Merciless

**Merciless: The Supervillain without MercyTM**, real name: **Gary Karkofsky**, is a supervillain in the Supervillainy-verse. He is the protagonist of The Supervillainy Saga novels.

**Appearance**

Gary Karkofsky is a tall (6'1) platinum blond haired man with the appearance of a man in his early thirties despite time travel making him significantly older. He is ascribed as uncommonly good looking for a nerd and this may be a result of either magic or (demi)godhood. He has been known to shave his head for the "bald of evil" look.

As Merciless, Gary wears a long set of black robes that can become a pair of sweat pants and a black hoodie. His eyes also glow and turn stark white. The Reaper's Cloak is something that he has multiple less-powerful magical duplicates of as well.

**Powers**

When possessed of the Reaper's Cloak, Gary possesses the power of intangibility, levitation, limited invulnerability, fire, ice, and (later) lightning. His powers dramatically increased when he possessed the Death Primal Orb and later the Chaos Primal Orb. Later, he would lose all of these abilities.

Gary would later learn Dungeon Magic and, indeed, create the entire discipline of sorcery. This functions almost identically to the style of magic used by wizards in *Dungeons and Dragons*. It is implied Gary has numerous "cheats" that make him more flexible than most of his kind, though.

**Pre-Superhero History**

Gary Karkofsky was born in New Angeles, California to an insurance salesman and his wife. He was possessed of a genius-level IQ and already interested in anarchism when his brother, Keith Karkofsky AKA Stingray: The Underwater Assassin, was killed by the vigilante Shoot-Em-Up. He was twelve years old at the time. His family would be forced by Shoot-Em-Up's acquittal and harassment by his followers to move to Falconcrest City, Michigan.

Traumatized by this event, Gary would eventually illegally purchase a gun and use social media to kill Shoot-Em-Up at age fourteen. It was under these circumstances that he met Cindy Wakowski AKA Red Riding Hood. Cindy and Gary would become best friends and she would briefly live with his family as they were juvenile delinquents together. Gary and she would raise enough money as petty criminals to pay for their college.

The two would also be on-again, off-again lovers with Gary losing his virginity to Cindy. Gary apparently has poor memories of the experience as he equated the song "Like a Virgin" to mean, "awkward and humiliating." According to Cindy, he got much better at it.

Gary would attend Falconcrest City University, debating becoming a supervillain, when he would receive therapy from Doctor Thule, the PHANTOM operative who attempted to brainwash him into becoming a supervillain. He would also date during this time Gabrielle Anders AKA Ultragoddess, Kitty Jones AKA Ghost Girl, and Mandy Colton (who he would later marry). Gary attempted to marry Gabrielle but she decided her secret identity was too important and erased his memory of it, further damaging his unstable psyche.

He was also the keytar and hurdy gurdy player for a power metal band called Pandamonium.

Gary would eventually become a bank teller until his thirtieth birthday.

**Supervillain History**

Gary would accidentally receive the Reaper's Cloak from Sunlight after the death of the Nightwalker. He would promptly re-envision himself as Merciless: The Supervillain without Mercy.

Notable events from his career:

\* Killing the Ice Cream Man, Big Ben, and Typewriter.

\* Killing three members of the Extreme antiheroic superhero team.

\* Escaping from the Lunar prison of the Society of Superheroes.

\* Helping thwart the zombie apocalypse afflicting Falconcrest City and stopping the Brotherhood of Infamy.

\* Killing President Omega and thwarting his attempts to wipe out all Supers on the planet.

\* Being imprisoned for an undisclosed time with the ghost of Spellbinder impersonating his wife.

\* Overthrowing Merciful's tyrannical rule of Falconcrest City.

\* Winning the Infinity Tournament and killing Entropicus: Lord of Endings.

\* Killing Tom Terror and liberating the Hollow Earth.

\* Killing Dracula and several members of the League of Archvillains.

\* Rebooting the Earth using the Primal Orbs.

\* Helping Cindy Wakoski rob the Dragon King.