Welcome to the first half of our exclusive, two-part interview with Miles Mayhem, the notorious terrorist leader of V.E.N.O.M.  We caught up with Mister Mayhem at the office of his currenet project, CoiNebula.

Gimorozo: Good evening, Mister Mayhem.  It’s been 20 years since the dissolution of V.E.N.O.M., what have you been up to since then?

Miles Mayhem: Well, let’s see…I got back into real estate immediately following that; I did that for maybe ten or twelve years here in Lincoln, Nebraska.  I liked that alright, but you know what?  I always wanted to be my own boss.  I missed those days where I was the leader of a terrorist organization.  I made my own hours, took vacation days when I wanted, it was great.  So, after a couple of years of putting together a business plan and getting some investors, I quit my real estate job and started my own company.  It’s called CoiNebula.  You’ve probably seen our machines in your local grocery store or wherever.  Anyway, it’s–what you do is, you take all that loose change you acquire, right?  Well, you take all that and you dump it into one of our machines and it gives you back the money, but in different coins!  So, like for example: you have three quarters and a nickel, ok?  Right?  Well, you put that in and it’ll give you–I don’t know–five dimes, eight pennies and a different nickel.

Gimorozo: But that’s only 63 cents…and you put in 80 cents, right?

MM: Right, but, c’mon, we gotta make money.  So, that’s a, uh, a “service fee” or whatever.  Anyway, it’s not been doing that great lately.  The economy and all.  The pay was a lot better with V.E.N.O.M., but I have good dental now.  That was one thing I learned, man.  When I started V.E.N.O.M., we were all young and crazy, so we didn’t have health insurance, right?  Who needed it?  We didn’t have, uh, 401ks.  We didn’t have matching uniforms.  None of that stuff that a good company should, y’know?  So when I started CoiNebula I was like, “this time, I’m doing it right,” y’know?  “This time, I’m living the high life.”  So, I got all that stuff.  Life’s good.  It is.

Gimorozo: You bring up V.E.N.O.M.  What was it like to be in the middle of the 80’s 30-minute long animated toy commercial scene?  That must have been something.

MM: Yeah, I mean, it was really cool sometimes.  But other times, it was a pain.  For example, I had all these great plots to take out M.A.S.K. and all, but I always had to cut it down to 30 minutes.  Actually, not even, it’s only 22 minutes if you count commercials!  Which was something that always irritated the fire out me: we were nothing but a commercial to sell action figures, but we still had to take commercial breaks.  Seriously?

But, anyway, 22 minutes to somehow execute an evil plot.  You can’t work under those conditions but so long before it really starts to get to you.  And the other thing that really pissed me off was that I wasn’t allowed to kill any of the good guys.  Now, you tell me how I’m supposed to take over the world without killing the people opposing me?  Ain’t gonna happen.  It’s just not.  And besides that, I never really wanted to take over the world, I would have been totally content with being the despotic leader of some third-world country.  But no, the writers always insisted that I try to take over the world.  In 22 minutes.  Without killing anybody.  Morons.

Check back later in the week for the conclusion of this riveting interview with former V.E.N.O.M. boss, Miles Mayhem where he discusses other 80’s cartoon bad guys.