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
Lies and Violence!
Yes to Imhotep.
- The True Amazon: Herakles, fabled son of Zeus, is depicted as a vicious brute devoid of his redeeming qualities in traditional myth. Approached to conquer the Amazons so as to deter women from following their ways, Herakles became obsessed with the idea of taking Queen Hippolyta as his prisoner and claiming her Golden Girdle, challenging her to a duel and murdering her companion Aella when she meets him in single combat in her place. Herakles' armies proceed to wage bloody war on the Amazons, with the mighty son of Zeus intent on strapping them all in chains for his men to do with as they please.
Goku Black
Should we make a wonder woman page
We've got one from pre crisis doctor cyber, post crisis doctor psycho , doctor poison II, Cheetah III and Dalkriig-Hath. And the four elseworld entries. Plus this And I know your doing a version of ares.
"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
Harbinger of Cringe
Alrighty, I finished up Frisk and Chara's writeups, here they are.
- HalaCG's Undertale Song "Genocide":
- Frisk, undergoing some significant adaptational villainy, was once a pacifistic individual who chose to throw away their morals in exchange for relentless bloodshed. Resetting the world after accomplishing the best ending possible, Frisk goes on a rampage, slaughtering every monster in sight and not letting a single one go unnoticed, with their actions eventually causing the First Fallen Human, Chara to awaken and assist them in their massacre. After agreeing to Chara's deal to [[Bloodlust "make them all bleed"]], Frisk willingly chooses to throw away all of their happy memories in order to wipe the underground clean, proving themselves to be no better than the demon they awakened.
- Chara is exempt of any of their morally ambiguous traits in exchange for a bloodthirsty, wrathful sadist looking to make the world burn for sadistic thrills. Having been awakened through Frisk's thirst for power, Chara gleefully assists them in wiping out the Underground, killing every monster they come across all the while coercing Frisk into forgetting their past so that they can [[Bloodlust "make them all bleed"]]. In the end, Chara accomplishes this goal, kills Frisk for disagreeing with them, and destroys the world, just as they planned it.
@TheMadCr0w We get an explicit line from Tekkadan in episode 13 about how Kudal is worse than the Starter Villain. Tekkadan may have had surgeries forced upon them and been kicked around, but they weren't starved and made to endure constant, severe abuse like the human debris under Kudal.
Just imagine something here.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I ask again: Is the genocidal Frisk bad enough compared to the OMNICIDAL Chara?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Bye
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Imhotep
Switching to no Morgan
Harbinger of Cringe
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
For me, I think the thing that pushes is them is the fact that they had been the one to start the genocide route in the first place with Chara coming in later on. Not to mention Frisk's actions were also the thing that awakened Chara from death, so they are partly the reason Chara is able to accomplish what they did. Not to mention Chara mentions how they wanted to destroy the world earlier in the song, yet Frisk chose to keep going, increasing their power despite knowing the consequences. Only backing out at the last second for reasons I explained weren't preventing. So considering all of that. I think Frisk just has the edge to pass the standards, even if they aren't necessarily omnicidal like Chara is.
Edited by Splonk on Aug 23rd 2023 at 1:43:55 AM
My mere presence makes everyone's day worse.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Hmm, fair enough.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Lies and Violence!
Tad busy at the moment, but dropping this off as well. I'll try to get to Ares soon if we want a page.
What's the work?
Superman: Space Age explores the lives of alternate versions of Superman and Batman as they fight crime with the Justice League in the 60's, all while the events of Crisis on Infinite Earths slowly edge closer and closer to annihilate existence.
The Anti-Monitor is indicated to be the same character as in canon, while an alliance of Brainiacs that have decimated universe after universe are depicted as Well Intentioned Extremists hoping to gather resources to stop the Anti-Matter wave. So who do we have to discuss?
Who is Lex Luthor?
The archetypical Corrupt Corporate Executive as usual. As the Cold War rages on, Lex and Bruce are bidding for a military defense contract to defend the U.S. from Soviet aggression. Bruce proposes the use of specialized suits, armored cars, Bat-themed equipment, etc. Lex? He sees a nuclear war as an inevitably, and proposes a way for America to survive the carnage through a series of interconnected underground shelters. Bribing one general, he even gets his hands on two hydrogen bombs for "testing" purposes, telling the military officers at the Coast City naval base that he intends to test out his prototype bomb shelter in a faraway atoll.
Eh... Lex does have a bomb shelter ready. But it's not in an atoll. And he is setting off a hydrogen bomb. But not on the atoll, and not on his shelter. He instead blows up the entirety of Coast City, intending to frame the attack as the first strike of the Soviets. As the war escalates and humanity is annihilated in nuclear armageddon, Lex intends to wait everything out with his employees underground, rebuilding society in the aftermath "the way it always should have been." Tellingly, when he's monologuing about this, we get a glimpse of the rest of the massive bomb shelter, where his soldiers are emblazoned with giant "L"s on their shirts, and a giant framed image of Lex is hung at the top of the facility. One of his employees protests this monstrous act of narcissism, so Lex "generously" gives him a $1 million severance check—though snarks that he should "spend it quickly."
Fortunately, Superman is able to intercept America's retaliatory attacks, preventing World War III. Lex, undeterred, prepares to set off his second hydrogen bomb on Metropolis—sending up a hapless intern to set off the bomb and get killed in the explosion—but Batman intervenes to sabotage the plot and bring him to justice. Lex is imprisoned for the murder of 2 million people...
And manages to bullshit his way out of jail around 2 decades later. In that time:
- Bruce briefly lost control of Wayne Enterprises to Maxwell Lord, who began trying to gentrify Gotham through copious amounts of arson in lower-class neighborhoods.
- Superman has created a cure-all pill that can cure any ailment or disease, and has set up clinics around the world to distribute this treatment for free.
Lex, in all this, sees an opportunity for a monopoly on... well, everything. Pharmaceutical businesses have been facing serious troubles from Superman's activities, so Lex begins quietly buying them all up. Bruce refuses to sell Wayne Enterprises after wresting control back from Maxwell Lord, so Lex provides funding and information to the Joker—a poor entertainer whose daughter was killed in one of Lord's arson attacks—to help him get revenge on Wayne Enterprises. The Joker is able to kidnap 7 children of Bruce's employees—including that of Lucius Fox, who the Joker forces to become a suicide bomber—and their conflict eventually gets both the clown and Bruce himself killed.
With the Bat dead, Lexcorp buys Wayne enterprises and becomes the biggest corporation in the world. As he celebrates, Lex gloats about how he intends to get Superman's clinics declared illegal, returning people's business to the pharmaceutical companies he now owns. The entire world will depend on him for survival.
...And then Crisis on Infinite Earths hits. Superman, having gotten DNA samples of everyone who visited his clinics, is able to save genetic copies of almost everyone on Earth and fling them into a pocket universe he knows will be spared the Anti-Monitor's wrath. Given his dialogue, it's safe to say Lex never bothered getting sampled. The new world will be safe from his greed.
Mitigating factors?
Narcissistic bastard who tries to destroy humanity in nuclear war. Though he says he intends to "save" humanity (at least the part he cares about), it's blatant that he just wants to reforge to society to something that sees him as an absolute ruler. And things like the severance check... do I really need to explain why that's not redeeming? He's about to blow everything up and make that money worthless.
Heinous enough?
Not at the planetary/multiversal level of destruction that the Brainiacs or the Anti-Monitor are on, but it's nuclear war. We're good here.
Goku Black
Lex Luther.
Ah right I heard abit thus. Isn't Brainiac a well intentioned extremist in this series. Are you doing him on mb?
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Lies and Violence!
There's an entire multiversal council of Brainiacs with no clear leader, and while they all act as The Dividual, I'm personally not comfortable doing those.
Edited by EmeraldEmperor on Aug 23rd 2023 at 5:19:58 AM
Yes to Lex, and I considered doing an EP for Brainiac as an MB but decided not to since I'm not sure if the Brainiacs are the same as from the 'main' universes, who have quite a lot of atrocities on their hands. (The main one we follow that tries to persuade Superman could count but I'm not sure about that either.)
Edited by lalalei2001 on Aug 23rd 2023 at 5:27:30 AM
The Protomen enhanced my life.
Lex (weird as hell that he's a CM while Brainiac ius a WIE here)
Not the Eye
to Lex Luthor
Ultimate Moral Compass
Luthor
Gentle Laborer
Lex
@Reddish Saying the Human Debris of the CGS were "treated better" than the ones under the Brewers simply because the CGS fed their slaves doesn't help with Kudal's case at all. The world of IBO has an entire industry revolving around the use of disposable Child Soldiers—kids are abused, tortured and killed on a constant basis, starving the Human Debris really doesn't make him stand out from the countless warmongers and slavers that exist in this Crapsack World.
Edited by TheMadCr0w on Aug 23rd 2023 at 6:39:00 AM
Yes to Lex.
So, briefly to discuss...I've got some folks to do, but...Baldur's Gate 3 has a lot of potentials. The thing is? The Greater-Scope Villain trio of the game is none other than the Dead Three themselves, which is another positive to their rap sheet. Myrkul and Bhaal have returned from the dead and are as evil as ever. Bane shares in the crime.
Anyways, redeeming qualities aside? Bane's pragmatism and measured approach to spreading evil puts him well below Myrkul (who turned the afterlife into a vile torture-fest) and Bhaal (a serial rapist whose dogma includes mass murder) for heinousness. But I can give Myrkul and Bhaal's writeups an added note for this. As far as the greater gods go, Myrkul, Cyric, and Shar remain the complete monsters of the pantheon (Bhaal was an intermediate power)
Lies and Violence!
Sounds good to me.
And to round out the Trinity's arch-enemies!
What's the work?
The Legend of Wonder Woman (2016) was a digital comic that retold Wonder Woman's origin, from growing up on Themyscira to fighting in WW2.
For some context: long ago, the Greek Pantheon battled with a Titan who came from the stars—a Manhunter, a titanic protector of the universe corrupted into sadistic evil. The battle severely weakened the Gods, who decided to preserve themselves by taking all their power and magical creatures to Themyscira. The Amazons were tasked with protecting this island, providing worship to ensure the Gods could survive.
Of course, unbeknownst to the Amazons, life persevered outside the island. And as time went on, their wars and petty hatreds manifested into a malevolent black smoke, which spread to Themyscira and began poisoning the land: crops and animals died, the magical creatures turned vicious. It was a massive upheaval of their normally peaceful ways... much to the delight of one.
Who is Ares?
The God of War despised being confined with the other gods to the peaceful land of Themyscira. So when the black smoke began to corrupt the island, Ares saw opportunity to restore his power, escape the gods' self-imposed prison, and overthrow Zeus. Working with Hades, Ares planned to resurrect the Manhunter in order for it to wipe out all life, powering its heart with the death and cruelty of the current war. Said heart was in possession of the Amazons; Ares orchestrates for an American pilot, Steve Trevor, to crash on their island, then has his high priestess blame him for the corrupting smoke. The subsequent murder of such a pure hearted, innocent person would give enough power to the heart for it to destroy Themyscira's magical defenses, ensuring the island will not be spared the Manhunter's devastation.
Zeus, naturally, opposes this plan—though for more selfish reasons, I'll get to that below—but a fight between the Gods in their weakened states would only lead to mutual destruction. Therefore, they agreed to settle their conflict by acting through champions. Zeus chose Diana, who saves Steve's life and ends up stranded in the outside world when she tries to bring him home. Ares chooses a man named Tomas Byde, whose brother was recently injured in a Nazi bombing; Ares intercepts the letter informing him of this news and twists it, telling Tomas that his brother was dead and that the Allies were responsible. Having somehow gotten his hands on the Manhunter's heart, Ares gives it to Tomas to turn him into the supervillain known as the Duke of Deception.
Ares charges the Duke with powering the heart through carnage. Given command of an army of spirits who can possess the dead, the Duke has them slaughter thousands on the battlefield in aid to the Axis, while inflicting survivors with illusions that cause them to turn on each other. Anyone who does live through one of his battles generally only does so for a few days after, at which point they succumb to their many wounds.
On the eve of the war's end, Ares has the Duke finish fueling the heart with the mass sacrifice of hundreds of innocents. Diana is able to show the Duke how he was tricked, and the Duke is able to fight off Ares' commands to bring the heart to the Manhunter, but the dark magic of the heart compels the villainess Cheetah to restore it to the Titan and begin the end of the world. Diana punches it until it's dead and the Duke begins searching for his former master in revenge, though he remains unaware he's trapped in Themyscira, stranding himself on Mars as he grieves for all he has done.
Heinous enough?
Tries to destroy all life on the planet, empowers the Duke to kill thousands. Easily the worst in the comic.
As for other villains?
- Zeus opposes Ares awakening the Manhunter, but only because that means the God of War would be able to rule over what remains. The actual "killing everything" part he has no issue with, and even encourages Diana to awaken the Manhunter herself so he can win their "game" and mold the aftermath into a global society of worship. That said, he's not very active in this plot; he asks Diana to do it, then gets mad when she doesn't, and... that's about it. Ares is similarly trapped, but he also has the Duke's mass murders and tries to ensure Themyscira is destroyed with the rest of the world.
- The Manhunter is from a species of Titans who have been turned to destroying entire planets, but they're cosmic Titans fueled by primordial darkness. A trapped, weakened god who has to work through intermediaries isn't on the same tier as them. And while the Manhunter is said to relish in the worlds it's destroyed, its race is also said to have been "devoured" by a living darkness, so I don't feel comfortable saying they have full agency.
- Hades is helping Ares, but he never shows up/has dialogue, so...
Mitigating factors?
Nope, just an asshole who wants war and power. Even the idea that he would abide by the outcome of his "game" with Zeus is tempered by the fact that the Gods are currently so weak that they physically can't do anything about an outcome they dislike without champions to enforce their will; if the Duke is defeated, relenting is the only option he'll have left.
Ares
Not the Eye
Goku Black
ares.
It's interesting to finally get a version of H in to keep from an elseworlds (he loves his family in the prime earth)
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
RIP Toriyama
Bumpity
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Edited by EmperorGeode on Aug 23rd 2023 at 1:12:22 AM