At some point we start looking at the Stormtroopers falling into the pit in the center of the Death Star and think, "That guy had a Mom..."

I have yet to get there with orcs or zombies, fortunately, so I can still enjoy some action films.

"That orc had a spawning pit...." Just doesn't tug at my heartstrings. Yet.

But they don't Get It anyway.

This was also done pretty well in one of the Austin powers movies - might have been the first one.

Didn't they get around the "stormtroopers are people two" issue by making them all "clones"?

Didn't they get around the "stormtroopers are people two" issue by making them all "clones"?

Typo or extra-clever use of the word "two"?

And I wonder why they'd think that having the steamtroopers be clones would get around the people issue - wouldn't clones be people t... I mean, also?

Yeah, and think of that guy's mom, Mrs. Fett... She's lost her son like thirty thousand times now.

You'd think that they'd have chosen someone to clone who could hit a man-sized target with a rifle at 30 yards. Instead, the choice seems to have been entirely based on "hey, cool accent, let's use him!"

Justin should have known what he was getting into when he took a job as an evil henchman. You always run the risk of being arrested or worse, killed by secret agents and boy adventurers.

I'm sure he knew his boss was evil and doing things that were illegal. That's why I have little sympathy for those people who lost jobs working in the financial sector.

I would take a job as a henchman if the benefits were good. And I think the Austin Powers thing was actually a deleted scene, so Ruben can be excused for not having seen it.

From my reading of 'The Star Wars Universe' (tm), the people who run around in the white body armour are all the clones of Jango Fett.

However, the dudes in the uniforms with the colored lights on their chests are regular non-clones (like Henchman 14, I guess).

Lots of them are killed throughout the movies.

From what I've heard/read, Stormtroopers (the white-armored dudes in Episodes 4-6) are draftees while Clonetroopers (the white-armored dudes from Episodes 2-3) are, well, clones who've been genetically engineered and programmed to be killers.

FOr a fun send-up of henchmen, check out the comic "Empowered" (published by Dark Horse) where the heroine's boyfriend - "Thugboy" - is a former henchman who led a gang of henchmen who's graft was ripping off the dim-witted, would-be super-villains who hired them.

If you liked this comic, then I would recommend checking out The Venture Brothers, on the Adult Swim network. It's a parody of shows like Johnny Quest, complete with a vast menagerie of neurotic supervillains. (I'm partial to Dr. Girlfriend, Phantom Limb, and Joseph and his Technicolor Nightmare Coat myself). It's a good show with three seasons already aired, two of which should be available on DVD.

I immediately thought of Rob Lowe mourning his killed henchman pal at said henchman's Hooters bachelor party. (Epic!) But it was a deleted scene, so that's sort of an excuse for Bolling doing it all over again. (Brutal!)

...a couple of Venture Brothers eps :-) Like the one where the henchman asks Brock to sing him a Technotronic song and another where he grabs a henchman's nuts and finds a lump.

Kirk, Spock, Scotty and Ricky go down to the planet. Guess who gets eaten by the salt monster or blasted with a phaser?

As I remember it Homer Simpson got the Denver Broncos after being a henchman in the Simpsons.

We've got people in this thread leaving recent letters about how Ruben Bolling must not have seen the Austin Powers deleted scene, but these letters are redundant, but I guess we can forgive you because you must have just clicked on "post a letter about this article" without first reading the letters that were already here.

Anybody who knows Los Angeles knows that pointing an "insani-ray" at that city, or for that matter an "insani-cannon," would have absolutely no effect whatsoever.

It wasn't a deleted scene in Austin Powers, it was in the final film, at least in the UK it was. Happened a few times, Rob Lowe mourning 'smitty' in a Hooters bar and a wife and stepson mourning another henchmen, Steve.

... and yet another stark indictment of the boy adventurer's criminal insanity.

Kinda reminds me of practically every action video game ever made: In order to stop the Bad Guy from doing mean things to your Love Interest, you have to kill him.

Not only kill him, but kill every single member of his organization from the secretaries to the janitors to the accountants to the executives. Usually with fully-automatic weapons and explosives. Guilt by association indeed!

Bolling, I love your work, and especially that evil little thug Billy Dare; but please, please, just for once, have truth, love and justice win, and Billy Dare lose! It doesn't even have to be a defeat that he's aware of; let him glory in his imaginary vicious victory; but let the truth differ.

This is a sentimental request from a fan.

Well, I guess everything's been done before, but this strip bears a striking resemblance to the comic where I first encountered this idea, an issue of Grant Morrison's Invisibles.

As crazybucket mentions, this is done beautifully in Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, issue #12. Imagine this idea done for a whole 32-page comic and without irony. It was deeply moving and most unexpected.

That's not to begrudge its use here. Funny stuff!