Perhaps because of the artist switch, this batch seems a bit flatter and more generic to me, which is fine, honestly. The previous books have a surplus of zany character. Stronghammer the Dwarf is a contender for the doofiest doof, an actual dwarf pulled from his fantasy world into our own and subsequently mistaken for a supervillain for some reason. Another contender is the Green Knight, whose head is in his chest, Arnim Zola-style, in a profound misunderstanding of the medieval poem. My absolute favorite is the completely unremarkable mercenary named Bullet, because his real name is Randolph Bullet.

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So, Enemies II introduces a couple important mascot villains for Champions. First is Professor Muerte and his terror organization Terror, Incorporated. His job is mostly to look cool and do a decent Doctor Doom impersonation. The second is Foxbat, who was once a rich comic nerd who turned to supervillainy when he lost his fortune. He’s absolutely insane and, though a villain, is a kind of delirious send-up of teeth-gritting characters of the era like Wolverine, Batman, Punisher and Daredevil. So serious, always monologuing.

Plenty of other dinguses in here. Slug is the weirdest — he was an archaeologist who entered a cursed tomb and got a magic gem and was turned into a weird worm person who needs a humidity suit to survive? Not the sort of cursed Egyptian villain I expected, honestly. My favorite is Black Paladin though. Look at that mother, with a big inverted cross on his chest. During the Satanic Panic? That dude knows no fear!

Mark Williams is on illustration duty. Dude brings energy to otherwise ridiculous characters, I will give him that.

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This is the equivalent of a Monster Manual for Champions I guess (though, really, it sets the template for the who’s who guidebooks you’d see a few years later for the DC and Marvel RPGs). There are so many weirdos in here. Seriously, this book, and its sequels, capture the bizarre energy of real comic villains, who are just as absurd — you just take Doctor Octopus and Mr. Freeze seriously because the decades have worn you down.

Some are just remixes of existing villains. Binder, for instance, is just Trapster (of all people) with the serial number filed off. There there are improbable villains like Slick, whose power is to be frictionless, like Lube Man in the Watchmen TV show. Champions was so ahead of its time!

Other standouts include Panda, Raccoon and a lady who uses frizbees as weapons named, you guessed it, Frizbee. The freakiest is Leech, who was turned into a weird monster man with suckers for hands and feet by a mysterious stranger. He now roams the waterways, thinking only about feeding and having “revenge on handsome people, who remind him of his horrible features.”

Absolutely priceless. Worth its weight in gold.

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