Old Complete Monster cleanup thread
Welcome to the Complete Monster proposal thread! This is the thread where new Complete Monster examples are vetted, approved, and written up. If you're looking for the general cleanup thread (for cuts, rewrites, expansions, and the like), please go here
Important: Before suggesting any new examples, please read the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List; if you have any questions, the odds are high they are answered there. Additionally, please check here for the earliest date a work can be discussed (usually two weeks from the U.S. release date) and whether the work has already been reserved by another user.
Here is how the process works:
- If you have a candidate to propose, you can simply come right in and propose them! If the character's run is brief, such as a single issue of a comic book, then a simple summary of their actions and any potential redeeming qualities will be enough; for longer-running candidates, an effortpost (EP) might be helpful for organizing the proposal. An EP is not outright required, but please be mindful that if a post becomes too clunky and unorganized, it can be very hard for other people to follow.
- After the proposal, there will be a 72-hour discussion and voting period, where people may ask questions and vote on the candidate. The number of upvotes must outnumber the downvotes by at least five for the character to be considered "approved".
- Three days after the proposal has been made, if the character has been approved, you may post the writeup (the text to be posted on the trope page itself) on the thread and send it to the drafts page. Your candidate will soon be added to the CM subpage. If the work has a page, you should add your candidate to the relevant YMMV page. Voila! It's that simple!
Outside of this process, we do have a few ground rules:
- To keep the thread moving at a reasonable pace, there are some restrictions on when a proposal can be made. There should only be a maximum of four EPs posted both per page and per hour to ensure that nothing gets lost in the shuffle; additionally, each individual troper should only be proposing or writing up characters from a maximum of three works at a time (from initial proposals to end of their voting period). If your proposal would fall outside of either of these guidelines, we'd like to ask you to please wait until they would fit within; feel free to type them up on an outside document, and then when the time comes, you can just copy, paste, and post!
- No plagiarism of any kind. This is a very serious matter site-wide, as the website could get in actual legal trouble over this; as a result, this can very quickly lead to mod intervention. This can take many different forms:
- Direct plagiarism, i.e. wholesale copying. This is not only the easiest to find, but is also the most likely to warrant quick moderator intervention. To be clear, quoting in some places is perfectly acceptable, but it has to be very clear you're quoting from something else and it cannot be anything longer than a sentence or two - if you're quoting an entire work summary from Wikipedia, no one is going to believe you've actually consumed the work, so even if you cite your source, your candidate will be downvoted anyway.
- Self-plagiarism. Even if you can prove that you wrote the same text in both places, the site itself can't contain any of the duplicated text. If you already wrote something once before, it's not too hard to write it a second time.
- Using another site's work as a template for a proposal. Just because you don't copy and paste something directly doesn't mean it's any harder to detect if you're basing parts or all of your proposal on text someone else wrote. To be clear, this doesn't violate site rules and won't lead to mod intervention, but just like if you directly plagiarize, no one will believe you've consumed the work if you're clearly basing your proposal on something else. This thread largely operates on the honor system, and tweaking someone else's work to pass it off as your own is one of the fastest ways to lose trust.
- Don't delete an EP unless you intend to swiftly repost it. We know that there are reasons why you might want to delete an EP, especially if it's being downvoted - rejection is hard, even in a low-stakes environment like this. However, deleting it renders the current discussion null and void, makes it impossible to reference the discussion in the future and can confuse tropers who didn't read it before the deletion. If the issue is temporary (such as formatting problems or a post getting overlooked as the thread moves on), then deleting and quickly reposting the EP is a valid option, but to fully retract an EP, please use the [[strike:]] markup instead.
- Votes must be for specific candidates, meaning no blanket voting (i.e. "yes to everyone I missed").
- If you are the first person to downvote a candidate, please provide an explanation of why when you do so. We're here for discussions above all, and a hit-and-run downvote doesn't facilitate anything.
- 'If a work is already reserved by another user , please don't comment on the work or any potential characters worth discussion before the discussion date. We know how exciting it is when a work has a keeper that you're waiting to talk about, but it's not fair to the person who reserved the work who is just as excited to lead the discussion to see the discussion getting spoiled before they get to do it. On the other hand, if the reservation only has one name attached, shoot them a PM - they may be down for a collaboration, which will get you in on the fun as well!
- Please keep the thread on-topic. While discussing the trope is fun and we encourage people to enjoy it, questions like "who's your favorite CM" are off-topic and can lead to thumps. That's the kind of question to take to people's PMs if they're willing. Similarly, while we encourage friendliness and familiarity with other users, posts should always have some kind of thread-relevant purpose; for instance, if you want to wish someone a happy birthday, feel free to, but if it's the only thing in the post, it's off-topic and needs something else alongside it. Again, though, while we strive for a friendly atmosphere, this is not Facebook; life updates are fun, but unless they have some kind of impact on your thread participation, please do not bring it here - we have Yack Fest
for that.
- Please refrain from asking anything along the lines of "How Did We Miss This One?" In almost every case, the answer is simply "No one thought about it before". This Is a Wiki where everyone has different interests, and the fact that people missed a particular candidate, even one that seems like a textbook example of a trope or a character who is particularly iconic in pop culture, means absolutely nothing. The question is disruptive, has a simple and consistent answer, and provides nothing to any discussion.
- If you are suspended from parts of the website, it is still possible to participate!
- For users who are suspended from editing the wiki, you still have full access to this thread. You can propose candidates and write them up with no issues whatsoever; while you will have to ask someone else to post the entry to the relevant pages once it is done, all write-ups are considered thread-approved - as in, done by consensus - and thus doing so does not violate any rules regarding meatpuppeting.
- If you are suspended from the forums, your participation is limited but not impossible. It is still possible for a forum-suspended user to assist in creating the write-up for a character who has already been approved; as previously mentioned, write-ups are inherently considered a consensus-based edit and thus not tied to any one particular user. However, you can not assist in the proposal of a character; as a proposal is based around the forum rather than the wiki, doing so with a forum suspension qualifies as meatpuppeting.
- Please keep all discussions "in-house".
- What other wikis use for CM equivalents is irrelevant here.
- Please be wary of using other wikis, Fandom or otherwise, as sources of information. They are just as fallible as a site like Wikipedia in regards to accuracy because they can be edited by any user, just as this site can.
- Do not attempt to force a communication with an author in an attempt to gather evidence or settle a debate; besides the fact that this is a YMMV trope and thus author intent has variable weight depending on the circumstance, doing so may cross the line into drama exportation, which is prohibited site-wide.
If you would like to use an EP for your candidate, here's the general format. This format does not have to be followed exactly, but these are the main topics that need to be covered:
What is the work?
This is a brief summary of the work you're going to discuss. We don't need a full plot summary here, just however much we need to understand going into the discussion — it can even be as simple as quoting the summary on the work's page.
Who is the candidate and what have they done?
This is essentially the character's biography — who they are, their story, the crimes they commit, and, preferably (though not required), what happens to the candidate at the end. It does not have to include every single thing they ever do — for some villains, we'd be here all day if that was the case — but it should include the highlights of their journey.
Any redeeming qualities? Freudian Excuse?
This is where any potential redeeming characteristics or tragic backstory should be discussed. Do they have a tragic past? Do they show that Even Evil Has Standards or Even Evil Has Loved Ones? Maybe a Pet the Dog moment or two? This is where these should be discussed in full. Not every potential redeeming moment is a clear-cut disqualifier, but we should hear of any potential issues to ensure the character is discussed in full.
Are they bad enough?
A Complete Monster has to be particularly vile by the standard of the work they appear in. Therefore, you should look at what the character does compared to similar characters in the same work. This takes into account things like:
- Their resource level (a human Serial Killer can't stand up to an alien Omnicidal Maniac, but they can be bad by the standard of other human serial killers)
- The amount of time they have to work with (such as a one-shot character versus long-running antagonists)
- The quantity vs. quality of their crimes compared to others (someone with a lower victim count but far more visceral and personal crimes could be considered as equally bad overall as someone with a higher body count but less horror involved)
Essentially, this section is an analysis of the kinds of villainy shown in the work and an explanation of why this particular character's villainy stands out within it.
Final verdict?
This is where you post your final conclusion on the character in question. You can continue elaborating on your reasons or even just say a simple "yes" or "no"; at this point, we've heard everything we need to hear.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: This thread tackles very serious and dark matters on a daily basis. We will be discussing things like murder, rape, torture, human trafficking, crimes against children, and in particularly dark cases, several of these issues at the same time. We keep a lighthearted air, but all candidates carry the general assumption that these are awful individuals committing disgusting crimes. We ask that if you participate, you do so with the requisite seriousness such dark topics require; exclamations of how gross something is, whether serious or sarcastic, are disrespectful to the topics at hand, and if you cannot handle such topics, please do not participate.
And that's everything you need to know. Welcome to the thread!
Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 12th 2024 at 3:13:36 PM
- Maximus is the wicked younger brother of Black Bolt and desires the throne of Atlan from his brother. Maximus is behind unleashing the mutagenic Terrigen Mist on Earth and all the chaos and destruction that the resultant newly created supervilains cause. Maximus does this in order to incite a war between Inhumans and humans by heightening tensions between both sides and to this end also sabotages a peace deal between the Inhuman royal family and Avengers which leaves his brother's fiancée Medusa in a coma. Taking control of the Inhuman armada, Maximus plans to murder his brother before using the armada to wipe out Earth through orbital bombardment. Maximus also tries to force Makoto and Bruno into killing each other by playing on their emotions. Beaten, Maximus plans to unleash Terrigan Mist at the Avengers peace conference and kill the heroes for stopping him.
Wait is Wade not Don's only customer. Meaning he shops this "service" around?
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."I've played Absolution and I'm a tentative no to Dom. The problem I'm having is that his exact bodycount is pretty nebulous. Various women in his employ are aware of what happens in the Hawaii room (with one girl being reassured by three others over having been chosen) which shows a pattern but like you said sex crimes aren't exclusive to Dom and the new trilogy has at least 4 serial killers with much bigger bodycounts and less resources. The rape is unique but I'm not sure it's unique enough.
It’s still a very unique niche: Dom, Wade (who I forgot to include in my previous count because his orphanage massacre overshadowed his other crimes), Lee Hong, Delahunt, D'Alvade and the Sheik from the novel I haven’t read. And you can exclude Delahunt and D'Alvade from that list because we don’t see any of their crimes or victims. So that’s four people among more than hundred of different targets. That’s still pretty rare.
- Hardcore Henry:
- Slick Dimitry is Akan's chief benefactor and in charge of his "guns/cops/real estate" in arming and outfitting the villain's organization. Planning to Take Over the World with Akan, Dimitry helps him lobotomize and transform dozens of men into cybernetic killing machines, only to personally murder the lot of one of their batches when they prove too mindless to be useful. Dimitry throws his men at Henry with no care for their lives, and is fully backing Akan's destructive plans.
- Yuri is the chief of the mercenaries Akan hires, who regularly racks up collateral damage anywhere he goes. Introduced viciously beating Henry and taking enjoyment from it, Yuri dispatches his troops to hunt Henry and kill anyone in their way, leading to various cops and an entire bus of citizens being killed. Later leading a massacre of a brothel, Yuri also uses heavy artillery to try to kill Henry and Jimmy, uncaring of the various civilians who die as well—such as a lovable hippie who had just nursed Henry back to health.
Edited by Ravok on Dec 27th 2023 at 2:18:18 AM
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!Thought I'd like to propose one character now that I remember Bill Sikes being disqualified as CM.
What is the work?
Oliver Twist is the second of Charles Dickens' novels, about the titular orphan who, having escaped to London from a workhouse, encounters a gang of juvenile delinquents under the leadership of elderly criminal, Fagin, discovers the secrets of his parentage, and reconnects with his remaining family.
Who is the candidate and what have they done?
Edward "Monks" Leeford is the criminally inclined half-brother of Oliver Twist who hides his identity until the end of the novel. Born from a loveless marriage and goaded by his own mother to hatred of Oliver, who, unknown to himself, is actually Monk's half-brother. Oliver has no idea of Monks's existence, but Monks knows of Oliver's existence; Monks also knows of the existence of a will left by his father (who despised him) which favours Oliver and not Monks; however, if Oliver ever should commit a criminal act he will be automatically disinherited, whereupon the money would go to Monks. Monks accidentally sees Oliver on the streets of London one day and tracks him to the elderly criminal Fagin's den, setting out to ruin him.
Monks pays Fagin to make Oliver into a criminal, and this is the real reason that Fagin wishes to keep him in his clutches, plus the reason why Oliver ends up unwillingly accompanying Bill Sikes on a house robbery that resulted in Oliver getting shot. No one knows of the bargain that Fagin has made with Monks, until Nancy, a member of the gang who harbors a motherly affection for Oliver, overhears a conversation between the two criminals. After Oliver ends up in the care of Rose Maylie, Monks plots with Fagin to get him back to prevent him from learning about his past. To this end, Monks bribes Mr. Bumble and his new wife, the former Widow Corney, to give him a ring and medallion that had once belonged to Oliver's mother and had been stolen from her after she died, so he could throw them into the Thames so no one will ever be able to prove that Oliver is the son of Agnes and Edwin Leeford, his father.
After Nancy, who harbours a motherly affection for Oliver and guilt for her part in the kidnapping of Oliver, reveals everything about Monks and Fagin's plot to Rose and Mr. Brownlow, Oliver's benefactor, she ends up being viciously murdered by Bill Sikes after Fagin tricks him into believing that she also informed on him. Her murder not only brings down Fagin's gang but enables Brownlow and the police to get their hands on Monks, where he is forced to divulge his secrets. Brownlow agrees to not send Monks to prison and grants Monks half of his inheritance as a way to give a second chance. Monks ends up revoking his second chance by squandering his money after moving to America, where he relapse to crime again and dies in prison.
Any redeeming qualities? Freudian Excuse?
Even though he was born from a loveless marriage, Monks is motivated only by greed and hatred for Oliver and ruins his life out of petty jealousy. Even when he is given half of the inheritance so he can have a second chance, he ends up squandering the money and returns to a life of crime. Plus he lacks even the shred of affection that Bill Sikes has for his bull terrier, Bullseye. He is also completely cowardly, not willing to outwardly be associated with any form of crime, which is not because he is a moral being, but because he fears being caught. So, no redeeming qualities for him.
Are they bad enough?
Because he lacks the shred of affection that Bill had for his dog, shows his cowardice in not wanting to be associated with any crime out of fear of being caught, and tried to completely destroy Oliver's life out of petty jealousy and greed, he's bad enough.
Final verdict?
I think he qualifies, but I leave it all up to you if he qualifies.
This work as a header for HH?
- Hardcore Henry: While Akan and Estelle love each other, Akan's Co-Dragons have no such redeeming qualities:
Also, Psycho for Hire for Yuri; got any potholes for Dimitry (Corrupt Corporate Executive??)?
Edited by ACW on Dec 27th 2023 at 6:10:19 AM
That works, ACW. As for Dimitry, hmm...maybe The Team Benefactor for him.
Will read the above EP soon.
Edited by Ravok on Dec 27th 2023 at 3:38:03 AM
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!So, there's this candidate I have from a pretty well-known series that I think pretty much covers all his bases to qualify as a CM, so I'm going to go ahead and try proposing him and see the result.
What's the work?
- Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba takes place in a setting where monsters known as demons - flesh eating monsters that were once human - roam the night seeking people to kill and eat. They are led by Muzan Kibutsuji, the very first demon who turns people into demons by giving them his blood. Under Muzan's thumb are twelve of the most powerful demons known as the Twelve Kizuki/Demon Moons, who under his orders are tasked with wiping out the Demon Slayer Corps, an organization of swordmen who protect civilians from the demons.
- During the Natagumo Mountain arc, the protagonist Tanjiro Kamado and his two allies Zenitsu and Inosuke are called to the titular mountain to slay the demons there, and encounters a "family" of five demons with spiderlike powers led by Lower Moon 5, Rui. It turns out the family is made of demons that Rui brought in and forcefully made into caricatures of family members to act out his image of what a family is. While Rui himself is a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds and is thus far from this trope, one of his minions lack any such redeeming qualities.
Who is the candidate and what has he done?
- The unnamed "elder brother" spider demon is a creepy demon whose human head is in stark contrast to his body, which is that of a large spider. When Zenitsu is moving through the dark woods alone after initially staying behind, he feels the bite of a spider before fearfully running away at the sight of a spider with a human head, before running into the candidate.
- The brother spider uses demon blood powers to inflict people with people with venom that slowly turns them into mindless Mooks in the form of small spiders with human heads that obey his command, specifically referring to them as his slaves. He sadistically describes this horrific process to Zenitsu, who was poisoned by the afore mentioned spider bite, and it entails the victim becoming dizzy and nauseous before experiencing terrible pain as their body shrinks that causes them to eventually pass out, and he notes that once it's over the victim's "mind will be gone"
- When Zenitsu arrives to his house, we see that he suspends his victims off the ground with webs as they transform, leaving them helpless as they slowly succumb to the poison.
- Finally on a more minor note, the brother is seem in the flashback of the spider mother being abused by the spider father, sadistically laughing at the sight.
Redeeming qualitys or Freudian Excuse?
- With his little screen time, the brother spider does not show any of the redeeming qualities shown by the other members of Rui's family.
- Unlike the mother and sister, who are clearly afraid of what Rui would do to them should they fail or upset him, he is unambiguously enjoying what he does as shown by the Slasher Smile he wears while telling Zenitsu about his eventual fate. He never once says anything about fearing Rui's wraith.
- By the same token, he never says anything that indicates he cares about or is loyal to Rui or the other spider demons, in contrast to the spider father who repeatedly tells Tanjiro and Inosuke to "stay away from [his] family". The most the brother gets in this regard is simply referring to them as "my family" one time in his inner monologue, and the line doesn't remotely indicate care for them.
Is he heinous enough?
- As a lower level demon who merely works under a member of the Twelve Kizuki? Most non-Kizuki demons in the series just kill and eat their victims, but his act of poisoning them and slowly, painfully transforming them into mindless slaves is pretty unique for the series. The only villain I can think to compare this to is upper-moon 5 Gyokko, who turned his victims into living sculptures, putting them into agonizing And I Must Scream states. But Gyokko is, again, an upper level demon with much more power, whereas the spider brother isn't even a member of the kizuki.
- Now in the manga, the most of these spider slaves seen at the same time is five, with an additional five victims seen suspended in the web. In the anime though? He sicks an enormous horde of them on Zenitsu, large enough to cover his entire body. See below in the video at 0:41.
Final Verdict?
- I'll leave it up to you guys.
Monks. What I'm getting from this doesn't seem to be monstrous enough. His deeds and goals target one person (and even then, it's mildly corrupting the person rather than serious harm) and involve allying with criminals to steal and dispose of an object so that no one finds out about Oliver's parentage. He may be unlikable and irredeemable, but I don't think he can be considered seriously monstrous.
Not feeling the older brother spider demon... Rui has a clear cut Freudian Excuse but he's directing the other spider demons and the others are all very much subordinate cogs, even if the older brother doesn't have sympathetic qualities. The anime's a very faithful adaptation and even with a couple dozen victims to himself I'm inclined to compare him to the likes of the snake demon, who goes solo without any teammates or the backing of a Kizuki and makes a habit of running a bandit family to commit mass murder regularly while she pulls kids to eat. The older brother demon just blurs in with too many low level nasties in Muzan's armada and I've gotta say no.
for Monks. Have to agree with WilyGryphon. No murders, no torture, no sexual violence. Nothing about him says Complete Monster.
for the Brother Spider.
Likewise have to lean Nay to the demon there, but good EP and hope you have more planned!
Ok, finally getting to this one, a collab between myself and Scrags. He handled the recurring nasty Mason Eckhart
a few months ago, but we've got a fair few others.
What's the work?
Quoth Scraggle: Mutant X, which was loosely based on the X-Men franchise but for copyright reasons had to create its own cosmology for their superpowered mutants. In this universe, all of the mutants were people who were experimented upon by a corporation known as Genomex: when all of the New Mutants escape, a group of them form a ragtag freedom group called Mutant X bent on clearing the name of the New Mutants and saving them from persecution.
Starting us off, one by Scrags:
What has Lee Marker done?
- The villain of the episode “Where Evil Dwells.” Known as the “Puzzle Killer” for his use of taunting cryptograms, Lee Marker is a serial killer put away for the murders of 30 young women. A kind of psychic Hannibal Lecter, Lee Marker psychologically torments the psionic New Mutant detective who put him away, Andrea, while he's behind bars.
- The trouble is, despite Marker being locked up, murders fitting his modus operandi keep being committed anyway. Andrea has been psychically interrogating Marker for days on end in an attempt to figure out what's going on and where the next body will drop; every time she psychically connects with Marker, Marker is only too gleeful to make the process a Mind Rape for her. And it turns out these constant psychic interrogations are what he wants…
- See, using this psychic connection, Marker has turned Andrea into his own proxy killer. Marker psychically corrupts her to commit murders while he's imprisoned; Andrea blocks out every single kill until around the third new murder, where she finally figures out Marker’s game. Andrea goes into Marker’s cell and kills him…
- …only for this to also be exactly what Marker wants. Marker manages to take over Andrea’s mind and body, leaving Andrea helpless and aware. Intending to start his rampage anew in Andrea’s body, Marker tries to kill Andrea’s New Mutant friend, but Andrea ultimately throws herself to her death to take Marker down with her.
- Nothing.
Heinous standard?
- Marker is easily one of the worst one-shots in the show’s history. There are other New Mutant serial killers in the series, like the Life Drinker from season 1 who killed about half-a-dozen people, but none of them come close to Marker’s scale and cruelty. He's responsible for the death of dozens of women, and what he does to Andrea—the sadistic mind games, the possession, forcing her to kill herself just to put him down—is a prolonged Kick the Dog that few other villains in the show ever match, period. He may not have the absolute highest body count in the show period, but they generally have a lot more resources on their hands. For a lone wolf serial killer (and particularly one who spends 85% of the episode behind bars) Marker is easily punching above his weight class.

Abstain on Eden. The bomb could push him over but that depends on wether or not he knew that it could go off in the shelter and how many people were inside.
Ok about the argument that Wade is worse than Dom I disagree. Dom provides Wade with the girls he can rape. Without him the rapes wouldn’t have happen or at least Wade himself would have to actually go look for victims instead of having easy access to disposable women. And Wade isn’t the only customer of Dom. Not to mention that Dom is the one who set up the Hawaii shows where woman are raped and murdered. That makes him the ring leader of a group of serial rapists. Now Wade killed a lot more people in the orphanage but murder and rape are two different types of crimes. It’s like saying the guy who raped five women can’t be a CM because someone else killed twenty people. That’s not how it works.