From time to time, villains will threaten the safety of Paragon City’s citizens and its up to the heroes to bring the evil-doers to justice. It is an action to put a mission card into play, introducing a new threat to the city. When you play a mission card, discard any mission card that is currently in play - villains are notoriously selfish and unwilling to share the headlines with another villain.

While the mission card is in play, the villain’s plot will have a global effect on play, as described after “Threat:”. This effect continues until the mission leaves play (usually because the villain is defeated or another mission is played). You can attack the mission’s villain as you would any super - he has a defense and hit points just like a hero. When you attack a villain, any of your opponents may use inspirations on behalf of the villain (bad guys don’t just sit there!). Villains are always considered to be fighting Toe-to-Toe. Area attacks targeting villains cannot target heroes or sidekicks and vice-versa.

A mission can be defeated either of two ways: by damaging the villain or by fulfilling the mission’s “defeat” condition. Each defeat condition is different (and some villains cannot be tricked into defeat in this fashion), but involves performing an action: and paying the necessary costs (discarding cards, charging powers, etc). More commonly, a hero can simply their attacks to defeat the villain - a hero that reduces the villain’s hit points to zero defeats the villain, completing the mission.

When a mission is completed, the hero who completes the mission places the mission card under himself to show the mission is complete. There is a global “Victory” prize that all of the players receive from the mission card now that Paragon is safe from the villain’s plot. The victorious hero receives no special reward for his thankless work, but there are other cards available that provide special bonuses for completed missions.