The Bastard's History
The Bastard lead a criminal career with unparalleled successes, becoming known as the "greatest super villain who has ever lived". After amassing a billion dollar fortune, The Bastard retired to Tenerife in the Spanish Canary Islands and left The Salamander in charge of his criminal empire. On Tenerife, he kept all other "supers" out of the island, excepting only The Praetorian, a fallen superhero who he hired as his personal bodyguard and head of security. To dissuade other "supers" from harassing him in retirement, he made an example of Danny Dubrovny by killing 241 of his acquaintances and loved ones.
Despite his attempts to foster a reputation formidable enough to protect him from attack, Johnny Bolt nonetheless planned a heist of his mansion. The Bastard received a "Professor Reichenbach" and "Doctor Morgenstern", really Roddy Diesel and Kasey in disguise, so that they could pitch a time machine schematic to him. They enticed him with the prospect of "four-dimensional crime", but The Bastard had lost his hunger for crime and instead preferred art, such as his unforgeable Mondrian painting. He rejected them, but unbeknownst to him, they were in fact scoping out his mansion for robbery.
Later, Kasey allowed herself to be detected by The Bastard's scanners, and he left with The Praetorian to apprehend her at the airport even as the heist began at his mansion. The Bastard brought Kasey back to his "mansion", in actuality an illusory version of his mansion in the abandoned Banana-Land theme park nearby. There, he interrogated her and learned he was being robbed.
Outraged, The Bastard dispatched The Praetorian to intercept Johnny, demanding to know why Johnny thought he could get away with robbing him. Johnny merely taunted The Bastard, so The Bastard let The Praetorian attack them. Perturbed, The Bastard wondered if he shouldn't periodically remind new generations of supercrooks that he is not to be trifled with. Preparing to shoot Kasey with a "psychic blast", she pushed him away with telekinesis, and he learned of her abilities as a psychic.
Preparing to kill "Kasey" with his signature ability, The Bastard admitted he was happier as a villain before exploding "her" skull. He radioed The Praetorian for an update, but a security guard responded instead, saying The Praetorian had been defeated and his mansion leveled. Standing in his "mansion", The Bastard initially disbelieved what he heard, until he looked at his Mondrian and noticed flaws in it.
Realizing it to not be his real painting, he began to reject Kasey's illusion, discovering that he had in fact killed his servant Miguel, not Kasey. The illusion collapsed around him as he realized it was all a psychic manipulation, until eventually he found himself alone in Banana-Land, his servant dead, his bodyguard afflicted with permanent brain damage, his fortune stolen, and his mansion completely destroyed.
In a vengeful rage, The Bastard returned to The Salamander and killed him and his entire crew. Because Johnny’s heist crew wore uniforms identical to The Salamander's, The Bastard had assumed them to be at fault. After they died all around him, he retook control of his old criminal empire again.
