Dr. Dejection directs Badguys Leagued Against Humanity, combining a hunger for power with profit from disorder. The Anticupids, Discordia, Super Ficial! and other operatives serve his schemes. His technology lets him monitor events and produce city-sized threats such as Forbin.

He favours planning and command, but repeatedly underestimates his allies’ unreliability and Discordia’s independent ambitions. “The Surface of Things” shows him recruiting Stan through resentment of his brother. In “Dejection Introspection,” repeated defeats lead him to wonder whether he inhabits a fictional world that needs him to lose. This is his own unsettling theory.

Across the comics he intervenes in international conflicts, recruits figures driven by prejudice and tries to alter the past. The animated teleplays also show a public performer defending his reputation on television. Aileen’s threat makes him negotiate with his enemies without abandoning his ambitions. Beneath the elaborate schemes, “Dejection Introspection” finds a man with nobody to talk to.