Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

That's done.

I still think that a wife beater is too trivial to count compared to people who run their own personal genocide camps For the Evulz. Politically Incorrect Villain? Yes. Complete Monster? No.

How about Talia Al Ghul? I think that she crossed the Moral Event Horizon and has been written as one during her stint as leader of Leviathan the last few years of Batman Incorporated by Grant Morrison.

edited 31st Jul '13 11:20:03 AM by CodenameBravo

That's a very new direction for Talia though. She's traditionally been portrayed in a sympathetic light, and I'm willing to bet that her more monstrous status isn't going to last long, especially with R'as having more or less returned to form in the past few years.

Two nominations from YMMV.Blue Bloods that may qualify.

• Dick Reed, the Serial Killer/rapist in "Re-Do", is a thoroughly misogynist Smug Snake ("She lies. They all lie," regarding the victim who escaped and got him caught) who gets his conviction overturned because a lab tech screwed up the protocols. He shows zero remorse and no redeemable qualities and finally attempts to perform his usual MO on Erin Reagan, the ADA who convicted him. This proves him Too Dumb to Live: he's caught in the act of kidnapping by Erin's father Frank, the sitting police commissioner, tries to use her as a hostage, and Frank puts a bullet in Reed's head. Toby Leonard Moore's performance is so good that it's also the show's first major dose of Nightmare Fuel.
• Yuri Denko, an arms dealer whom Erin prosecutes in "Working Girls", is a cold-blooded sadist who has no problem executing a man's wife in front of him in their living room over a business dispute. He then threatens the man's children in a courtroom outburst to scare him into not testifying, then has him killed after the threats scare him into running. He puts out a hit on the surviving witness, hounding her mercilessly, and went after her grandma back in Russia, too (the FSB got there first and protected her).

The page also has this guy Phantom in "The Life We Choose" but I don't remember watching that episode and the example doesn't provide enough context.

Lovely fellows. Seem like for me.

Well, I was previously told that the Joker's previous harmless portrayals didn't count once he crossed the Moral Event Horizon, so I thought that counted for Talia as well. She died at the end of the arc, but I suppose that her father will resurrect her atfirst opportunity.

edited 31st Jul '13 12:14:31 PM by CodenameBravo

The Joker hasn't been presented as harmless for what I understand to be decades, and the modern works where he shows some sympathetic qualities are out of continuity.

In contrast, Talia is a character who is usually sympathetic, but has been recently written (by a single writer) as completely unsympathetic (and crossing the Moral Event Horizon is not synonymous with being a Complete Monster).

And I know we shouldn't bash the writers, but I know Grant Morison wrote an instantly retconned arc which concluded by presenting Magneto as a Complete Monster. Wonder if this is/will be a similar case.

Edit- Looked up Talia on The Other Wiki- seems like Morison has consistently presented her as unusually unsympathetic. Granted, he is the current writer, but I would definitely wait to see if further writers continue that presentation (and I'm not clear whether she is a Complete Monster under his pen or just eviler than usually/crossed the Moral Event Horizon).

edited 31st Jul '13 12:22:25 PM by Hodor

Well, she is certainly written as a thousand times worse than those Blue Bloods examples above. Even her sons and hordes of innocent children are just pathetic tools to be brainwashed into psychopathic thrill-killing mass-murderers, used and murdered with a shrug whenever it is convenient. She has been continuously skiproping with the Moral Event Horizon during the story.

edited 31st Jul '13 12:33:32 PM by CodenameBravo

Totally off-topic, but given my love of the Heralds of Valdemar series, I cannot take anyone named Talia seriously as a villain. Carry on, then.

@Codename Bravo

As Hodor noted, The Joker has been written as a monster since the seventies. He was also one when he first appeared in the forties. If there's a time period when he was out of character, it's honestly the fifties and sixties when he was retconned into a Harmless Villain. Talia conversely, is a traditionally sympathetic character, who one author has chosen to write as a demented madwoman.

I'm also not sure, honestly, if Talia as written by Morrison would qualify. Sure she's crossed the Moral Event Horizon, but the problem is that as a Batman rogue her competition is the likes of Joker, Black Mask I, Victor Zsasz and James Gordon Jr. Those are some hardcore psychopaths right there, and I don't think she's managed to outdo them. Hell, I'm not sure she's managed to one up her father, who has a lengthy history of mass murder, terrorism, child abuse, and rape by proxy behind him.

If writers after Morrison keep up with Talia's psychotic portrayal, and add enough to her rapsheet for her to compete with her fellow rogues, I might reconsider my position, but for now, I don't think she qualifies.

EDIT: Those Blue Bloods examples don't have to compete with The Joker. Talia does. She shares a comic with him (and Black Mask, Zsasz, James Jr. and her dad), and a wider universe with the likes of Mongul, Darkseid, etc. Her crimes more or less pale when compared to the competition.

edited 31st Jul '13 12:37:16 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

In general or under the stories written by Morrison? I'm familiar with Talia from Batman The Animated Series and The Dark Knight Rises. In the former, she's either a Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter type or Daddy's Little Villain (it varies episode to episode) (and very far from a Complete Monster); in the latter, she's pretty bad, but still definitely doesn't cut it.

Thanks, well put.

edited 31st Jul '13 12:35:27 PM by Hodor

In stories written by Morrison. He's got a hate-on for the character (which in fairness I can understand. Talia's always been complicit in her dad's "end all life on Earth" plots, yet gets treated as though she was no worse than Catwoman for the sole reason of Batman having the hots for her. It's deeply annoying). He pretty much took away any redeeming traits Talia had, and turned her into a vicious enemy of Damian Wayne and Dick Grayson and a thoroughly hateable bitch.

Still, probably not bad enough to qualify given the competition.

edited 31st Jul '13 12:37:48 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Thanks for the info. So yeah, it is a similar case to Morrison writing Magneto- I mean yes, Mags pretty much is a Holocaust survivor whose ideology and actions aren't far removed from Nazism, but Morrison assassinated his character to make that point.

edited 31st Jul '13 12:40:59 PM by Hodor

Okay, well personally I think that she is at least fully comparable to Black Mask in this portrayal (a far bigger and even more extreme crime boss) and as she (and Damian) said and showed herself, she aspired and succeeded to be far more evil and dangerous than Batman's other adversaries. Personally, Emperor Joker cemented Joker as even worse to me, but yes, I'd say she outdid Black Mask and Zsasz. Heck, her brainwashed young child tools/underlings were probably largely turned into Zsasz level.

If she needs more such portrayals to get an entry, that is another thing entirely.

edited 31st Jul '13 12:52:17 PM by CodenameBravo

Weirdly, according to our page on it, Emperor Joker actually gives Joker some seemingly genuine Pet the Dog moments (in addition to being a showcase to the extent to which his insane evilness is only limited by lack of power). So, I'd paradoxically consider it one of those "out of canon" works which give the Joker redeeming qualities.

If it is necessary to note that the character is written as a CM in a particular arc of questionable canonicity, then the example should be phrased in that way. Except for truly exceptional cases, the canonicity of a work/arc doesn't reflect on whether a character is or is not a CM in that work/arc.

I would say that in-canon variations in a character's motivations would be more, not less, likely to disqualify them as a CM.

edited 31st Jul '13 12:45:05 PM by Fighteer

It was the "butchered, cooked, and ate the corpses of all the billion people in China" moment that put Joker on par with Darkseid to me. It didn't show him as sympathetic to me, just as a torture-happy Omnicidal Maniac who would even kill Harley Quinn.

edited 31st Jul '13 12:53:48 PM by CodenameBravo

I was referring to this entry on Emperor Joker:

• The Joker decides to use his Phenomenal Cosmic Powers to unmake the universe because any universe that would allow someone like him to be created must be fundamentally broken. Harley Quinn approaches him and begs him to spare her. He actually takes pity on her and, for all her "tears of service," transforms her into a constellation, promising she'll have the best seat in the house.

I was sort of joking in stating that this was an out-of-character bit of niceness, since the comic quite accurately shows that if Joker was as powerful as Darkseid, he would be even worse- basically, I was saying that the niceness was out-of-character, not the eating a billion people.

edited 31st Jul '13 12:53:47 PM by Hodor

Oh, okay. Sorry.

Speaking of which, does anybody else feel a bit overloaded from the sheer ridiculous extremes of certain villains?

edited 31st Jul '13 12:56:42 PM by CodenameBravo

Absolutely. It can happen.

For talia? Honestly, in Incorporated? The answer is a a probable yes, but we have to see if it sticks. when Inc. is done I'd support adding her.

However, she meets the scale. Absolutely meets it.

I think that Talia would have to do a hell of a lot to catch up with Black Mask, Zsasz, or The Joker. They've all had such lengthy runs, and have wracked up so many dead, that it would be problematic to consider qualifying her. Personally, I'd like to wait and see what the writers after Morrison do with her. If this gets retconned into her being braincontrolled by her father or some such (not out of the question when dealing with Talia and R'as), than the entire affair becomes something of a moot point.

Yeah, I just can't help but feel that this version of her isn't going to last. Writers like making Talia sympathetic, and teasing the whole "are she and Bruce going to get together" thing. They can't do that with Morrison's Talia.

I'll note that if we agree that under Morrison she qualifies I would have few issues with putting her on the YMMV page for Batman Incorporated, but would still resist putting her on the main subpage for DC, as it's such an out of character portrayal.

edited 31st Jul '13 1:16:48 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

For better or worse, Morrison has set the course of Batman for some time. Talia has caused a ton of innocent deaths, including her own son. She has gone for cruelties on every level, and even decapitated her own son who was Demian's replacement clone (who had the mind of a child no less).

If nothing else, she's a damn fine fit in this story

X4: Ultimate Red Skull springs to mind.

Going to vote no on (this version) of Talia al'Ghul. Batman has a pretty high heinous standard, and I'm not even sure she's worse than her own father, let alone people like Zsasz or the Joker. "Really bad" and "worst possible" are, again, not the same thing.

The Depending on the Writer thing is actually a smaller factor, for the reasons Lightysnake points out, but it also does fit. Morrison won't be on Batman forever, and once he's gone his take on Talia will probably stick about his take on Magneto (incidentally, I actually had no problems with his Magneto, but it was a terrible story to do with an ongoing character - same as much of his X-Men, actually. Would have worked much better as an out-of-continuity "Last Magneto Story").

Not saying he did, just that his rapid retcon into a Continuity Snarl is about what we can expect (hopefully minus the Continuity Snarl) for Talia once Morrison is off the Bat-books, and therefore she probably won't wind up counting in the long run.

edited 31st Jul '13 3:42:45 PM by nrjxll

Morrison's Magneto wouldn't fit anyway due to Demonic Possession.