Starter Villain

Charlie Fitzer is a divorced substitute teacher who just wants to open a pub and get through the day with his cat, Hera, for company.

Then his estranged uncle Jake — a secretive, self-made billionaire — dies and leaves Charlie his global business empire, which turns out to be a genuine supervillain operation, complete with a hidden island lair, a fleet of henchpeople, unionized dolphins, and hyper-intelligent genetically engineered spy cats.

As Charlie tries to make sense of his inheritance, a cabal of rival supervillains circles, determined to seize the empire — or kill him — before he can figure out how to run it. Going straight starts to look a lot less appealing than going bad.