villainy
Explanation
The Joke
A character dramatically declares that he is NOT an armchair villain -- he is not sitting around idly. He insists he is "in the utter soup" as they speak, out in the field, actively getting things done. The visual shows him in a supervillain-style outfit, but he is standing in what appears to be a kitchen, seemingly doing mundane domestic tasks like washing dishes or cooking. The caption at the bottom reads: "Most of the time when people call something pure evil, they're actually talking about applied evil."
The joke operates on two levels. First, there is the visual gag of a "villain" who insists he is an active, hands-on evildoer but is clearly just doing household chores. Second, the caption plays on the academic distinction between "pure" and "applied" fields (pure mathematics vs. applied mathematics, pure science vs. applied science). In academia, "pure" research is theoretical and abstract, while "applied" research is practical and hands-on. The comic transposes this to villainy: "pure evil" (a common phrase meaning utterly evil) is reframed as theoretical evil, while the real scary stuff is "applied evil" -- evil that actually gets things done.
The Humor
The humor comes from the unexpected recontextualization of the phrase "pure evil." Everyone uses "pure evil" as a superlative, but Weinersmith flips it by invoking the pure vs. applied distinction from academia, where "pure" actually means less practical. This makes "applied evil" sound more dangerous than "pure evil," which is a funny inversion of how the phrase is normally understood. The visual of the self-important villain doing mundane tasks adds an extra layer of absurdity.