History Monster / DCAndVertigo

-->--'''{{Darkseid}}''', ''Comicbook/FinalCrisis'', spoken through the mouths of one billion slaves

* {{Darkseid}} is the ultimate GodOfEvil in the DC Universe, and the TropeCodifier for DystopiaJustifiesTheMeans. As the ruler of the world Apokolips, Darkseid subjects its denizens to hellish conditions with the overwhelming majority of the population ill-treated slaves. The other New Gods fare no better as Darkseid is only too willing to subject them to hideous tortures or obliteration should they fail him. Darkseid detests all that is good in the universe and seeks to extend his influence everywhere he can. During FinalCrisis, Darkseid murdered his heroic son Orion to permit himself to gain dominion over Earth. Once there, he enslaved the minds of everyone he could touch, turning them into savage parodies of themselves, intending to as he said "murder their souls and take them to hell without end." His ultimate motive is to use the Anti-Life Equation to [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill rob everybody of free will]] and turn them all into mindless zombies who worship him [[AGodAmI as a god]] while he tortures them eternally, [[ForTheEvulz just for fun]]. Just as bloodthirsty and monstrous as any of those who serve him, Darkseid combines urbane sophistication, limitless cruelty and insatiable drive for power, and is the one single villain that all the heroes despise and fear.

* [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate Dr. Arthur Light]] was a man with one singular passion: his absolute love of rape. A supervillain with powers over energy, Light had been considered a joke for a time. It was revealed in IdentityCrisis that the reason for this was because Zatanna had given him a magic lobotomy. Why? Light had snuck aboard the League's satellite and found the Elongated Man's wife Sue Dibny there alone, and took the chance to violently rape her. After he regains his mind, Light returns to his favorite habits. He also stole the powers from the heroic Dr. Light, Kimiyo Hoshi, comparing his violation of her to a rape in of itself. Becoming steadily more sadistic and depraved, Light enjoyed hurting every superhero he could and threatened to rape their loved ones as he had Sue Dibny. When the Spectre, the spirit of God's vengeance itself, visited Light to punish him in ComicBook/FinalCrisis, he was in the midst of preparing to rape a group of girls he'd dressed as heroines from the ComicBook/TeenTitans to satisfy his hatred of and lust for them.

* The first Ragdoll, Peter Merkel, was once just a two-bit thief whose gimmick was being triple jointed. Tired of being a joke, he decided to reinvent himself as a mass-murdering cult leader in the annals of ''Comicbook/{{Starman}}''. Gathering together the lost, the homeless, the addicts together to fuel his growing ego, Merkell decided to revenge himself upon the world and directed multiple murders, making the streets of Opal City run red with blood, with Merkel indiscriminately targeting the innocent, with intent to target the innocent families of his enemies. Merkel took advantage of his hold over his cult to take sexual advantage of the women, and hideously abused the resulting children. His son, Peter Merkel Jr, was castrated and hideously scarred. His daughter Alex suffered worse. Having desired a little girl, Merkel subjected her to horrible sexual, mental and physical abuse. Merkel became despised until his death by the rest of the supervillain community for his treachery and depravity and stands as a unique icon of a former HarmlessVillain becoming a genuine terror.

* ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'''s LongRunner status and the [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGallery massive size]] of his RoguesGallery mean that he has faced many foes. However these stand out as the worst of the worst.

* VandalSavage practically invented evil as a human concept. Born Vandar Og, a caveman who received super intellect and immortality from a meteorite, Savage used his endless life to become the biggest monster he could. Over the millennia, he has been one of the most vicious and depraved men in history and one of the [[MagnificentBastard most efficient]] [[ManipulativeBastard manipulators]] in the DCU, with billions of bodies to his name. Savage has spent his time as TheManBehindTheMan to many conquerors, [[TheChessmaster organizing conquests and massacres]]. Vandal has also fathered legions of monsters, but with the exception of one child, he considers the rest pathetic and treats their lives or deaths as not worthy of his attention. His treatment toward his sole legitimate child, Scandal, [[AbusiveParents was no better]]: on her birthday, he forced her to run a gauntlet of men beating her, and if she failed, he swore he'd murder her mother. Despite Scandal being a lesbian, Vandal wants a male heir--and has no compunction having Scandal raped by other supervillains to get it. Vandal's crimes have also including introducing a new drug in the stead of heroin that burns out its users to death very quickly, multiple murders and [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalism]] (which he might well have invented as a concept), attempting to pull an asteroid down to earth and murdering Golden Age superheroes with their families after founding a Neo-Nazi group called The Fourth Reich. His sole motives are [[ForTheEvulz fun]], [[ItAmusedMe boredom]], or [[AGodAmI to shape the world in his twisted image]].

* [[MayorPain Mayor]] [[BigBad Oswald Cobblepot]] [[note]]The Penguin's real name, although he is not referred to as such[[/note]] from ''BatmanEarthOne'' (an AlternateContinuity) takes CorruptPolitician to new levels. Cobblepot runs Gotham like his own private Mafia and tried to have Thomas Wayne killed for running against him as Mayor. He represses the courts through fear and intimidation, allows crime to run rampant and utilizes an insane SerialKiller called [[PsychoForHire Birthday Boy]] by providing him with young, female victims. When a judge fails to stop Harvey and Jessica Dent from investigating him, Cobblepot has the judge's eldest daughter given to Birthday Boy in payment for the assassination of a corrupt officer who has become a liability, promising that should he fail again, the judge's younger daughter will be next. When he finally confronts Batman, Cobblepot tries to slice him to pieces with a [[ParasolOfPain sword umbrella]], laughing about the corrupt nature of Gotham City and how his only regret was that a mugger got to Thomas Wayne before his plan went off.

* William "Billy" Hayes, better known as Harm from the [[KnightOfCerebus initially light-hearted comic series]] ''ComicBook/YoungJustice'' was a [[TeensAreMonsters teenage supervillain]] who was also a complete sociopath. Adopted by loving parents, Harm initially terrified his adoptive younger sister Greta and her fears were proven right when Harm murdered her in her bathtub to seal a demonic pact and give himself super powers. His goal was to become the world's greatest murderer and he decided to hunt down and destroy all the kid heroes before moving on to the big leagues. He captured Red Tornado and reprogrammed him as a suicide bomber against Pope John Paul II to make a name for himself in the supervillain community. When his father, realizing what he was, killed Harm with a gunshot to the back, Harm's spirit later returned. He [[DemonicPossession possessed his father]] and used his body to enact more evil deeds, none more enjoyable to him than screwing with Greta, now the ghostly heroine Secret, by making her think her father never truly loved her. when defeated, Harm, for sheer spite, forced his father to throw himself into one of the fire-pits of Apokolips while Harm possessed him to kill them both.

* Comicbook/{{Aquaman}}'s ArchEnemy Black Manta makes his living as a brutal pirate who is bent on destroying Aquaman at all costs. To this end, Manta once killed Aquman's infant son by trapping him in a chamber that suffocated the boy, despite Arthur's best efforts to save him. Manta continues to torment his nemesis by targeting and murdering those he can. Not even Manta's own family is exempt from his cruelty: his own son, the new Aqualad, was the target of Manta's wrath when Manta attempted to murder him with zealous hatred, for no other reason than rejecting the path Manta wanted for him. Manta is a vicious, hateful murderer who would poison the entire oceans just for a chance to hurt his nemesis.
* Franchise/{{Batman}} has quite a few of these characters in his RoguesGallery:

* Most [[{{Shazam}} Captain Marvel]] villains are difficult to take seriously. That can't be said of Mister Mind, a two-inch long [[PuppeteerParasite parasitic worm]] from Venus. As his people's advance scout on Earth, Mister Mind took control of Captain Marvel's cousin, Sinclair Batson, mutating him into a monster. When Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel foiled Mind's plans, the worm vowed revenge, and [[GrandTheftMe bodyjacking]] Sarge Steel of the Department of Metahuman Affairs, set in motion a plan for a [[NukeEm nuclear holocaust]]. Incubating his larvae in sores within Sinclair's body, Mind took mental control of his offspring after they were born and had them in turn infest nuclear technicians, army officers, and politicians, while he himself used Sarge Steel's authority to obliterate Fairfield, Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel's hometown. Defeated before he could [[KillAllHumans end the human race]], Mind broke out again during the events of ''52'', and after mutating into his adult form of The Hyperfly, tried to devour the totality of space/time, plotting to [[OmnicidalManiac end the multiverse]]. Motivated by nothing more than anger at Captain Marvel for embarassing him, Mind is as bad as The Big Red Cheese's RoguesGallery can get.

* Franchise/{{Superman}}

* {{Supergirl}} antagonist [[SociopathicSoldier Benjamin Martin Krull]], alias [[NuclearNasty Reactron]], was never a nice guy. His first clash with Supergirl saw a vast amount of property damage and significant casualties, with many survivors suffering from radiation sickness or cancer. It was in the NewKrypton storyline, however, where Reactron really crossed the line. Having been rebuilt by LexLuthor into a {{cyborg}} with a Gold Kryptonite heart, Reactron invades New Krypton alongside Metallo, depowering a killing numerous Kryptonians, threatening to rape Supergirl, and then murdering her father, Zor-El, in front of her by giving him radiation sickness. Tasked by General Lane with eliminating Supergirl, Flamebird, and Nightwing, Reactron murdered all the soldiers assigned to help him when they expressed doubts about the mission, and did his best to slowly torture Supergirl and Flamebird to death, all while gloating about how fighting two such attractive girls was a dream come true. Captured and tortured by Supergirl's mother, [[KnightTemplar Alura]], Reactron waited until Supergirl came to free him from the torture chamber to reveal that his capture had been a set up and that Luthor had transformed him into a living bomb. Detonating himself with [[GoOutWithASmile a smile]], Reactron gives a [[DissonantSerenity serene look]] as he incinerates Alura, the city of Kandor, and the entire planet of New Krypton, [[FinalSolution killing over ninety percent of the population]] in a single fell swoop. A lech, a bully, and a thug at his core, Reactron is a study in just how horrific it can be when somebody like that gets their hands on real power, and has done more to hurt Supergirl than any of her other adversaries, killing her father, her mother, and her entire race in a matter of weeks.

* Pullman is the most visible member of the AncientConspiracy in ''TheUnwritten,' a sadistic murderer who kills multiple people with relish, including a little girl he smothered to death with a pillow. At times he goes out of his way to kill when he has absolutely no reason to execute the victims. Pullman admits his hatred for storytellers and goes out of his way to make such targets deaths as painful as possible. Seven thousand years old, Pullman has had time to wrack up an impressive count of misdeeds, including when he was travelling with [[Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh Gilgamesh]] himself, and raped or killed a woman that he sneered he 'used as cattle ought to be' when confronted. Pullman is ultimately revealed as attempting to say the Leviathan, the creature behind all stories, in order to [[DeathSeeker achieve his own death]], as his own story as Cain, the first murderer, will not allow him to die. however, he has no intention of dying alone, and when he's dealt with deathblow by the heroes, he gloats to hero Tom at 'dragging his bitch' with him, having murdered Tom's girlfriend before receiving the final blow.

* Franchise/WonderWoman:

* The Joker in the storyline ''Death Of The Family'' is as monstrous as ever. Starting by attacking the Gotham City Police Department to retrieve the face he had cut off, he murders nineteen police officers and threatens to kill Mayor Hady. He instead opts to kill Hady's police guards. Reenacting old crimes, the Joker attempts to poison Commissioner Gordon and blows up the Gotham reservoir. The Joker hunts down the whole Bat-Family, trapping them in the Batcave and leaving them soaked in gasoline while he forces Batman to watch. He attempts to set them ablaze before Batman stops him, but leaves a contingency: his special Joker gas to force them to kill one another if not for their HeroicWillpower. The Joker here shows how terrifying he can be when he decides to cut loose and is defined by his twisted obsession with and desire to hurt Batman.

!!Examples

!!!Pre-{{Flashpoint}}

* ''ComicBook/{{New 52}}'':
** [[ComicBook/SwampThing Anton Arcane]]'s new incarnation is a being of boundless cruelty. In his pursuit of immortality, Arcane took over the elemental force of The Rot, [[DarkIsNotEvil the natural force of death and decay]], and subsumed it to his will. Arcane extends the Rot to devour all that lives and trap the world in deathless limbo he can rule. Arcane even forced his own nephew to be the Rot's avatar, devouring his mind from within. In Arcane's battles with Swamp Thing, Alec Holland saw a future where Arcane gruesomely tortured and beheaded Abigail and saw lobotomized clones Arcane had made of her as cannon fodder.
** Maro from ''ComicBook/{{Batwoman}}'' purposefully drowned the children of Maria, the woman who would go on to kill herself and become the Weeping Woman, because his magic relies on the power of belief. Because people believe in the legend of the Weeping Woman, Maro intended to use that to keep Maria from passing on after she inevitably killed herself and transform her into the urban legend, and she would go on to steal and/or kill more children.
** The Joker in the storyline ''Death Of The Family'' is as monstrous as ever. Starting by attacking the Gotham City Police Department to retrieve the face he had cut off, he murders nineteen police officers and threatens to kill Mayor Hady. He instead opts to kill Hady's police guards. Reenacting old crimes, the Joker attempts to poison Commissioner Gordon and blows up the Gotham reservoir. The Joker hunts down the whole Bat-Family, trapping them in the Batcave and leaving them soaked in gasoline while he forces Batman to watch. He attempts to set them ablaze before Batman stops him, but leaves a contingency: his special Joker gas to force them to kill one another if not for their HeroicWillpower. The Joker here shows how terrifying he can be when he decides to cut loose and is defined by his twisted obsession with and desire to hurt Batman.

* Maro from ''ComicBook/{{Batwoman}}'', introduced in the ''ComicBook/{{New 52}}''. He purposefully drowned the children of Maria, the woman who would go on to kill herself and become the Weeping Woman, because his magic relies on the power of belief. Because people believe in the legend of the Weeping Woman, Maro intended to use that to keep Maria from passing on after she inevitably killed herself and transform her into the urban legend, and she would go on to steal and/or kill more children.

** In the New 52, Anton Arcane's new incarnation is a being of boundless cruelty. In his pursuit of immortality, Arcane took over the elemental force of The Rot, [[DarkIsNotEvil the natural force of death and decay]], and subsumed it to his will. Arcane extends the Rot to devour all that lives and trap the world in deathless limbo he can rule. Arcane even forced his own nephew to be the Rot's avatar, devouring his mind from within. In Arcane's battles with Swamp Thing, Alec Holland saw a future where Arcane gruesomely tortured and beheaded Abigail and saw lobotomized clones Arcane had made of her as cannon fodder.

* [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate Dr. Arthur Light]] was a man with one singular passion: his absolute love of rape. A supervillain with powers over energy, Light had been considered a joke for a time. It was revealed in IdentityCrisis that the reason for this was because Zatanna had given him a magic lobotomy. Why? Light had snuck aboard the League's satellite and found the Elongated Man's wife Sue Dibny there alone, and took the chance to violently rape her. After he regains his mind, Light returns to his favorite habits. He also stole the powers from the heroic Dr. Light, Kimiyo Hoshi, comparing his violation of her to a rape in of itself. Becoming steadily more sadistic and depraved, Light enjoyed hurting every superhero he could and threatened to rape their loved ones as he had Sue Dibny. When the Spectre, the spirit of God's vengeance itself, visited Light to punish him in ComicBook/FinalCrisis, he was in the midst of preparing to rape a group of girls he'd dressed as heroines from the ComicBook/TeenTitans to satisfy his hatred of and lust for them.

** The Barry Allen Flash's [[ArchEnemy Arch-Nemesis]] is Eobard Thawne, the Reverse Flash. An obsessive fan of Barry, Eobard managed to duplicate Barry's powers. He then attempted to replace Barry, before [[StalkerWithACrush stalking]], and apparently [[IfICantHaveYou murdering his wife]], Iris Allen, when she rejected his advances. Eventually he drives Barry to kill him to save his new fiancé before he can kill her. However, Thawne was resurrected years later, and has gone out of his way to cross every line he can find since. Using his time travel powers to edit his life, Thawne kills his [[CainAndAbel brother]] (who he blamed for holding him back), his [[SelfMadeOrphan parents]] (who weren't supportive of his obsession with the Speed Force), a professional rival, and [[MurderTheHypotenuse every man that a woman he is interested in has ever dated]]; he then traumatises her as a child when she still spurns him. He kills Johnny Quick shortly after his own resurrection, tries to force Barry Allen, newly returned to life, into becoming the [[GrimReaper Black Flash]], and during the Flashpoint crossover, alters the time stream further and further to make Barry's life as miserable as possible. He has no FreudianExcuse or mitigating factor for these actions, but instead [[ItsAllAboutMe he's just a selfish man who plans to get what he wants at the expense of everyone else.]]

* [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate Dr. Arthur Light]] was {{RetCon}}ned into a CompleteMonster in the ''IdentityCrisis'' crossover. He was {{Hand Wave}}d from a goofy HarmlessVillain into a serial rapist who violently raped the completely innocent Sue Dibny, just because he was a petty asshole who wanted to torment the heroes by brutalizing their loved ones. Just before he received his '''very''' KarmicDeath at the hands of Comicbook/TheSpectre, he was in the process of raping a group of teenage girls ''who he had dressed up as the ComicBook/TeenTitans''.

* ''VandalSavage'' practically invented evil as a human concept. Over the millennia, he has been one of the most vicious and depraved men in history and one of ''the'' most efficient manipulators in the DCU, with billions of bodies to his name. Judging by some of his offspring (for instance, Grendel), he's responsible for the existence of various other horrible monsters. His daughter Scandal, fucked-up as she is, absolutely despises her father and wants nothing to do with him, with anything related to him usually acting as a BerserkButton. [[EvenEvilHasStandards Most of his fellow villains either despise him or are fucking terrified of him]], usually both.

* ''Comicbook/SwampThing'':
** Anton Arcane, a scientist turned sorcerer obsessed with immortality and its secrets. First seen attempting to steal the Swamp Thing's body, Arcane failed and died in the attempt. His soul, however, returned from hell to steal the body of his niece, Abigail Arcane's husband, Matthew Cable. In the guise of Matthew, Anton raped Abigail and consigned her soul to hell in his place. In his new position on earth, Arcane attempted to drive reality itself to insanity, using the souls of resurrected serial killers to cause destruction as the innocent succumb to savage, homicidal urges.
** In the New 52, Anton Arcane's new incarnation is a being of boundless cruelty. In his pursuit of immortality, Arcane took over the elemental force of The Rot, [[DarkIsNotEvil the natural force of death and decay]] and subsumed it to his will. Arcane extends the Rot to devour all that lives and trap the world in deathless limbo he can rule. Arcane even forced his own nephew to be the Rot's avatar, devouring his mind from within. In Arcane's battles with Swamp Thing, Alec Holland saw a future where Arcane gruesomely tortured and beheaded his own niece, Abigail Arcane and saw lobotomized clones Arcane had made of her as cannon fodder.

* Trigon the Terrible from the pages of ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'' is a demonic overlord who rules an empire where countless souls are kept i horrible bondage, with those who dare to resist (and 'resistance' can be defined as 'don't do as ordered quick enough) are ruthlessly exterminated. Trigon wishes to extend his dominion to earth and for that end, disguised himself as a handsome human being to impregnate a woman named Arella, revealing his true form and taunting her after. After invading earth, Trigon dominates the soul of his daughter Raven and corrupts her into a monster, forcing her to attack her own world and friends. Trigon's brutality extends to exterminating entire worlds simply to make a lesson. With no redeeming features whatsoever, Trigon is the most terrifying and powerful foe the Teen Titans ever faced

** Many depictions (especially modern ones) of SelfDemonstrating/TheJoker fall into Complete Monster territory. Like all comic book characters who've been used as long as he has, this [[DependingOnTheWriter depends on the writer]]. [[MonsterClown The Joker]] tends to bounce around between HarmlessVillain, Complete Monster, and MagnificentBastard like a pinball. He epitomizes the trope LaughablyEvil. What's so effective about the presentation is how he can go from one end of the spectrum to the other without batting an eye. [[Comicbook/TheKillingJoke The Joker crippled Batgirl]] purely by accident: it didn't matter to him who he shot. He [[ColdBloodedTorture tortures]] her and humiliates her, all while her father is forced to watch. Later, he tells Batman an old joke. To him, there's no difference. He also [[Comicbook/ADeathInTheFamily brutally murdered Jason Todd, the second Robin, and sold a nuke to Islamist terrorists in the same storyline]]. JLA: Rock of Ages confirms that Joker is [[AxCrazy coo-coo-ca-ca bananas]]--MartianManhunter near goes insane trying to see a structure from the Joker's perspective in an attempt to find the Worlogog and comes within a hair of suffering an aneurysm attempting to keep Joker sane long enough to get the Worlogog away from him.

* [[MayorPain Mayor]] [[BigBad Oswald Cobblepot]] [[note]]The Penguin's real name, although he is not referred to as such[[/note]] from BatmanEarthOne (an AlternateContinuity) takes CorruptPolitician to new levels. Cobblepot runs Gotham like his own private Mafia and tried to have Thomas Wayne killed for running against him as Mayor. He represses the courts through fear and intimidation, allows crime to run rampant and utilizes an insane SerialKiller called [[PsychoForHire Birthday Boy]] by providing him with young, female victims. When a judge fails to stop Harvey and Jessica Dent from investigating him, Cobblepot has the judge's eldest daughter given to Birthday Boy in payment for the assassination of a corrupt officer who has become a liability, promising that should he fail again, the judge's younger daughter will be next. When he finally confronts Batman, Cobblepot tries to slice him to pieces with a [[ParasolOfPain sword umbrella]], laughing about the corrupt nature of Gotham City and how his only regret was that a mugger got to Thomas Wayne before his plan went off.

* Lono, known as 'The Dog,' from ''Comicbook/OneHundredBullets'' is the most violent and evil member of the squad of hitmen called The Minutemen. Our first introduction to his depravity is when a man hits him with a car to steal Lono's money. Lono's response is to hunt him down and murder him after raping the man's girlfriend for hours out of boredom. A sadist with a penchant for torture, Lono would also castrate a man after torture before presenting him with his sons' severed heads and finishing the job. With many onscreen murders for profit and personal satisfaction, Lono makes even hardened assassins express [[EvenEvilHasStandards moral disgust]] at his psychotic actions.

* ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'' When Hansel and Gretel were captured as children by Frau Totenkinder, who was trying to sacrifice their lives to demons for youth and power, they fought back and burned her alive in her own oven. Hansel found he enjoyed the sight of watching witches burn. With this newfound bloodlust, Hansel set out to make as many witches suffer as he could, not caring that all too often, victims of his witch hunts were innocent girls. Hansel subjects them to torture and deaths for his own gratification without a twinge of remorse. His crowning moment of evil is after he discovers Gretel had been taking an interest in magic. He murdered her on the spot before fleeing the Fable community to align himself with their great adversary as his Inquisitor general, putting himself in charge of hunting down those who might prove disloyal to the Empire. Hansel is one of the Empire's most feared and zealous leaders who uses his position to satisfy his need for torture and domination.

** Joshua Wright, John's EvilCounterpart was an unscrupulous magician with no compunction about rape, manipulation or murder. Wright seduced John Constantine's former lover Isabelle Bracknell, and made her his Scarlet Woman, a woman he could practice all his magic through. When he got bored of her, Wright would drive her to the lowest depths for a laugh, forcing her through painful body modification, got her pregnant to make her get an abortion and have the aborted fetus implanted under her skin, and had her prostitute herself. In his own words, he was merely amusing himself at this point. When he got tired of her, he murdered her with a hammer. When confronted by John, Wright shows no remorse, gloating "that's what magic's all about, innit? Fucking someone. One way or another."

* ''Franchise/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica'': Felix Faust is one of the most power hungry sorcerers alive. Kicking off his career by selling his infant son's soul for his own ability, Faust committed many acts of cruel murder and torture to fuel his black magic. When he finally realized he could no longer bargain with his own tainted soul, Faust resorted to harvesting the soul of an innocent little girl to trade to demons. Faust offered his assistance to Black Adam to help resurrect Black Adam's wife Isis, but deceived Adam into thinking Isis's revival had failed, while Faust kept a paralyzed Isis to serve as his personal sex toy.
* Prometheus started out as a MagnificentBastard in his initial appearance when created by Creator/GrantMorrison. He then went on to suffer severe VillainDecay in most of his follow-up appearances...until ''Comicbook/JusticeLeagueCryForJustice''. In his grand return after years of limbo (after a special one-shot used ''Comicbook/FinalCrisis'' to retcon all of the non Morrison[=/=]VillainDecay stories involving the character as being an impostor), he unleashed a wave of chaos, carnage, and torture on the heroes of the DCU that rivaled even the worst BigBad in the worst Crisis. [[spoiler: Murdering countless D-list superheroes, killing Mikaal Tomas' lover and Congo Bill's pride, sewing Freddy Freeman's lips together to keep him from speaking his magic world, cruelly lobotomizing genius IQ, mutilating Red Arrow, and culminating with murdering 90,000 people in Star City - including Red Arrow's [[InfantImmortality little daughter]].]] Why? Because as a kid, his criminal parents were shot in front of him by the police. The series may have been incredibly criticized, but there's no denying that Prometheus is easily one of the most monstrous characters in the DCU.

** {{Brainiac}} has counted since his first appearances in the 1960s. When you force Silver Age Superman, perhaps DC's ultimate boy scout, to resort to lethal force, you know you are a monster. His crimes over the years have ranged from shrinking cities and planets for his private collection, coldly slaughtering thousands in a quest to destroy the "Master Programmer" and become God, and brainjacking Luthor, leading to the deaths of Lex, Lana Lang, and Jimmy Olsen in ''WhateverHappenedToTheManOfTomorrow'' And that's just Pre-Crisis. Since then, he has fed on human spinal fluid, possessed countless victims and destroyed their minds in the process, exploited the [[OmnicidalManiac Imperiex]] [[Comicbook/OurWorldsAtWar War]] in an attempt to rewrite the fabric of the universe, tried to destroy New Krypton, and, most recently, gone in for planetary destruction and city collection in a big way. He has never shown any remorse, his presence in a story inevitably signals that the bodycount is about to rise, and he has been a genuine physical threat to Superman since the early days when his DeflectorShields made him untouchable.

* {{Darkseid}} is the ultimate GodOfEvil in the DC Universe. As the ruler of the world Apokolips, Darkseid subjects its denizens to hellish conditions with the overwhelming majority of the population ill-treated slaves. The other New Gods fare no better as Darkseid is only too willing to subject them to hideous tortures or obliteration should they fail him. Darkseid detests all that is good in the universe and seeks to extend his influence everywhere he can. During FinalCrisis, Darkseid murdered his heroic son Orion to permit himself to gain dominion over Earth. Once there, he enslaved the minds of everyone he could touch, turning them into savage parodies of themselves, intending to as he said "murder their souls and take them to hell without end." His ultimate motive is to use the Anti-Life Equation to [[TheEvilsOfFreeWill rob everybody of free will]] and turn them all into mindless zombies who worship him [[AGodAmI as a god]] while he tortures them eternally, [[ForTheEvulz just for fun]]. Just as bloodthirsty and monstrous as any of those who serve him, Darkseid combines urbane sophistication, limitless cruelty and insatiable drive for power, and is the one single villain that all the heroes despise and fear.

* Franchise/{{Batman}} has quite a few of these characters in his RoguesGallery.

** The first Black Mask, Roman Sionis was a bored rich boy who grew to despise his social class, and then by extension, everyone else. Sionis murdered his parents when they disapproved of his fiancee and soon became the feared underworld kingpin Black Mask. His first victim was his ex-fiancee who he left hideously disfigured. Sionis makes a name for himself by being one of the most ruthless and evil of Gotham's crime lords, with a penchant for ColdBloodedTorture. Two of his most noted victims were the first female Robin, Stephanie Brown, who Black Mask tortured with a power drill, among other implements in a brutal fashion that almost killed her. The second was to torture Selina Kyle's sister Maggie, as well as Maggie's husband. He did this by forcing Maggie to watch him dismember and butcher Maggie's husband, before forcing her to eat his eyes. With a black sense of humor, unbridled sadism and drive to destroy anything connected to what remotely stands in his way, Black Mask is one of Gotham's most evil denizens.

** The son of Commissioner James Gordon, James Jr. distinguishes himself from his heroic relatives in the extreme. ever since his youth, James Jr. was a vicious serial killer, always hoping the next person would pick on him so it would give him an excuse to torture and kill them. In one instance, he cruelly slashed a woman's face for calling him Four-Eyes years prior. In another, he gruesomely dismembered a man for stealing his glasses a decade prior. James Jr proceeded to torture his mother with the Joker's fear toxin, tortured his sister psychologically and physically and revealed his master plan: to destroy the morality of Gotham's children by injecting their food supply with a drug to destroy empathy. The worst part is he might well have succeeded. He tortured and murdered many people in the past for no reason beyond the power it gives him. He even reveals that he thinks of empathy as a weakness, and [[spoiler:tortures his sister Barbara by driving a pair of knives into her paralyzed legs.]]

* What Franchise/WonderWoman villain [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate Dr.]] [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Psycho]] [[DepravedDwarf lacks in height, he makes up for in depravity]]. A psychotic dwarf who bears a grudge against nearly everyone, Psycho is a violent misogynist, serial killer, cannibal and rapist, and he combines this with incredibly potent PsychicPowers that include MoreThanMindControl and some minor RealityWarper traits (his classical "create and shape ectoplasm" abilities). His crimes are myriad, but one that truly cements his classication as a CompleteMonster is this: he once used his psychic powers to take control of dozens of innocents, promptly forcing them to engage in cannibalism of each other. Not only did this ''turn him on'', he decided to [[MindRape force the victims he was controlling to experience his sexual pleasure as if it were their own]]. Eventually, he grew bored and let the survivors go free, condemning them to associate those traumatic memories with arousal and to suffer with it forever-more. Dr. Psycho gleefully participates in such atrocities and remembers them with the relish a normal human being would associate with savoring delicious food.

* Tao from the ''ComicBook/{{Wildstorm}}'' universe is the most vile the world has to offer. Tao was created as the Tactical Augmented Organism, growing at an amazing rate into a man. The problem was, Tao grew with a sense of cold superiority an disdain for all others. He masterminded several wars between superheroes, resulting in many casualties, in an early attempt to end the world. Using his powerful hypnotic suggestion abilities, he forced the strongest heroes into being his sex slaves to prevent them from stopping him. After these plans fail, Tao reinvents himself as the ruler of a crime syndicate where he distinguishes himself with cold professionalism combined with violent sadism. As the hero of ''{{Sleeper}}'' describes it, Tao won't pull out your guts. He'll make you do it to yourself, and enjoy it all the while.

* Dr. Arthur Light was [[RetCon retconned]] into a CompleteMonster in the ''IdentityCrisis'' crossover. He was {{Hand Wave}}d from a goofy HarmlessVillain into a serial rapist who violently raped the completely innocent Sue Dibny, just because he was a petty asshole who wanted to torment the heroes by brutalizing their loved ones. Just before he received his '''very''' KarmicDeath at the hands of Comicbook/TheSpectre, he was in the process of raping a group of teenage girls ''who he had dressed up as the ComicBook/TeenTitans''.

* Dr. Destiny, aka John Dee, within the pages of Neil Gaiman's ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' transforms from a standard, somewhat campy supervillain into a nightmare inducing lunatic. When first seen Destiny comes across as a harmless, even somewhat pitiable, man. This impression goes out the window when he, for no real reason, casually murders the woman who had given him a ride, made pleasant small talk with him, and given him a coat. Once the good doctor regains the Materioptikon, a ruby used by Morpheus to create reality from the fabric of dreams, Destiny shows off just how bad he truly is. Sitting in a diner, over a twenty-four period Destiny begins steadily driving the establishment's patrons and employees mad. He makes them have sex with each other, mutilate themselves, and torture and kill each other. At one point he gives them their minds back and when they demand to know why he's doing this to them, he responds, [[ForTheEvulz "Because I can."]] By the time he's finished all of the diner's inhabitants are dead. All while this was going on, Dr. Destiny was using the power of the ruby to drive everyone on the planet mad. One disturbing instance had him making a kids' show host tell his viewers to slice open their wrists. When Morpheus asks Destiny what his goal is now, Destiny replies that at first he wanted to rule but now he wants to [[OmnicidalManiac destroy the world and dance in the wreckage.]]

%%Please read the discussion page first to see if your example or removal has already been brought up.

[[quoteright:350:[[{{Franchise/Batman}} http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/zsasz_491.jpg]]]]

* Franchise/WonderWoman
** What [[MorallyAmbiguousDoctorate Dr.]] [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Psycho]] [[DepravedDwarf lacks in height, he makes up for in depravity]]. A psychotic dwarf who bears a grudge against nearly everyone, Psycho is a violent misogynist, serial killer, cannibal and rapist, and he combines this with incredibly potent PsychicPowers that include MoreThanMindControl and some minor RealityWarper traits (his classical "create and shape ectoplasm" abilities). His crimes are myriad, but one that truly cements his classication as a CompleteMonster is this: he once used his psychic powers to take control of dozens of innocents, promptly forcing them to engage in cannibalism of each other. Not only did this ''turn him on'', he decided to [[MindRape force the victims he was controlling to experience his sexual pleasure as if it were their own]]. Eventually, he grew bored and let the survivors go free, condemning them to associate those traumatic memories with arousal and to suffer with it forever-more. Dr. Psycho gleefully participates in such atrocities and remembers them with the relish a normal human being would associate with savoring delicious food.
** The villain [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Genocide]] is this, seeing as she's [[spoiler: the future, alternate Diana]]'s body, merged with the soil of the sites of 5 mass genocides (Rwanda, Cambodia, Auschwitz, Logor Jasenovac, and Darfur) and without anything resembling human compassion. Her first act is torturing a fellow villain, then she goes on a rampage in a mall and steals Diana's lasso after stringing her up and nearly killing her, before going on to curbstomp the Justice League and mentally torture a Green Lantern while turning Donna Troy against Diana because of her psychic effect on everything. And ''then'' she tortures one of Diana's friends mostly [[ForTheEvulz for shits and giggles]]. Even Diana was shocked at what just being around Genocide made her do, she's that much of a complete monster.
** Captain Alkyone, first off, views her position as a way to get power, and regarded the other Amazons as nothing. When Hippolyta wanted a baby, she decided she had gone mad and began plotting against her. Then when Hippolyta created Diana...Alkyone, despite seeing her purity...[[MoralEventHorizon still wanted to stab baby Diana through the heart]]. She later betrays the Amazons fully to Ares, forces Donna to fight Diana, and puts Hippolyta and Diana on the chopping block. She even gladly says she'd sacrifice all of her sisters to summon an EldritchAbomination.

** [[GalacticConqueror Mongul II]], OverlordJr at its finest, desires to be even worse than his [[Franchise/{{Superman}} sadistic tyrant of a father]]. Mongul is first seen attacking the Green Lanterns with his sister, but when he decides he doesn't want to share the legacy, he brutally punches her head off. Later, Mongul murders a dying Sinestro Corps member to steal his ring, aiming to usurp the Corps from Sinestro himself. When he captures the planet of the Black Mercy plants, Mongul enslaves them, forcing the benevolent Mother Mercy to serve him with the forced threat of murdering her children and forcing her to eat them. After being repelled, Mongul establishes himself as a brutal tyrant even among the Sinestro Corps; he enslaves Daxam, before switching locations to Korugar, intending to brutalize the populace there as well.

** Mongul II, OverlordJr at its finest, desires to be even worse than his [[Franchise/{{Superman}} sadistic tyrant of a father]]. Mongul is first seen attacking the Green Lanterns with his sister, but when he decides he doesn't want to share the legacy, he brutally punches her head off. Later, Mongul murders a dying Sinestro Corps member to steal his ring, aiming to usurp the Corps from Sinestro himself. When he captures the planet of the Black Mercy plants, Mongul enslaves them, forcing the benevolent Mother Mercy to serve him with the forced threat of murdering her children and forcing her to eat them. After being repelled, Mongul establishes himself as a brutal tyrant even among the Sinestro Corps; he enslaves Daxam, before switching locations to Korugar, intending to brutalize the populace there as well.

** Krona. His arrogance led to the creation of entropy / evil etc., but if that was just a result of him holding the IdiotBall, the stuff he did after that put him well across the MoralEventHorizon. ''War of the Green Lanterns'' retconned him into being the one who was behind the Manhunter's annihilating a sector, but we had seem him do far, far worse long before we learnt that, and at the absolute apex of his villainy he was callously destroying entire ''universes'' because he thought he could do better. The most chilling thing about him is that he can commit mass murder on a multiversal scale with zero compunction, [[TautologicalTemplar and believe he was completely in the right to do so.]]

** Mongul II, OverlordJr at its finest, desires to be even worse than his sadistic tyrant of a father. Mongul is first seen attacking the Green Lanterns with his sister, but when he decides he doesn't want to share the legacy, he brutally punches her head off. Later, Mongul murders a dying Sinestro Corps member to steal his ring, aiming to usurp the Corps from Sinestro himself. When he captures the planet of the Black Mercy plants, Mongul enslaves them, forcing the benevolent Mother Mercy to serve him with the forced threat of murdering her children and forcing her to eat them. After being repelled, Mongul establishes himself as a brutal tyrant even among the Sinestro Corps; he enslaves Daxam, before switching locations to Korugar, intending to brutalize the populace there as well.

** Mongul II, OverlordJr at its finest. Dedicated to aping his equally unpleasant father in every aspect, he began his villainous career by ''punching his own sister's head off'' to sever any of those pesky family ties that tend to hold villains back. He also enslaved a benevolent HiveQueen to produce mind-screwing plants for him, and when she put her foot down, he threatened to ''burn her billions of children to ashes and force her to eat them''.