The Many Facets of Villainy

Well, cracking codes is clearly NOT my villain superpower.  But I am pretty good at literary analysis, so go with your evil strengths, I say.  Villains, like heroes, have their paths to tread and while they may not garner the same attention by mythologists as the vaunted hero figure, they are the dark reflection of that hero's journey.  So how comes Thanatos' Sin to be that which he is?

Revealed at a wikileaks-type website,http://www.conspiracy12.com/, a secretive [government?] project, seemingly conducted by 12 shadowy people, launched in 1990 to manipulate nine unknowing soldiers, probably to enhance their skills or give them superpowers.  A "reward" from Thanatos' Sin to his successful villain trainees confirms this.


But just before the project was to move to a second stage in March of 1990, the subjects are warned by "Truth Soldier Zero" and escape.  By December of that year, the first of the escapees is found in the Ukraine wearing a superhero-style red suit and "is trying to be a hero to the locals."  Project Thanatos records indicate that whatever powers this subject possessed, they failed him and by the end of 1990, he was killed by operatives of the project.

In 1991 (twenty years ago), another masked figure stood before his two young sons and rejected their pleas not to leave them.  

What happened to the man in blue?  We don't know yet, but the catalyst for this adventure, Thanatos' Sin, identifies this image as a "unlocked memory," suggesting that he was present, perhaps a participant in this scene.  Is he the father?  Or one of the boys?  My guess is that he is one of the sons because of other evidence revealed at http://www.conspiracy12.com/.  In 1997, two NEW supers appear on the scene, one in  South America and one in New York City.  The operatives of Project Thanatos are initially willing to dismiss these reports, since the supers are reportedly in their late teens, not of the age of the soldiers manipulated by the project.  But Thanatos' Sin reports on his own blog that he didn't know that he was Thanatos' Sin for "seventeen years."  Is TS following in his father's footsteps, perhaps as a "dark reflection," rejecting his father's  naive desire to do good and instead visiting the wrath of a supervillain on the 12 perpetrators of Project Thanatos?

Admittedly, there are still pieces of the puzzle that do not fit.  If TS blames Project Thanatos for his father's death or disappearance, why does he identify another masked figure who vows to destroy the project as "our enemy?"


Why would someone track down and contact the followers of Thanatos' Sin, mocking them for their choices, revealing the www.conspiracy12.com website with the information about Project Thanatos, and urging them to becomes soldiers of truth?  Is this Truth Soldier Zero?  Why would someone who tried to save the soldiers be at odds with someone who wishes to punish those who threatened and killed those soldiers?  Unless Truth Soldier Zero is one of the twelve, a traitor?

UPDATE:  Thanatos' Sin has updated his blog, rejecting the overtures of "the camp that prefers a more diplomatic approach against The Twelve/Project T"  So, TS prefers a more visceral and direct approach to revenge and rejects the efforts of X-II and Truth Soldier Zero, as well as whomever is behind www.conspiracy12.com.  My folklorist super-senses are suggesting to me that X-II is TS' brother...