Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Now, a villain probably has to have more than one murder (unless that one is spectacularly cruel), but even a non-murderer could count, as could someone who has merely two (Ox Baker).

I once brought up Dark Beast and nobody replied. Still think he counts. One of the very few Mad Scientists in the X-Genre who can live up to Mr Sinister, and that says a lot.

Well, let's see an effort post.

Who Is He? What's he done?

Dark Beast, AKA Hank McCoy of The Age Of Apocalypse, was a genius scientist who had one tiny problem: his lack of a conscience. When Apocalypse took over the world, mutants were herded into concentration camps run by Dark Beast and his mentor, Mr. Sinister. While Sinister handled everything with a cold, detached rationality, Dark Beast was a vicious sadist who relished hurting others. Dark Beast went out of his way to cause suffering to his lab subjects and anyone who didn't make the cut for a 'superior' being he just turned into genetic stew to fuel Apocalypse's army.

Nicknamed the Beast for his evil, he took to the name and experimented on himself to transform into the bestial form that the original Beast was trapped in by accident. In other misdeeds, Dark beast experimented on Jaime Madrox, fused the Power siblings into one hideous monster (these being kids he stitched together into one abomination), he helped create Holocaust, making him partially responsible for all the mass murders that monster participated in.

Unlike most villains of the Age, Dark Beast survived the fall of the Age of apocalypse and escaped to Earth 616. His experiments would eventually create the Morlocks, which led to the massacre when Mr. Sinister recognized them as unauthorized use of his own theories. Dark Beast would later kidnap the real Best and assume his identity. He found, to his utter annoyance, he had a psychological bar from killing Beast for reasons he couldn't quite explain, but made up for it by killing any of Beast's friends and family when he couldn't bluff them. Unfortunately, Dark Beast's psychological bar extended to him being unable to harm Hank's parents. In a rage, Dark Beast murdered several people and left town.

He then tried to kidnap the young mutants of Generation X to experiment on. After M-Day, when mutants are depowered, he briefly teamed up with the real Beast...problem is this doesn't really go well because Dark beast fatally poisons a child and then suggests they do the same to a little girl. The two finally come to blows and Dark Beast savagely beats Hank. Later, during the Dark Reign, Dark Beast becomes the team scientist of the Dark X-men and makes up for not being able to kill Hank: instead, he uses a device to agonizingly eat away at Hank's life. Dark Beast uses him as a guinea pig for his power and life removal experiments until the X-men rescue him.

After Norman Osborn's fall, Dark Beast captures the Lizard and experiments to find out the secret on the whole people to lizards thing. He proceeds to kidnap abuse victims and runaway kids to practice his theories on them and mutate them into feral beasts. In Uncanny X-Force, he releases the evil Dark Angel to devastate the earth and cause a gigantic body count. He later is partially responsible for the release of a creatures called 'The Exterminators' who could destroy the Multiverse.

Finally, he manipulates SHIELD and the X-men into a war and infects the lead X-men with nano-sentinels to screw up their powers. When the heroes confront him, Dark Beast reveals he's dying, but his last act is to set off a bomb to take them all with him.

Freudian Excuse?

Hahahahhaahhahahaha....oh, you're serious? None, nada, zero.

Redeeming Qualities?

See above answer. His inability to kill Hank's parents or Hank himself is something he hates and it leads him to some of his most horrific actions (cleverly getting around that by "creating a machine to torture the guy you can't kill horribly" strikes me as extra nasty.)

He'll occasionally work with the good guys, but for selfish reasons. He'll always betray them, and all he cares about is himself and his research.

Heinous Standard? This guy is on Sinister's level. tons and tons of horrific experiments, murder, torture, near extinction of the human race...partial responsibility for the crimes of Dark Angel, Holocaust, the Exterminator...and he gets worse every time you allow him to.

Dark Beast is a keeper

I feel this deserved a second post. Harald Jaekelsson of the short mini series Thor: Vikings written by Garth Ennis. You know this is gonna be bad.

Who Is He And what Does He do?

A thousand years ago, Harald Jaekelsson, The Jackal's Son, raid the town of Laksad. The men are killed, the women are raped and slaughtered and the vikings decide to make for the New World. However, a wise man lays a curse upon them with a runestone. Nonplussed, Harald kills the man and the Vikings sail...and sail...and sail...for a thousand years until they reach modern day New York, now as immortal superpowered zombies.

Upon encountering the people, Jaekelsson slaughters all they encounter and proceeds to try to rape the women (as he says, it's been a thousand years since he'd known a woman, when Thor arrives. Recognizing the God of Thunder, Harald and Thor battle...and Harald wins, throwing Thor into the Hudson river with Mjolnir tied around his neck.

Harald then orders his men to have fun. We're treated to a mass slaughter in New York: civilians are slaughtered by the truckload, others are captured for the Vikings' amusement later, the police fight back, but are cut down without mercy...the magic Viking ship flies overhead and rains down flames on the civilians and Harald builds a literal mountain out of severed heads.

Thor escapes from the river and with Dr. Strange's help, he learns the Wise Man's death provided too much blood for the curse, empowering Harald...the only thing that can stop them is Harald's own blood. as a result, Thor gathers three of his descendants: a shield maiden, a knight and a Luftwaffe pilot. In New York, the avengers are fighting back, but Harald slaughters the marines sent in and displays their heads on pikes. He also selects from the prisons people who have a suitable bone structure, so they're killed and turned into a throne.

At the end, Thor and team do battle with Harald who has no compunction trying to slaughter his descendants dishonorably. The fight ends when Thor engages Harald in personal combat and punches him into space to drift forever.

Harald has no freudian excuse. He's just a sadistic bastard who loves hurting others. He has no redeeming qualities and in terms of heinous standard, he's a Serial Rapist, a torturer, a murderer and he commits one of the worst wholesale acts of slaughter the Marvel universe has ever seen with nothing more than a Viking ship and steel weapons. you have to trot out Ultron and Kang to get to his level of mass death, and Harald has nowhere near their equipment or resources. For reference: this guy is as horrible as Malekith the Accursed and does as much horrible damage as that lunatic did to the Dark Elves.

Easy keep as well.

edited 24th Jul '14 7:13:58 AM by Lightysnake

to both of them.

Jeez, comics really seem to have some of the worst monsters in fiction. Obvious keep for both.

both (BTW, what about Kang? A search turned up nothing).

edited 24th Jul '14 7:38:05 AM by ACW

Yeah, I was going to ask about Kang the Conqueror too. Even though he is a really magnificent monster, I never really saw any redeeming qualities to him (if you discount the whole Iron Lad-nonsense, that is).

To both btw.

Kang is a no. He's been shown to have redeeming qualities, and did genuinely care for his clone/son and heir Marcus.

And BTW, I don't think we have to worry about Harald vis-a-vis Malekith; Harald's a MAX character. Man, Ennis sure does love complete monsters.

Ennis is a real paradox. He absolutely loves violence and 'macho' war and western stories, but under it he can, when he wants to, write with a very engaging humanity. He can be an incredibly immature writer, but also a very mature one.

Though oh dear god does he love author tracts. If something has him angry, you WILL know it.

Oh, Iaculus, do you want to edit the Ragyo entry?

edited 24th Jul '14 9:30:03 AM by Lightysnake

I have a question. If people have to murder someone directly in order to qualify, should we then cut those examples like Matt Engarde who simply order the deed?

No. There is no moral difference between doing something and ordering/forcing others to do it.

Although, it's possible for the killer to be a monster while the one who hired him isn't (and maybe vice versa).

X Man

• Complete Monster: Post-retool issues introduced a number of them. An alternate universe version of Jean Grey who made Nate destroy Quito killing thousands, murdered a little kid, Mind Raped and killed an unknown number of her genetic sons (after having sex with them) and tried to destroy half of the world. Qabiri who destroys entire worlds. From the earlier period we have Holocaust who very definitely established himself as such in his home reality.

Was this ever discussed? I tried searching for it but the results just gave me X-Men related discussions.

About this:

My problem with Steele is what someone else said earlier—the film thinks that losing his reputation and getting run out of town is an appropriate punishment for him. The story can end with him on the loose, free to do whatever he wants, and still be entirely happy.

I used to find Steele's comeuppance to be a letdown too given his crimes, but really consider this: Steele didn't just have a reputation - he thrived off of his reputation. He wanted nothing but blind adoration, respect, and power. To lose all that and be deemed "disposable" by his former admirers is the worst thing in the world for him to suffer. Now it is true that he could theoretically find a new home where no one's heard of him and try to build up a new rep from there, but theoretical or on-screen Karma Houdini ends for villains hasn't stopped some from qualifying before, IRRC.

for Dark Beast and Jaekelson (by the way, Jäkel, aside from sounding like "jackal", means "devil" or "bastard" in Swedish).

edited 24th Jul '14 2:58:44 PM by LordXavius

That's probably very intentional there.

I also stress this man turned New York into a death camp. For a one off villain, he's shockingly monstrous.

Harald. Is he canon, by the way? With all the crap Marvel New York's been through, I'm not sure it could recover from... that?

I've seen nothing to indicate it's not, and Marvel's general rule with MAX seems to be "yes, unless we say otherwise", and it doesn't really...contradict anything.

But yes, it stretches credulity to the breaking point that Marvel NY can be turned into a slaughterhouse by invincible Viking zombies and not much happens after

Is MAX Punisher the same continuity has regular Punisher (not trying to be a smartass]]?
BTW, as for Karma Houdini Monsters, Noah Cross says hello.

Then again, you could probably say the same about Xorn's rampage, which involved literal death camps.

Interesting to hear Ennis portrayed Thor and Dr. Strange with dignity, too. With his track record I'd expect them to be shown as bumbling fools, possibly soiling themselves, before some jagoff in a cowboy hat walks up and shoots Harald.

edited 24th Jul '14 2:18:47 PM by HamburgerTime

Noah Cross was intentionally a Karma Houdini. The pint of Chinatown: "evil exists. It wins. People who have the money will not go unpunished and will escape from their just punishment as long as they can buy their freedom." (why yes, this was directed by Roman Polanski. I don't know why I'm thinking of that.)

That's difference from that and a character not receiving comeuppance because the story fails to take him or her seriously

And no, Punisher MAX and the fury MAX stuff is a continuity in of itself where superheroes as a whole don't seem to exist.

Ennis clearly doesn't know them like other writers do, and it shows, but Thor is a proud warrior and Strange is a dignified man. Ennis...he doesn't like superheroes, but if he's writing an actual superhero story, he will make the effort. The only one he seems to refuse to write well ever is Wolverine.

The Luftwaffe pilot, true to Ennis, though, is a vocally anti-Nazi and proud soldier...the one who surprised me was the Teutonic Knight who is a flat out Christian fanatic, but is treated with utter respect as a warrior and enters Valhalla when he dies (which I'm sure is kind of a shock to him).

I do think most of Ennis's protagonists fall well out of the Sue angle, though. He tends to write very flawed people, no matter how badass he has them. Jesse Custer from Preacher, Tommy Monaghan from Hitman, John Constantine and Frank Castle...all portrayed with massive flaws

edited 24th Jul '14 2:25:30 PM by Lightysnake

Knowing Polanski, you sure it wasn't "I diddle little girls, so in this movie the guy who also diddles little girls wins?"