2013-04-04
Explanation
This comic takes place at the "89th Annual Legion of Supervillains Symposium." A supervillain named Pterrordactyl has just finished presenting his plan to detonate a dirty bomb over London. The moderator introduces one last supervillain, an economist, who claims she can deliver "death and chaos cheaper and more efficiently than any of us."
The economist's plan is elegant in its simplicity: Step 1: hire 100 people to dress like the head of their government's central bank. Step 2: have them synchronize watches, then go into their banks. Step 3: at the same time, have each "banker" run away from his bank carting a wheelbarrow full of gold bars, screaming "Oh God oh God oh God!" The cost breakdown is modest ($3,000 for actors, $5,000 for costumes and props, $22,000 for transportation), but the result is catastrophic: "People killed: most of them." The economist explains the devastation: it harms health and finance for generations, starves the poorest people first, and because it's a catastrophe of distrust, it doesn't even unify people. The supervillains kick her out in disgust.
The joke is a commentary on how fragile economic systems are -- a coordinated act of theater designed to simulate a bank run could theoretically trigger a real financial panic, which would cause far more destruction than any supervillain's conventional scheme. The supervillains reject the economist not because her plan wouldn't work, but because it's too effective and too grim even for them. The votey shows someone asking the economist "What's your power anyway?" and she responds "Gun" -- undercutting her intellectual menace with blunt, mundane violence.