Charlie Fitzer

Identity

• Canonical name: Charlie Fitzer
• Aliases: "Charlie Wilson" appears in a small number of secondary summaries — likely an error; treat as non-canonical.
• Age: 32 at story start
• Role: First-person POV. Reluctant heir to Jake Baldwin's supervillain empire.

Background

• Ex-business reporter (Chicago Tribune, laid off)
• Substitute teacher (current at story start)
• Divorced; living back in his childhood home in Barrington, Illinois (suburban Chicago), co-owned with half-siblings he is not close with
• In credit-card debt; longstanding modest dream of buying McDougal's Pub in town

Personality / energy

• Sardonic, self-aware, dry; first-person voice carries the book's tone
• Underestimates himself; does not, in fact, want power
• Decent — chooses, in the end, the small life over the empire
• Talks to his cats; the cats talk back

Physical description

Sources do not give a detailed canonical physical description. Synthesized for visual consistency (mark as interpretive):

• White American man, mid-thirties affect
• Average build, average height; visibly not a thriller protagonist
• Brown hair, slightly overgrown; tired-but-kind eyes; a face that was sharp at 25 and has softened a few degrees
• Wears clothes the way a man with no money wears clothes — well-kept, not new

Outfit / clothing notes

• Default: a slightly worn navy or grey sport coat over a plain shirt and chinos. The "substitute teacher who cares enough to dress for the job" look.
• Funeral / Convocation: his only good black suit, tailoring competent but not bespoke. Conspicuously the only person in either room not dressed by money.
• Island: borrowed-from-the-lair linens or chinos and short-sleeve button-downs; rolled cuffs.
• Epilogue: pub-owner casual — soft flannel or henley, denim, the look of a man who finally fits his clothes.

Visual motifs

• Cats at his feet or on his shoulder
• A coffee mug, a clipboard, a phone — small props, never weapons
• Suburban-domestic backgrounds in Acts I and V; volcanic-old-money backgrounds in Acts II–IV
• The visual joke: a regular guy, framed and lit like a Fortune 500 portrait

Power / signature

None. Charlie is the world's most ordinary man in an extraordinary inheritance. The signature is his ordinariness.

Chapter appearances

1–28 (POV character, every chapter)

Source references

• https://www.torforgeblog.com/2023/06/12/excerpt-reveal-starter-villain-by-john-scalzi/ (publisher excerpt)
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starter_Villain
• https://booksthatslay.com/starter-villain-summary-characters-and-themes/
• https://www.audible.com/blog/summary-starter-villain-by-john-scalzi

Confidence

High for biography, role, voice. Medium-interpretive for specific physical detail (not given by sources; chosen for visual consistency).