Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

If you mean before Redemption, that's probably Offscreen Villainy.
BTW, Daredevil (2015) is a week from tomorrow; rated TV-MA, I'd be surprised if it didn't have any qualifiers.

edited 1st Apr '15 9:13:22 PM by ACW

To be fair, Bullseye is not going to appear in the first season and Kingpin apparently will get a fair amount of humanizing traits, so there may not be any monsters in the first season. Purple Man will appear in the first season of AKA Jessica Jones though.

Actually...I think Juma does count. The genocide he commits in Sangala is definitely treated as part of the story, and there's his nerve gas attack on a village to test his bio-weapon, his press-ganging child soldiers into his army, his murdering hostages and his attck on his own country's capital city...

Okay, I know the main page is locked, but I really think these should be added as part of the "basic qualifications" needed to be a Complete Monster:

• The character must possess moral agency. If they cannot chose being good instead of evil, they do not qualify.
  • Secondary note: Being The Sociopath or having a Lack of Empathy, even if it is beyond your control, has no effect on your moral agency-you can fit either trope, yet still be capable of choosing good(or at least something close to good).
• A group cannot qualify, directly or indirectly. This trope must be intended for a single character.
• Their evilness must be intentional. Being unintentionally pure evil goes elsewhere.

Warning: I'm going to do a review of deleted Complete Monster entries, and current Complete Monster entries. And I'll give my opinion to who deserves to say, who deserved to leave and who should come back...in my opinion(note-I'll be including only entries I feel I can give a good judge on their monster-ness or not). Feel free to debate. I'll be focusing on DC and Vertigo:

Current Complete Monster entries:

• The Joker: At first I believed he lacked the moral agency, being...well, crazy, but then I realized he's not legally sane...ie he can tell good and evil apart, and so doesn't fail the moral agency test. He fills all the three other qualifications since he crossed the Moral Event Horizon: evil played straight and compared to the majority of the rogues gallery(ask Barb, Jason and so many others), no attempt to humanize him that sticks or enough to excuse his actions(The Killing Joke and his past isn't enough/isn't reliable because of his Multiple-Choice Past), and no alturistic qualities(everything he does is to make himself laugh because he's a sadist)
• Darkseid: He may have been born evil, but he had the choice not be become pure evil yet chose it anyway, so yeah he does have moral agency. Evil is played straight, the only attempt to humanize him(his love to Suli) no longer counts since any sense of love he had died with her(so he wasn't a Complete Monster, but essentially crossed the Moral Event Horizon into one pretty much when he took over), and he has zero alturistic qualities(his plan of universal domination has zero alturism-it's purely about making others obey him and make them suffer solely because he's a Sadist).
• Dr Arthur Light: While I agree fully he's a Complete Monster in the Old 52, an addendum could be made that his mind-wiped self isn't one
• Eobard Thawne: Still fits. His Stalker with a Crush for Iris doesn't disqualify him because nothing suggested he actually loved her, just that he desired her companionship(which is pretty selfish in his context).
• Nekron: Not entirely sure if he counts. First, he was supposed to qualify as being a sentient force of nature, and as such may not be able to in any way realize what he's doing is wrong/be applied to human morals. Imprisoning his victims is the only real monstrous thing he does, and that seems less "look at how he can care even little, proving his monstrosity" and more "a mix of being a Hypocrite and the writing done goofed his Blue-and-Orange Morality." Still, he gets the Moral Event Horizon for being a hypocrite...or maybe it's just a minor example of Character Derailment.
• Prometheus: No problems with this, since its stated he wasn't a Complete Monster until Cry For Justice.
• Superboy-Prime: I argued against this, since along with a big Freudian Excuse his actions during Blackest Night broke the "no alturstic qualities" rule because he was stopping the writers from killing the characters. But since he suffered Character Derailment into his old "pure evil" characterization, he's a Complete Monster unless he's either rebooted or an Author's Saving Throw says his last Pre-New52 appearance wasn't something he was in control of(or just tries to rerail him.)
• Trigon the Terrible: Fits all categories except the "has moral agency." Has Trigon showed that he's capable of doing good, but chooses not to? Everything we've seen says he can't help being anything but evil incarnate, so I don't think he should qualify.
• New 52 Joker: Everything shown has done nothing to try and sympathize him. Seems they're doing what it takes to keep him a Complete Monster.
• Now let's look at the Complete Monster page of DC Animation.
  • DCAU's Joker was pretty much the best you get the Post-Crisis Joker in a meant to be kids show. So yeah, counts. Same goes to movies with the Joker who's the same as his canon counterpart from those adapations.
  • Brainiac...well, one could say he lacks the moral agency, but I say the whole agreement with Luthor shows he can change, meaning he can choose to be good as well but doesn't to...in my eyes that's the signature he's not Above Good and Evil, he's simply immoral.

Removed Complete Monsters

• Roark Senior was removed, and that's good. After all, he may lack altruistic qualities and have no attempt to sympathize him, but he isn't especially vile compared to the other villains.
• Poison Ivy's entry pretty much gave a reason-its Depending on the Writer, and too variable in one continuity to fit what's supposed to be an airtight trope
• Alexander Luthor Jr wasn't vile enough to qualify, and he had a modicum of altruism(destroying the universe to bring back the multiverse). Oh, and the Anti-Monitor? What was I thinking?! Dude's a Generic Doomsday Villain, so automatically fails the "depraved even compared to the villain standard" rule(and arguable the moral agency rule)
• Sam Lane doesn't get to be a Complete Monster again because he cares for his daughters and, even ignoring that, he thought he was protecting America, failing the "zero altruism" rule.
• Deathstorm is close. Even though his cruelty has some basis due to being a Black Lantern, that doesn't justify his sadism to Ronnie. Then again, he is programmed to want to kill everyone and his cruelty may just be a means to an end(as in what we think is him being a Sadist is actually "I will act sadistic to complete my program of farming emotion/killing everything). Even then, he may not be vile enough. Similarly, D'kay has no justification but isn't vile enough considering the general Grimdark of the storyline. And unlike the above monster Eobard Thawne, she seemed to genuinely love J'onn(though in a line-crossing Stalker with a Crush way)
• The list of Sinestro Corps. What was I thinking?! They violate the "no group" rule, aren't vile enough to compete with...say, Mongul, and much of their horrific deeds fit the "no Offscreen Villainy rule."
• Lex Luthor, a Complete Monster you say? WRONG! Too often he has been given sympathetic qualities, without a retcon to say "well this Lex Luthor is a Complete Monster, but this one isn't." And to be fair, the fact he keeps getting away while corrupting the law really is one of the main reasons why Superman hates him out of only a few.
• Chesire's daughter is a Morality Pet too often to keep herself as a Complete Monster, even if Gail Simone likely thinks otherwise.
• Terra's immorality depends on the writer? Good new Terra, so long as that's a rule in one single continuity you'll never be a Complete Monster for realz.
• Going into non-comic DC:
  • Like the Anti-Monitor, Teen Titans Trigon's a Generic Doomsday Villain, so he should stay away from this trope. Blackfire just isn't heinous enough in this show(or any, really) so she also should stay away from this trope. Slade, though? Dude's a Knight Of Ceberus, was never alturistic(he only helped stop Trigon out of a mix of Evil Versus Oblivion and It's All About Me), and doesn't care about anyone, just their usefulness.
  • As vile as it was, Psycho-Pirate from Batman: The Brave and The Bold didn't do too horrific a Mind Rape for me to think he counts. The Faceless Hunter was a bit too minor.

The main page is unlikely to be edited, because the addendums (moral agency, groups, intent, etc.) used in this clean-up are extrapolations of the existing criteria that aren't really relevant for regular visitors.

For your commentary on old items, I'll refer to the FAQ. Have any of these items not been discussed and resolved long ago?

@ ACW: There's a fitting Sabertooth quote I brought up a while ago:

"We're monsters, buddy. Plain and simple. I don't dress it up with fancy names like mutant or post-human; men were born crueler than Apes and we were born crueler than men. It's just the natural order of things."

Again, is anyone familiar with the following example?

Power Rangers Megaforce

• Complete Monster: Vrak. First, we have the terrifying implication that the Loogies, the Mooks in the first half of the series, are innocent civilians that have been Brainwashed and Crazy. Then we have his Kick the Dog moment when a dying Metal Alice begs for his help, only for him to leave her to die. After disappearing for most of the second half of the season, he makes a return in Vrak is Back. When he learns that his older brother, Prince Vekar, has died in the previous episode, he is actually glad because opens him to be next in line for the throne. Even the Rangers, who killed Vekar, found that to be sickening. It doesn't stop there. We learn that he not only brainwashed Robo Knight, but he kidnapped Orion and put him through Cold-Blooded Torture to go forward with his plan, which is to use giant drills to dig into the Earth's core and blow the planet up. Vekar at least had the Freudian Excuse of being The Unfavorite. Vrak, on the other hand, was always put on a pedestal by his father.

edited 2nd Apr '15 2:53:24 AM by Morgenthaler

Gotcha. Now, I had to flog a dead horse but...Ghetsis. No, I'm not arguing we re-instate him as Complete Monster again. I want to know why he fails the heinous qualification, and out of curiosity what would he have to have done in order to not fail the heinous qualification

Oh, well then, maybe Juma DOES count. Shall we get an effortpost going?

No idea, but if I had to guess, when you've had villains trying to destroy the world in both spinoffs and mainstream games, it kind of sets the bar a bit high.

I'll hold off on the X-Men and Punisher stuff a bit (still looking for feedback on the quotes). Meanwhile, are these ready for submission tomorrow?

Yeah, we should make an effort-post on Juma. Sounds like he fits.

Ghetsis was argued against rather conclusively by footsteps and others some time ago. All he achieves is generic 'take the country over' villainy.

As for Trigon...yeah, beings like that have moral agency all the time in DC.

@ RJ-19-CLOVIS-93, Joker seems more like a psychopath then someone who is criminally insane. It seems more like Joker knows the difference between right and wrong and doesn't care, rather then being psychotic. Two-Face I can see as criminally insane, not Joker.

@ ACW, I'm still not sure putting all the animated X-Men villains into the X-Men page and taking them out of the Marvel Animation page is a good idea. The X-Men already has 17 entries from the comics alone and the current Marvel animation page has 10 entries, 4 of them from the X-Men. A sub page with only 6 entries seems a bit small. We would at least have to reorganize the Marvel page if we take the X-Men villains out, I don't think there is a point for a separate folder for the 90s Marvel animated universe, considering one of the most prominent show from that era would no longer be present.

Hmm, maybe just have them in both then? Though 6 isn't TOO small. I'm fine having them in both.

edited 2nd Apr '15 6:27:38 AM by ACW

I'd like to make a slight modification to the Bill Williamson writeup. Here's my new version. It's mostly the same, just with a new pothole or two and changing some of the wording a bit:

• Complete Monster: Bill Williamson is a sadistic domestic terrorist who takes great pleasure in committing large-scale acts of violence. He attempts to justify his actions by claiming to be a revolutionary who's just doing what he has to in order to fight overpopulation and government corruption. However, the way he acts towards his victims reveals this to be a shallow excuse. He shoots up his small town in the first movie, and wracks up a body count of over 100. He enjoys every minute of this massacre, and mocks the people he kills as they beg for their lives. Several of his victims die simply because they inconvenienced him in some way prior to his rampage. Afterward, he kills his supposed best friend and frames him for the act while he skips town with a bag of money he stole during the attack. In the sequel, he takes over a TV studio. He kills several of the hostages he takes based on assumptions he makes about their lives. When one tearfully tells him that he killed her sister in his previous rampage, he responds by mocking her crying and taunting her. He then forces a male hostage at gunpoint to beat her up, enjoying it as though he is watching a sporting event. After his demands are met, he lets the hostages go, only to kill them and everyone else in the immediate area by blowing up the studio while he escapes. In the final scene, he gives a little girl a gun and encourages her to go home and use it on her parents and then herself, for no apparent reason. Claiming to do what he does for the good of humanity, Bill's utter enjoyment of the violence he causes and completely unnecessary acts of sadism out him as nothing more than a mentally disturbed psychopath who kills purely for fun and recognition.

I have a new proposal before I write up Onimusha, Visser and do the full Ben Juma post: Edward "Ned" Low from Black Sails

Who Is He?

Ned Low, captain of the Fancy is a recent arrival to the pirate alliance in Nassau. An alliance that includes the ruthless Charles Vane, the intelligent Jack Rackham, the ambitious captain Flint and his cheerfully opportunistic ally John Silver. Low is an outsider, not interested in forming much by way of alliance or friends. Low is interested only in profit and his own ambition. Low wastes no time in establishing himself at Nassau for his chillingly ruthless tendencies.

What Does He Do?

In the opening scene of season 2 of Black Sails, Low is performing a raid on a large ship, The Good Fortune. The ship's captain decides to surrender right off, believing the pirates won't cause harm to them for that. After all, "they're men. Not monsters."

Then Low discovers they have a valuable prize aboard the daughter of the governor of South Carolina. Low has the entire crew slaughtered, wanting no witnesses, executing the captain himself as the man pleads he has a wife and son. When they arrive at Nassau, Low's quartermaster tries to unload the cargo to be sold later. He gives a spiel how the crew 'resisted', to the irritation of Eleanor, the head of business at Nassau, who will have to take a loss to repackage the cargo to sell it. She demands the Fancy's captain shoulder the losses.

Low later goes to see her, saying he wasn't pleased she was lied to about the cargo. He then gives a rather chilling speech about how men use violence for advertisement or for their own ends, but their men can see the 'lie' to it and how many captains are sickened by what they've done. But Low? "When the men see me slaughter the crew of The Good Fortune. When they see me cut out a man's tongue for lying. When they see me burn a boy alive in front of his father. There's no lie there. There's no remorse there. I simply don't have it in me." The next day, Low cheerfully contemplates raping Eleanor 'to within an inch of her life.'

When his quartermaster, Mr. Meeks, goes to see Eleanor (rather tired of serving a psychopath who is threatening the crew with his reckless actions), Eleanor arrives to see Low torturing Meeks in full view of everyone and sawing his head off with a knife. One of Eleanor's guards attempts to force Low to leave, but Low fights back and wins. After having disabled his opponent, Eleanor pleads for mercy, but Low kills the man anyways and informs Eleanor "I'm enjoying myself way too much to even consider leaving this place."

Low then indicates his plan to murder Eleanor to Charles Vane. Vane, unable to put aside his feelings for Eleanor, sees Low later. Low pretty much threatens Vane to back down by using Eleanor against him. Vane reveals he's already had his crew deal with Low's, then attacks and kills him before planting his head on a spike with the note "I angered Charles Vane"

Heinous Standard? Excuse?

Low is given no excuse for his actions. I should note the real Ned Low actually did have standards and loved ones, surprisingly for his real-life cruelty. The show Low does not. He's a Soft-Spoken Sadist with a Faux Affably Evil demeanor who freely admits he has a 'tendency toward the extreme' that he embraces.

The heinous standard...Low breaches it. The massacre of The Good Fortune gives him the single highest body count in the show, and his deeds after that are simply icing. No other pirate comes close to that nastiness, let alone Low's penchant for torture and sadism. Also, plenty of the others have standards. Vane is a nasty brute of a human being, but he's nowhere near as bad.

In conclusion? Pass.

I'll give a for Low. I mean, wanting to kidnap the daughter's bad enough, but not even offering to spare the others if they give her up? Plus the whole attempted rape thing. Does he blame her for being lied to though?

edited 2nd Apr '15 7:54:53 AM by ACW

Low didn't even know the woman was on the ship at the start. He slaughters the crew because he finds it out and doesn't want witnesses.

Eleanor didn't lie to anyone. Meeks, the Quartermaster, lied to her about obtaining the cargo in a fight. The issue is when you bring blood-drenched barrels to legitimate merchant ports (eleanor takes cargo, sells it through legitimate channels and keeps a cut of the profits while giving the crews their own cut). Low goes to see her so she knows damn well who she's dealing with.

Yeah, I got that, but even after he found out slaughtering the crew seems excessive.
As for Eleanor, I figured that it wasn't that lied, but basically Low was saying how bad he was?

Low

Folks? I'm leaning towards Animated!Apocalypse.

for Low.

Keep for Edward Low.

First, animated Apocalypse may not even go on that page (as others have pointed out, he's already on Marvel Animation), but I'm not too keen on a lengthy quote that ends with "I will build a better world", even if in context he means a better world for him.

edited 2nd Apr '15 9:51:46 AM by Morgenthaler

Fair enough. BTW, I changed it a bit. And, even though he's not as well-known, there's this doozy of a quote from Contagion:

edited 2nd Apr '15 10:30:58 AM by ACW

I think we should check Kyung-Chul from I Saw the Devil. While he's a sadist serial killer he also has parents and a son who seems to care. Also, at the end he begs Kim Soo-hyun to not kill him in front of 'em. Looks like a case of Even Evil Has Loved Ones.

edited 2nd Apr '15 12:05:30 PM by ST89

Uh, no. He abandoned them before the film begins and he reveals his begging was fake.