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.
- 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 Twiddler on Jan 17th 2024 at 5:42:49 AM
Marcus Black from The Black Hearts was removed due to being proposed by a ban evader.
Who is Marcus Black?
Marcus Black was a soldier who chose the job for his love of killing. When injured he meet a nurse and married her, the two having a son, protagonist Mercury Black.
The marriage is unpleasant with Marcus being abusive to his wife and son, frequently getting drunk.
What does he do?
Mercury is an assassin for hire. He forces his son into the trade, putting him through brutal training and forcing him to kill people.
He forces Mercury into a kill mission and Mercury notices the man has a child with him. Marcus demands Mercury to kill her, who complies.
Marcus brings home a woman he is hired to kill, being promised extra money if she suffers. Melanie demands Marcus to eat dinner, threatening to kill the woman to deny Marcus his bonus. What happens after dinner is never showed, but implied to be brutal.
Mercury brings home a boyfriend Cobalt and his mom is mad. She tells Marcus to kill Cobalt but Marcus refuses telling her to kill Colbalt herself.
Mercury then recounts the death of Cobalt's mother ordered by his father, bringing up how much she screamed. Enraged Cobalt goes home and kills his dad and is sent to jail.
Marcus and his wife go their separate ways and Marcus continues his brutal training. Eventually a feed up Mercury tells Marcus how much he hates him. After a brutal fight Mercury kills Marcus and ends up getting recruited by Cinder who was searching for Marcus.
Heinous standard?
As a brutal lone wolf he meets the grade. He is killed 120 people with a few of them onscreen. He always has years of domestic abuse under his belt. Melanie is cruel but mostly verbally. Cinder becames abusive herself but has a Freudian excuse. Salem doesn't really do much. Kincaid has an entire crime organization.
Edited by randomtroper89 on Mar 29th 2024 at 11:07:41 AM
RIP Toriyama
We'll also have this as an image potential:
The wifi here sucks
Yes to Marcus.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
It really doesn't matter. Ravok has a much better picture. However, I have the perfect caption to use with it, namely a certain saying from Adam from Edgerunners.
"I'll slaughter each and every one of you. You're all the same meat to me."
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Lies and Violence!
Aye to Jekelius, Hojo, Sanctus, Enide, and Marcus. Didn’t see Library’s post above, nay to Russ.
We all know Johann Schmidt, aka the Red Skull. Nemesis of Captain America, Nazi, just the worst. However, would you be surprised to know that Schmidt wasn’t the first to bear the title?
Who is George Maxon?
Appearing in the first and third issues of the original Captain America comics, Maxon is an American industrialist who has secretly become a Nazi spy on the promise of being made Minister of American Industries should he deliver the country to the Reich. As a saboteur, Maxon sabotages planes that his company sells to the U.S. military, killing several pilots. His main claim to fame, however, is his “look of death” (actually just a hypodermic needle of poison he disguises as a fatal, hypnotic stare) that he uses to assassinate various military officials. After sending his minions to rob the first national bank (threatening to kill them if they fail), the Skull gets into a fight with Cap and Bucky, ending in Maxon rolling over his own poison needles.
Unfortunately, that’s not enough to kill him. The Skull returns in issue #3, and it's quite clearly Maxon—we see him get up from the murder scene that closed issue #1 after playing dead, remarking that it was foolish of the heroes to think he couldn't survive his own poison and leave his "corpse" unattended. He steals plans for a drill superweapon from the military, constructing it and unleashing terror upon New York; thousands are explicitly killed as he tears through skyscrapers and attempts to flatten a crowded stadium. As much of a petty bastard as the real Skull, Maxon also tries to exact revenge upon Cap and Bucky by capturing and hanging them–actually just two gangsters who were impersonating the heroes. When the real deals arrive, the Skull flees back to the drill, intent on carving his way through the whole nation before Cap throws a bomb that presumably kills him.
Tales of Suspense #65-66 reveals the truth behind this Skull, how he was really just an imposter given his mask by Schmidt himself… though this is where continuity gets weird. In a retelling of Maxon’s first appearance, the industrialist is renamed John Maxon; the fake Skull is now a German-born agent who killed and impersonated Maxon; his attacks on military officials are just basic assaults, not assassinations; and he escapes instead of faking his death with the poison needles. Imma chalk this up to Depending on the Writer and ignore it. Even if we do want to take it into consideration, the retelling doesn’t depict the drill story, where the fake is at his worst anyway.
There’s also a later retcon that many WW 2 era comics were In-Universe propaganda, but I’m not going to bother sorting through what that might mean for this character–it’s possible to say the John Maxon retcon takes precedent, and the In-Universe comic merely ascribed stuff like the drill to him since they didn’t know the real Skull’s identity, but that’s Fridge Logic with nothing substantial backing it up. And even then, the John Maxon retelling keeps stuff like Cap's secret identity that was also retconned as part of the propaganda stuff. Early Marvel canon is all over the place, don’t think too hard about it.
Another fake Skull pops up in 1947, set between Schmidt cryogenically freezing himself and Albert Malik’s debut as the communist Red Skull. This version’s identity is unclear, but some official handbooks apparently speculate that it’s supposed to be Maxon. The connection isn’t solid enough that I would include these events in a write-up, but just to be thorough: the Skull breaks three death row inmates out of prison, threatening to fry the prison warden in the electric chair to do so, and leads them on a crime wave. After failing to fry Cap and Bucky alive, the Skull falls off a dam to his presumed doom.
Another Skull–presumably the same one from above, though his identity is once again not specified–returns from beyond the grave to drag Cap down to Hell with him, dueling his old nemesis before getting knocked into the fiery pits.
Mitigating factors?
Nope, just as much of a Nazi scumbag as the real Skull with no loyalty to even the Reich, monologuing over how he’ll use the drill to make even the Fuhrer fear him. He does spare the wife of one of his victims, but only after hitting her and snarling that “[his] death is only for important people”.
Heinous enough?
For a two issue villain? Kills thousands with his war drill, on top of the usual Nazi saboteur crimes.
Edited by EmeraldEmperor on Mar 30th 2024 at 9:43:50 AM
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
- Poppy Playtime AU: Remnant:
- Harley Sawyer was the friend of Elliot Ludwig, and a scientist at of Playtime Co. who’s responsible for the events of the story. Harley saw Elliot’s adopted daughter, Poppy, as a distraction from his work and after her death, Harley transformed Elliot into the monstrous Prototype and began the Bigger Bodies Initiative to turn human kids into Toys, Harley is responsible for several innocent children, as well as Elliot’s adult daughter, being tortured into toys. One of these kids, Robert, was even adopted by Harley, being fed human meat and abused daily before he’s turned into Boxy Boo.
- Eric Wilson is a sociopathic scientist working for Playtime Co. who ends up worst than his original version. Allying with Harley Sawyer and working at the Bigger Bodies Initiative, Eric personally picks out and tortures children into becoming monstrous toys, showing a particular cruelty to them. When Marie Payne discovers her friend Daisy dead, Eric chases her and taunts her over her broken legs before he proceeds to drug and torture her into becoming Mommy Long Legs.
Sure to Reddish Skull.
Jogo
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Marcos and George Maxon
Gentle Laborer
Marcus and George
With Libraryseraph's info, switching to ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
on Leman. Nice effort-post, tho!
Edited by TheMadCr0w on Mar 30th 2024 at 5:12:07 AM
A Child from the Stars
for Marcus and George.
Almost forgot to post:
- What If Anakin Skywalker Never Killed Count Dooku In Revenge Of The Sith (link): Chancellor Palpatine poses himself as the benevolent leader of the Galactic Republic, but in secret is actually the Sith Lord, Darth Sidious, who orchestrated the events behind the Clone Wars. After Dooku exposes him to the Jedi Council, Sidious flees from Coruscant and has the clones execute Order 66 as a distraction. After years of planning his revenge, Sidious along with Maul and a group of bounty hunters come into the Jedi Temple and begin killing the Jedi as they sleep, including the younglings. When Palpatine notices Padme in the temple, the Sith Lord electrocutes her before Anakin's own eyes, finally breaking the Jedi.
Goku Black
maxon
Edited by miraculous on Mar 30th 2024 at 2:12:18 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Sure to Marcus and George.
For the first image, delete everything after the file type.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
RIP Toriyama
Yes to Maxon!
What's the work?
Twist 2021 is a bluntly awful adaptation of the classic Dickens' novel Oliver Twist, "updated" to a modern setting of graffiti and parkour. We follow teenage delinquent "Twist" as he stumbles into a gang of art thieves led by Fagin (Michael Caine, apparently needing to build another house), and his new life in their group. And much like most adaptations of Oliver Twist, we've got our villain, albeit a far more easy on the eyes take than most lmao
Who is Sikes? What has she done?
- Played by Lena Headey, Sikes here is reimagined as a leather-jacketed, trigger-happy street thug who is Fagin's chief supplier for information and targets for art theft. Sikes has a creepy abusive relationship with Red—the film's version of Nancy—the teenage girl known as Sikes's "property" and subject to threats and forceful kissing by the much-older woman on a regular basis.
- The film opens with one of Fagin's teenaged thieves being pushed off a building to his death by a mysterious party, later revealed to be Sikes, having killed the kid to steal what he stole. Sikes comes to Fagin with the biggest target yet for the group to steal a valuable painting, and works with the gang through the film in setting things up.
- As the painting is stolen and the climax nears, though, Sikes reveals she's got no intentions of sharing the loot. She seems to succeed in murdering another of Fagin's kids (who luckily survives) just to whittle down their ranks, and when she learns that Red and Twist are growing close, Sikes abuses Red until she's bloody and bruised, and threatens to kill her if Twist doesn't hand over the stolen painting at a meet-up.
- When Twist seemingly brings the painting, Sikes tries to go back on her word and kill him anyway; when Fagin intervenes and tries to talk Sikes down, Sikes shoots him. She then pursues Twist and Red and tries to kill Twist, continuing to violently and verbally abuse Red in the process, but a surviving-Red shoots Sikes and she falls off a building to her death.
Mitigating features?
None, she's an Ax-Crazy nutbar who only sees Red as a possession, and while she has a dog like most takes on the character, she shows no affection for it as anything but a threatening attack dog.
Heinousness?
She's only barely scraping by but I think she does manage it. She murders a teen in the opening; keeps the teenaged Red as her abused lover and, later, hostage; and tries to kill the rest of Fagin's gang (comprised of 3 more teens) as well as Fagin himself. It's ultimate 1 murder, 5 more attempted, and being a violet abuser, but the fact all of her victims except Fagin are teenagers (including said abuse victim) makes me think she's got juuust enough.
Final Verdict?
Think she's a weak yes
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Jogo
to this version of Sikes, who's a unique take on the original character to say the least.
Not the Eye
Marcus, Maxon and Sikes
- What If Darth Sidious SECRETLY Cloned Anakin Skywalker (link): Palpatine, also known as Darth Sidious, has vision of Anakin’s body being severely damaged and orders him cloned as a back-up plan in case he doesn’t prove powerful enough to be of use to him. He fills Mount Tantiss with clones of Anakin, having Jedi who survive the Purge captured and used to help cultivating working Force-sensitive clones. To keep the clones secret from Vader, Palpatine has him help to enslave species across the galaxy. Years after the formation of the Empire, he has one clone face Vader on Thyferra, torturing and gaslighting him after he wins. He has three working clones brought to Exegol, where he prepares the Imperial fleet in case he need to establiish dominion of the galaxy by brute force, and trains the clones in lightsaber combat until he has them fight to the death. After Vader loses a battle with Obi Wan Kenobi, Palpatine sends a clone who survived the battle on Exegol to face Vader, before killing him personally. Palpatine continues with cloning, planning to create an army of clones with the same strength in the Force as Anakin in order to drain them all and become the Force god. He sends clone Anakin to destroy the Rebels and kill Luke and Obi Wan, before spending years preparing for a ritual to drain clones. When clone Anakin fulfills his mission, Palpatine summons him to Exegol to be the first clone to be drained for his ritual.
Messenger from another dimension.
Yes to Marcus, Maxon, and Sikes.
Don't know if that is an appropriate question here, but why was Vecna cut?? Did something new came up or what?? Like he was one of most heinous villains ever! Did we overlook something? Can i get a link to a discussion?
Welcome to the world of greatest media!
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
check here
Marcus, Maxon and Sikes
Bejesus, the sound of freedom issue blew up overnight
Edited by LarryT on Mar 30th 2024 at 4:22:13 AM
In honor of Akira Toriyama
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Eh, sure to Sikes. Looks like Lena finally got a CM to replace Ma-Ma.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Yes to Sikes. It's mostly the grooming and abuse of her teenage lover that makes her stand out to me.
Marcus, Maxon, and Sikes (2nd version after the Disney one, BTW)
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Okay
Edited by randomtroper89 on Mar 30th 2024 at 8:10:59 AM
Showtime!
There's a three day mandatory discussion period between voting and writeups now
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?
Sorry to drop this and immediately sign off for the night but I took a look at that wh40k fic and it reads like a treatment or outline for something much longer, and the fleshed out parts aren't the parts that deal with Leman's characterization. It reads like more of a summary in this state than anything
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?