is claimed by an alien emperor to be a very powerful form of dark matter.
• Harmless Villain: All of L.O.S.E., and how. Their "evil" schemes never go beyond mildly inconveniencing people.
• Heel Realization: Glory Kid realizes that the main reason for him and his two other allies even having a comeuppance was because they constantly acted against those who even remotely demonstrated an immoral side of themselves.
• Hellhound: Doomageddon. Red Menace even calls him one in "Table For Four". Though later episodes use the term "Doomhound" instead.
  
• Hoist by His Own Petard: "Justice Gene." Gene is defeated by his own organization's stringent rules. Specifically, he wears the wrong type of socks.
• How Is That Even Possible?: In "Escape from Skullossus", Skullossus has this reaction when Glory Guy somehow flies a helicopter in space.
  Skullossus: Helicopters in space? That's just ridiculous.
  Glory Guy: No time to quibble over logic, Skullossus.
• Humongous Mecha: Two of them, including Commander Chaos' Shuriken Typhoon Super S Atomic Destructo Bot.
  • Combining Mecha: Being a parody of Super Sentai and Power Rangers, Force Fighters V naturally use one.
• Idiosyncratic Wipes: The L.O.S.E. logo.
  
• Ironic Nickname: Humongo, Emperor of the Ginormans, is only just as tall as Voltar himself.
• Knight Templar: Justice Gene thinks of himself as a hero, but he does it in such an arrogant, self-serving and ineffectual way that he usually ends up doing more damage than the villains he's fighting.
• Large Ham: Voltar discusses all his schemes in the most over-the-top manner possible.
• Laughably Evil: In both senses, the Villain Protagonists are meant to be both laughed at and with as a result of their incompetence at being villains.
• Legion of Doom: In one episode, Voltar manages to assemble a group of the most powerful supervillains... Who he gets to play hockey against the neighborhood children.
• Level Ate: Being swallowed by Doomageddon transports its victim to an ironically bright and super-happy candy land.
• Low-Speed Chase: In one episode, the team is running away in their golf cart from a guy on a Segway: very slowly.
• Mad Scientist: Doktor Frogg is the scientist for the League, and also more than a little insane.
• Madness Mantra: "Tofu pops are tasty! Tofu pops are tasty!"
• Meaningful Name: The Cougar, an old Catwoman lookalike who has an attraction to younger men, figure it out.
• Mecha-Mooks: Henchbots 17 and 32, who are constantly getting destroyed.
• Mid-Battle Tea Break: After scamming Skullossus out of his warship for a day, Voltar and Frogg fight over it for either petty crimes or world domination, while Red Menace uses it to get his chores done. They all immediately stop for ice cream when an ice cream truck rolls by, then get back on the ship and resume fighting.
• Minion with an F in Evil: Red Menace likes finger painting, helps old ladies cross the street, and bakes cupcakes for the group. He always suggests reasonable ("good") solutions to problems, such as talking it out.
• Monster Clown: Chuckles the robot clown, who was specifically invented to ruin birthday parties. Hilarity Ensues when Voltar mistakes it for a Non-Ironic Clown and brings it out on Dr. Frogg's birthday.
  * Moose and Maple Syrup: Given the show is Canadian, a few references to typically Canadian sports have appeared in episodes; one episode had a scene with Doomageddon curling in a library, and an entire episode was based around street hockey! (Both are considered to be typically "Canadian" sports, although hockey isn't nearly as obscure as curling in the U.S.)
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Voltar proclaims himself to be "the mostest evilest supervillain in the whole entire world and Europe."
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Doomageddon.
  • Subverted by both Red Menace and Voltar, who are both completely harmless.
• The Napoleon: Voltar, the shortest in the League, is very hammy and bombastic.
• No Off Button: In one episode, Dr. Frogg creates a mind control device with only two settings: "On" and "More On."
  * No-Respect Guy: Doktor Frogg, despite easily being the most intelligent and competent of the League.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Unlike his teammates, Frogg is actually an Evil Genius and you get the impression he’d be a legitimate threat were it not for Voltar leading the group and making the plans.
• Oh Wait, This Is My Grocery List: When Voltar realizes the potential benefits of never becoming tired, one of his first evil plots is to "make Macaroni Salad."
• Older Than They Look: Voltar is at least a young adult since he's apparently already been through grade school and can rent an apartment by himself, but you really wouldn't guess that based on how he looks, sounds, or acts.
• Only Sane Man: While "sane" might be the wrong word to use, Doktor Frogg is the only member of LOSE who has standard super villain aspirations of world conquest, but he always finds his efforts stymied by a combination of bad luck and the ineptness of his allies (And it kind of says something when the team's Mad Scientist is the voice of reason.)
• Our Time Machine Is Different: Doktor Frogg's time machine in "Back to the Coupons" is a crappy looking watch... Which is also a music player with a built-in disco ball.
• Poke the Poodle: Most episodes have the League pull off schemes like this.
• Portal Door: The dream world in "In Your Dreams" has several of these, which connect all of people's dreams but also act at random as to wherever they go.
  Doktor Frogg: You see, people's dreams are all connected by a sort of dream highway, with different doors leading to different dreams. (ominously) There's no telling in whose dreams those doors will take you...
  
• Pragmatic Villainy: If the titular League do anything that seems "heroic", it's because they need to do it to continue to be villainous.
• Pyrrhic Victory: Many of L.O.S.E.'s "victories" end up as these.
• Reset Button: Most of the episodes end on situations that would most certainly be a Fate Worse than Death for the main characters. It gets reset in the following episode anyway.
• Revolting Rescue: In "Swimming with Sharks", a genetically-enhanced dolphin chases the League and they end up in Voltar's pool. The dolphin approaches them, ready to fire missiles, and Voltar becomes so frightened that he pees himself, and the water turns purple, causing the dolphin to retreat in disgust.
• Road Apples: There is an episode that centers around Doomageddon's radioactive excrement and the group's efforts to create clones in order to accomplish the menial task of cleaning it up. Said clones are fitted with "fine tuning" by Doctor Frogg and coincidentally become superior to their originals, going so far as to actually beating up other villains.
• Rotten Rock & Roll:
  • Famed supervillain Skullossus gets his own rock leitmotif, in contrast to the titular team of Villain Protagonists, who don't even get a leitmotif, in keeping with their status as Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains.
  • Rock Gothlington is a metal star who is popular among supervillains. He also has supernatural powers and a "Destruct-O-Beam".
• Rule of Funny: The team earns the ire of a hyper intelligent cyborg dolphin that can fly and shoot missiles out of its head. Hilarity Ensues.
• Self-Deprecation: The show comments on the traits it uses to set the theme of a particular moment, but doesn't use a tone of admiration around those moments. It's usually sarcastic or made to show the harm the self-proclaimed villain protagonists are incapable of causing.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: The Weapon of Mass Destruction that a military truck accidentally dropped in front of L.O.S.E.'s house was disposed of using a self-destruction mechanism (believing that if the military couldn't use it, no one should). Ironically the episode it was paired with, also contained the threat of destroying the Rotten Core store after a de-brained but heavily brawned Frogg got a "refund" from them (and no one gets a refund from the Rotten Core store and lives.)
• Sick Episode: In "Mama Menace", Red Menace has an unknown illness (implied to be a cold, but supercharged, and vomiting is a symptom), which prompts the League to call upon Mama Menace.
• The Sixth Ranger: One episode revolves around Red Menace being hired as this for the Force Fighters V as Turquoise, who pilots a flying moustache as part of their mech which functions like a Battle Boomerang.
• The Siege: When Voltar did not get invited to a neighbor's birthday party (a party that his henchmen, and even his henchbots got invited to), he tried to get in, but every plan backfired. When he decided to turn the table and sabotage it instead, it still backfires.
  
• Super Hero: Being a supervillain show this is a given. L.O.S.E is usually beneath any heroes' notice but, naturally, whenever they do get one's attention they immediately find themselves in over their heads.
• Superhero Team Uniform: The Force Fighters V all wear matching outfits with different colors, although Periwinkle is too fat to fit in his outfit with his belly exposed and his helmet only covering the top half of his face.
• Superhero Trophy Shelf: Famous Superhero Glory Guy confiscates weapons from supervillains he defeats and puts them in alarm rigged glass cases in his base, along with any supervillain he catches trying to raid his collection.
• Super Villain: L.O.S.E. is trying to be this.
• Super Zeroes: A villainous variation; Voltar and his minions are such ineffectual supervillains that most heroes pay no attention to them.
• Terrible Trio: Natch, even if they're not the most competent trio.
• 30 Minutes, or It's Free!: Played entirely straight. What makes it even more hilarious is the fact that the pizza joint has a war room setup because of all the times L.O.S.E. has tried this in the past.
• Time Travel Episode: Voltar finds a coupon book buried under a couch cushion, and becomes fascinated by a coupon for a free wig... Which expired the day prior. You can guess where it goes from here.
  • You could also count one episode where at the end, Voltar and Justine Gene are trapped in cement and are freed thousands of years in the future to find out that Red Menace had since conquered the world (A giant statue of him riding an unicorn) Though this was only for a one-shot gag, not an actual plot point.
• Totem Pole Trench: Doubly subverted. There's an actual villain named Mysterio Villaino who looks like Voltar, Red Menace and Doktor Frogg interlocked vertically. Seconds later, the three show up and try the same routine on the maitre d'hotel, without success. Red Menace even mentions: "We should have gone in before that other guy."
• Too Dumb to Live: Voltar, which makes him the worst leader ever...
• Uninvited to the Party: The episode "Party Pooper" has all the members of L. O. S. E. being invited to their neighbour's birthday party except Voltar, whose attempts to get in fail each time. He then decides to ruin the party instead, only for all his plans to make the party even more fun for all the guests.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: Even without the whole "super villain" thing, Voltar is still an arrogant, selfish, annoying prick, though not as evil as Frogg.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: "Museum Gene" dismantles the museum's T-Rex exhibit to keep L.O.S.E. from "borrowing" a single bone from it. Frogg calls him out on it.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: The crew is saved by this when Frogg's birthday wrecking robot (who Voltar and Red sent out as part of his own birthday festivities) stops torturing him at midnight because it's not his birthday anymore. Of course, then they learn its now Voltar's birthday...
• Which Me?: After a series of time travel shenanigans, Voltar ends up with a whole army of clones. With different wigs too.
• The Wonka: Humongo. He seems as clueless and evil as Voltar (the worst punishment he could think was not inviting Voltar to his wedding). But he is the commander of super conquering race and have actually, you know, conquered.
• Villains Out Shopping: The team fails at even this. One episode revolves around them ordering a pizza... And making sure that they get it for free by delaying the delivery guy at any cost.
• Villain Protagonist: Voltar, Doktor Frogg, and Red Menace, of course!
• The Voice: Steve, the League of Super Evil's neighbour, who really couldn't care less about what the team do, especially to him.
  
• Zombie Apocalypse: "Ice Creamed" becomes a hilarious send-up of such.

---