It’s not exactly glorious, being a henchman.
For starters, you’re the bench player. You’re the understudy who clearly doesn’t have the chops to have a staring role. You are, in essence, the hanger-on, the Chester the Terrier to Spike the Bulldog. Take, for example, a Mr. Wormtongue, who for all his trouble gets beat up in Rohan, gets no respect from Saruman, and doesn’t even get a piece of Eowin. Not exactly great shakes, if you ask me.
As such, you’re usually the guy who gets his butt kicked first by the super hero. This is a high risk, generally low reward position, especially considering the indignity of the tasks often assigned to you. There’s not a lot of glory to be found in henching.
Too, you’re working for an evil person. This isn’t exactly the ideal situation when you’re often talking about life or death situations. Loyalty is rarely something you can expect from your employer, and the idea of “human shield” is probably never far from their mind. While some people may relish the chance to pretend they’re Kevlar (you have to think that a great deal of the people who find their way into becoming henchmen are probably imbalanced in some way or another), for the most part, they’d probably rather not die for their leader. When push comes to shove, though…well, the push becomes a shove.
Henching is not an adequate replacement for a deep, meaningful relationship. For that, you might try match.com.
(To be fair, while a sidekick isn’t much better, at least they’re on the side of good. If there was a big drawback to being a sidekick, it would be the persistent accusations of improper relations with the hero you work for — sorry Bruce and Dick, but Wayne Manor is just a bit too well decorated, if you ask me.)
And yet, there it’s not all being belittled and/or being sacrificed on the alter of self-preservation by your master. If you’re lucky—and high enough up on the food chain—often being a henchmen can mean that you are, in fact, protected from the death that befalls your comrades (although this almost always means that you are part of a large group of henchmen). Perhaps my two favorite examples come from one of the best television shows on…TV. (That last sentence did not go as well as planned).
I’m talking about Number 21 and Number 24 on the magnificent “Venture Bros.” (is “magnificent” too strong a word? Get over it). Besides being one of my favorite shows, these are my two favorite characters, playing up the henchman shtick to the hilt. The best part is at one point, with their leader, The Monarch (a super-villain based on, yes, the monarch butterfly) in prison, they are forced to resume their normal lives…which is exactly what you would expect: two guys who live with their parents and are big, fanboy losers.
Hey, I calls ‘em as I sees ‘em.
I think this might sum it up better than words:
Utterly brilliant.
What got me thinking about henchmen is this almost surreally (it could be a word) awesome site called Henchman’s Helper. I really feel like, if I were a henchman, it would be standard protocol to have to sit in front of a bank of video screens, surveying the world through my secret camera feeds. I’m keeping my eye on that Ross Hall pendulum cam.
On a completely unrelated note: As an editorial assistant, I sometimes fear that I’m not as far from henching as I would probably hope—I’m pretty much a costume away.
