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
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
for Pell & Bailey. Lots of nasty people in the story but they managed to stand out.
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
for Athalie due to a last minute redeeming quality via the flashback.
for Craig. A fitting end for a guy like him, who’s basically a bully with a god complex.
for Knognor
for Hector. Let me get this straight: This is a facebook puzzle game that’s about a guy who attempted to cause a global pandemic AND a world war? Okay then... I guess the next season involved an alien attack or time traveling Nazis. 
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Actually it has Neo Humans and universe destroying demons. And time travelling Pharaohs.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to Craig; Khognor; Hector.
Does Arsenio do anything of note besides founding SOMBRA?
Edited by ACW on Aug 5th 2023 at 5:27:31 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
...Phenomenal
for Craig, Khognor, and HECTOR! HECTOR!
for Athalie.
Bye
Craig, Knognor, Hector
Athalie
Yes to Pell & Bailey, Craig, Knognor, and Hector.
No to Athalie
Anyway, I got a villain from an unexplored part of the DC Multiverse worth discussing, the Flashpoint universe. Barry Allen goes back in time and saves his mom from being murdered by the villainous Professor Zoom. He succeeds, but he changes the timeline in the process: Barry Allen loses his powers and is not the Flash, Wonder Woman and Aquaman are villains who are fighting each other and have destroyed most of Western Europe in the process, Batman is Thomas Wayne, not Bruce Wayne, Superman has been a government lab rat since he was a baby, Cyborg is the main superhero of this universe etc. There were a fair amount of mini-series that expanded the world of Flashpoint, one of them is Flashpoint Legion of Doom and its main villain is the subject of this post:
Who is Heatwave? What has he done?
Heatwave is a psychopathic pyromaniac and since the Flash doesn't exist, Heatwave is now a Cyborg villain. Heatwave confronts Jason Rusch and Ronnie Raymond the duo that makes up Firestorm and he sets Jason on fire, burning him alive. Heatwave demands Ronnie Raymond merge with him, so he can have the power of Firestorm and if he refuses, Heatwave will set him on fire. Cyborg saves Ronnie and attacks Heatwave. Heatwave sets a subway train on fire and attempts to escape. Cyborg puts out the fire and attacks Heatwave again. Heatwave is badly burned during the battle and Cyborg manages to catch him. Heatwave is sent to Queen's Row Prison for his crimes and is facing the death penalty. Queen's Row Prison is nicknamed Doom Prison and is actually a flying fortress (that will be important later).
Heatwave is getting into fights in prison and his solution is usually to sets anyone who decides to fight him on fire. Anyway, Heatwave now has a massive grudge against Cyborg and his ally Plastic Man, breaks into Doom Prison to help Heatwave bust out. Now having someone to protect him, Heatwave starts more fights and sets Mr. Zsasz on fire. Heatwave starts leading a massive prison break, but he is opposed by Atomic Skull and his gang. Atomic Skull actually works for the prison administration and gets perks because of it. Atomic Skull turns off the power-dampening collar for Animal Man and has him attack Heatwave. Heatwave and Animal Man get into a brutal fight, where Heatwave eventually just bites off Animal Man's nose and then literally curbs stomps him.
Heatwave is attacked by an Amazo robot who acts like a guard in the prison. Plastic Man manages to get into the robot and reveals that a shrunken Atom is piloting the Amazo robot. Heatwave violently pops off Atom's head. Heatwave gets his gear back and leads the other tech-based villains in a revolt. Heatwave burns several guards and gets to the control room of the prison. Heatwave reveals that he plans to get revenge on Cyborg by crashing Doom prison into Detriot, Cyborg's hometown.
Plastic Man opposes the mass murder of civilians, so Heatwave sets him on fire, seemingly killing him. Cyborg realizes that Doom prison is about to crash in the city and begins to hack into the prison's computer system. Heatwave has the Thinker try to counter Cyborg and threatens to burn him if he fails. Unable to hack into its computer system, Cyborg uses his sonic cannon to drive Doom prison into the Detroit River. Cyborg's power is drained and Heatwave decides killing Cyborg in this weakened state is not sporting, so instead he will force Cyborg to watch as he burns down Detriot himself. Cyborg calls Heatwave a coward and that is enough to get Heatwave to attack him. Cyborg manages to defeat Heatwave and he is sent back to prison. However, Plastic Man survived and visits Heatwave in prison, planning to express his displeasure with Heatwave.
Is he heinous by the standard of the work?
So Flashpoint is a dark world, Aquaman and Wonder Woman have destroyed Western Europe, Grodd conquered Africa, and Martha Wayne became the Joker after her son died and started killing people.
But Heatwave is a goon with a flamethrower, while Aquaman and Wonder Wonder run their own empires and he attempted to destroy a major city.
Any Freudian Excuse or other redeeming qualities?
Nah, all the redeeming qualities prime timeline Heatwave has are not here, he is not friends with the Flash Rogues in this universe. Prime Heatwave accidentally killed his family by setting a fire in his house as a child and getting entranced by it, while Flashpoint Heatwave states he purposefully set his own mother on fire. Heatwave is just a pyromaniac thug in this universe.
Final Verdict?
I say keep him.
Edited by Overlord on Aug 5th 2023 at 7:26:31 AM
Not the Eye
to Flashpoint!Heatwave
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
to Peter Craig, Khognor, Hector Montoya and Heatwave.
Goku Black
Umh I dunno. Isn't this a pretty horrific Crapsack World. Like compared to grodd and wonder woman and Aquaman who've wiped out whole continents. Uh....
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Yeah, but Grodd, Wonder Woman and Aquaman run empires, Heatwave is just a goon with a flamethrower. There is a huge resource difference.
North America is relatively stable, even if there is a giant war in Europe between Aquaman and Wonder Woman, it's not like everything is absolutely terrible in this world.
Edited by Overlord on Aug 5th 2023 at 7:39:18 AM
Goku Black
Uh I'll give a slight Heatwave
Are you doing Grodd. I know the other two have redeeming qualities.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
I can certainly look into Grodd.
Krognor, Hector, Heatwave
Mr.
To Hector and Heatwave.
Bye
Heatwave
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I guess Flashpoint would go between Post-Crisis and New 52?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
That makes sense.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Pending (plus Atlantis's The Bill candidate):
- The Last Legion: Wulfila (Lighty)
- Street Smart (1987): Fast Black (Lighty)
- Fear Lords (Lighty):
- U.S. Marshals: John Royce (Ravok)
- Bunraku: Number Two (Scraggle)
- Dragon Quest V: Nimzo (Tadi)
To Heatwave
Can shapeshift (probably)
to Flashpoint.
I was thinking of doing some bookkeeping on Lum from I Was a Teenage Exocolonist since I need to revisit the game, but he's not really that inactive as the second Governor for that much of it and I remember his level of threatening/shifting around the Council. I already completed a write-up though so this is kind of just a reminder to myself since I'm going to edit this post accordingly in a couple hours.
Edit: Going to submit by 5:30ish PM. Forgot to clarify it'd be a completely different post.
Edited by Coachpill on Aug 5th 2023 at 2:17:52 PM
Silver and gold, silver and gold
Heatwave
Yes to Heatwave and Hector.
On the latter: ordering attacks makes the villain responsible for them. I don't understand the Ryuk comparison... we do have the film version who ensures the use of the Death Note and has a history of seeing it be used to bloody results; the original manga version isn't a relevant comparison, he pointedly drops it in the human world for shits and giggles and sits back while Light does his thing, even making a point of not aiding the more sadistic Villain Protagonist.
The Merry Monarch of Darkness
Peter Craig, Knognor, Flashpoint Heatwave. Unsure on Hector, sounds like he has at least some degree of respect for his mentor.
So you may have noticed I've been fairly quiet here these past few weeks, just popping in occasionally to vote. This is partly because I've been pursuing other hobbies, but also because I've been gearing up for my next sizable project, which with have two effort posts each for CM and MB. I give you Xenosaga.
What's the work?
The Disney Acid Sequence of JRPGs, Xenosaga is a trilogy for the PS2 that's well known for having so much technobabble and Judeo-Christian symbolism that Evangelion would go green with envy! It's the far future and humanity has long since evacuated Earth after an unknown calamity, so long ago now that no records of even its location have survived. Nevertheless humans have thrived as a galactic-scale power thanks to inventing numerous fantastic technologies such as the Unus Mundus Network or UMN, an energy field that allows faster-than-light travel and communication; and Realians, essentially biological robots that are regarded with fear and prejudice by many baseline humans. Nevertheless there are problems to be had, for sure, namely the Gnosis, a Horde of Alien Locusts that destroy entire planets, and the squabbles of various powerful factions over the Zohar supercomputers that power the UMN
Our heroine is Shion Uzuki, a young robotics prodigy working for the MegaCorp Vector Research & Development. She's gorgeous and brilliant, but a bit on the absent-minded side, and hides a whole lot of past trauma behind a bubbly exterior. She is the investor of KOS-MOS, the advanced combat robot designed to be the secret weapon against the Gnosis, but whom she loves like a daughter and hopes others will one day see as more than a weapon. After the ship transporting them is scuttled in a Gnosis attack, the two ladies find themselves pulled into a game of galactic one-upmanship by numerous powerful players. Let's meet the leader of one of these factions...
Who is Patriarch Sergius? What has he done?
Sergius the 17th, Patriarch of Ormus, a space-going religious faith all but expressly stated to be a far-future successor to modern Catholicism. So, yes, he's the Space Pope. As you might imagine he's a very widely respected figure and much of his holy authority derives from being the controller of the Immigrant Fleet, said to be the very fleet of spaceships used to evacuate Earth over 5000 years ago. This being a JRPG, being sainted public figure of course means he's evil.
Sergius' true face is the head of the religious terrorist organization U-TIC, which is in general The Heavy of the Xenosaga... err, saga. He of course officially disavows any knowledge of them, but in reality controls them through his three Co-Dragons: Colonel Margulis, the point-man who directly supervises U-TIC's missions (and has a number of henchmen himself, most notably the deranged mercenary Albedo Piazzola); Sister Orgulla, Sergius' own bodyguard; and the mysterious Cardinal Heinlein, who "runs the books" through a shell corporation to fund U-TIC's dirty deeds, and whom Sergius believes to be plotting against him. Sergius' goal is to obtain the original Zohar, which he once owned, from planet Miltia, which is easier said than done because fifteen years earlier the entire planet was supposedly dumped down a black hole by Mad Scientist Joachim Mizrahi. However, he's learned that Dr. Mizrahi programmed a way to get past the black hole into the brain of his Realian "daughter" MOMO, so the hunt is on for the MacGuffin Girl!
Sergius is the unseen Greater-Scope Villain of the first game, but through U-TIC he authorizes a whole bunch of awful things, including serious abuses of MOMO and other Realians, and the near-destruction of a populated space going city after U-TIC intentionally summons a Gnosis swarm to it. In the second game he comes into the story in full, and thanks to a complicated gambit by the mercenary Albedo, claims the data inside MOMO to open the way to Miltia. There he heads (discarding Orgulla to stall for time in the process), pursued by the Player Character party, where they find the original Zohar in the chamber right where Sergius left it - and, oh yeah, to increase its power, he's had two innocent little Realian girls, Cecily and Cathe, wired up to it, and they've been there in constant agony ever since. With a heavy heart the heroes Mercy Kill the girls, only for Sergius to arrive and steal the Zohar, using it to covert the entire planet into an enormous robot, the Omega System. He reveals his intentions, namely, since it was due to Ormus that humanity became an interstellar power to begin with, that naturally gives him the right to be the galaxy's absolute ruler, and anyone who doesn't like it is eating giant death robot laser!
...and that's when the walls start coming down. You didn't really think this was just a bog-standard "conquer the galaxy" plot, did you? Turns out Sergius was completely correct about Cardinal Heinlein betraying him, and he's subverted Margulis and many other key Ormus members with promises of a greater destiny. Abandoned by his associates, Sergius fights the party as the Final Boss of the second game and loses, and then as if his day couldn't get any worse, he's ambushed by the Testaments, the mysterious masked enforcers of Vector R&D's CEO Wilhelm, who steal the Zohar, and the robot, and offhandedly blow the wounded Sergius to smithereens.
Probably not how this Pope saw his holy martyrdom going.
Mitigating issues?
Nothing, he's just greedy and power-hungry.
Heinous standard?
For the most part Sergius is a pretty typical JRPG conquer-the-world villain. He doesn't get his hands dirty often, mostly acting through U-TIC; he is ultimately responsible for their crimes but it's typically not made clear how much he directly ordered. And as the last paragraph up there indicates he's ultimately a glorified courier service to our actual Big Bad, Wilhelm, and trust me, you'll be hearing a lot more about that guy in the MB thread in the near future.
All that said? He does have some monstrously cruel personal touches, including the literal Powered by a Forsaken Child thing with the Zohar, and his hilariously petty motives - he thinks he deserves to control the entire galaxy under penalty of giant robot death because of what his millennia-ago predecessors did.
Verdict?
Leaning yes but not 100% sure.
The pig of Hufflepuff pulsed like a large bullfrog. Dumbledore smiled at it, and placed his hand on its head: "You are Hagrid now."
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I'll give a yes.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts