Yahtzee Takes On The World

From Comixpedia

Yahtzee Takes On The World is a webcomic which ran from December 2000 until September 2002. It centered on the character Yahtzee, a megalomaniac suffering from amnesia. It was created by Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw, and included the characters Rob Blanc and Paul Grewald from his earlier game series The Rob Blanc Trilogy. One parodied theme in the comic was that of a Mirror Universe populated with evil equivalents of the main characters. This is a concept borrowed from Star Trek.

[edit] Plot Synopsis

The story opens with Yahtzee, a morally-questionable would-be terrorist, and a real estate agent named Gus surveying a building on an island with a volcano. Yahtzee buys the base and meets Rob and Paul, who guys who are squatting on the island rent free. Yahtzee tries to evict them, but decides, after trying to kill them, to hire the two as henchmen. Paul, it turns out, is a qualified engineer and Rob has bionic eyes, albeit weak ones.

Yahtzee finds that he is now nearly broke, so he decides for them to go to Las Vegas in order to win some money. Unfortunately, they find themselves even poorer (Paul didn't cash in his chips), but soon find acres of marijuana growing on the island and start selling it to a dealer in Chicago. The group begin wasting money on bling and solid-gold Jacuzzis. Yahtzee later discovers MI6 has been investigating them and sends Agent 22-2 to spy on them. 22-2 seems very bad at his job however, and is caught by Paul in minutes. He is subjected to torture via cattle prod, and is later blown up by a woman made of dynamite (referencing Looney Toons), and, after surgery, is shot by Yahtzee. After pointing out all that's happened, Yahtzee gets 22-2 to leave.

During this time, Paul creates the Stewifier, a device that can make stew out of anything. Recalling when they fed Marijuana Stew to Paul and it's mind-controlling properties, the trio decide to go into the instant soup business, calling it "Aunt Yahtzee's Lovely Herb Stew". On 1/16/01, the series begins a move into colour, and Paul is shown soon after with a 22-function bionic arm, after his arm getting cut off in the comic for 1/18/01. Yahtzee is also, unknowingly, augmented by Rob and Paul. He gains the ability to look into people's eyes and see their deepest secret, called "the Blackmailer's Friend". He uses this ability on Paul and Rob first, but soon blackmails an American food distributor into selling his stew (and also gets the man's watch). Sales are initially slow, but, after disguising it as a 'slimming tonic' to appeal to Americans, they sell their entire inventory in 7 hours.

Yahtzee attempts to blackmail the President of the United States into letting him monopolize the liquid food industry, but his Blackmailer's Friend is overloaded by the President's secrets, causing his brain to shut down. After awakening, Yahtzee discovers their stew has been pulled by Health and Safety Authority for the edge of the can being too sharp. Academic writing here

After the failure of the stew scheme, Yahtzee is visited by a small angel, who bothers him. In retaliation, Yahtzee cuts off his wings and attaches them to his hat. The angel returns, and asks Yahtzee where 'the other fella' (Yahtzee's bad side) is, but it turns out Yahtzee is the bad side. The angel then tries to dissuade Yahtzee from his attempts by listing the cons of his plan, but inadvertantly just convinces him to make Rob and Paul take fitness classes as to be stronger henchmen. Paul tries to appeal the decision by giving Yahtzee a contract stating, as a mad scientist, he doesn't need to be fit. Yahtzee responds by dressing him in a silly 'mad scientist' outfit.