During the investigation of recent hollers in the Complete Monster thread, it's become apparent to the staff that an insular, unfriendly culture has evolved in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads that is causing problems.
Specific issues include:
- Overzealous hollers on tropers who come into the threads without being familiar with all the rules and traditions of the tropes. And when they are familiar with said rules and traditions, they get accused (with little evidence) of being ban evaders.
- A few tropers in the thread habitually engage in snotty, impolite mini-modding. There are also regular complaints about excessive, offtopic "socializing" posts.
- Many many thread regulars barely post/edit anywhere else, making the threads look like they are divorced from the rest of TV Tropes.
- Following that, there are often complaints about the threads and their regulars violating wiki rules, such as on indexing, crosswicking, example context and example categorization. Some folks are working on resolving the issues, but...
- Often moderator action against thread regulars leads to a lot of participants suddenly showing up in the moderation threads to protest and speak on their behalf, like a clique.
It is not a super high level problem, but it has been going on for years and we cannot ignore it any longer. There will be a thread in Wiki Talk
to discuss the problem; in the meantime there is a moratorium on further Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard example discussion until we have gotten this sorted out.
Update: The new threads have been made and can be found here:
Please see the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List before suggesting any new entries for this trope.
IMPORTANT: To avoid a holler to the mods, please see here for the earliest date a work can be discussed, (usually two weeks from the US release), as well as who's reserved discussion.
When voting, you must specify the candidate(s). No blanket votes (i.e. "
to everyone I missed").
No plagiarism: It's fair to source things, but an effortpost must be your own work and not lifted wholesale from another source.
We don't care what other sites think about a character being a Complete Monster. We judge this trope by our own criteria. Repeatedly attempting to bring up other sites will earn a suspension.
What is the Work
Here you briefly describe the work in question and explain any important setting details. Don't assume that everyone is familiar with the work in question.
Who is the Candidate and What have they Done?
This will be the main portion of the Effort Post. Here you list all of the crimes committed by the candidate. For candidates with longer rap sheets, keep the list to their most important and heinous crimes, we don't need to hear about every time they decide to do something minor or petty.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Here you discuss any potential redeeming or sympathetic features the character has, the character's Freudian Excuse if they have one, as well as any other potential mitigating factors like Offscreen Villainy or questions of moral agency. Try to present these as objectively as possible by presenting any evidence that may support or refute the mitigating factors.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Here you compare the actions of the Candidate to other character actions in the story in order to determine if they stand out or not. Remember that all characters, not just other villains, contribute to the Heinousness Standard
Final Verdict?
Simply state whether or not you think the character counts or not.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:14:10 AM
@Miraculous And to think I thought only Wolf Spider counted from that show. Curious to see an EP of this Morbius guy as well as Bullman's EP of Zola cause I haven't seen this show ever since I did the Wolf Spider EP. It wasn't a bad show, but definitely not the best Spider man adaptation.
Also, leaning yes on Goblin… for now.
I can get him up tomorrow.
I don't think anyone else counts but those those two.
The only other two villains who clear standard (other then you know the ones already proposed ) is normal Osborn /Goblin (who as I said has genuine moral agency issues and a Heel–Face Turn) and doc ock (really sad and pitiful ).
Edited by miraculous on Nov 28th 2021 at 1:36:55 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."Alright, one more Marvel from me for today! The series of origin is Star Masters, a team-up between Beta Ray Bill, the Silver Surfer and Quasar, the very last of which finds himself framed for a horrible massacre. The architect of said massacre is our candidate today.
What has Lord Votan done?
Lord of the Axi-Tun race, Votan is a genocidal Galactic Conqueror who fashions himself as "the Purifier"—that any race not of the Axi-Tun deserves to be wiped out. From the onset, Votan is a hypocrite; he's genetically modified the shit out of his so-called "pure" body in order to give him a Compelling Voice strong enough to mind-control the Axi-Tun and turn the entire race into his fascistic cult of personality.
Votan wants to wipe out every other race in the galaxy, and he's accomplished a lot of genocide in working toward that. The comic begins with a planet known as Arcturus IV being destroyed when one of Votan's generals lobs a gigantic meteorite at it; that general sneers it's the seventh such planet he's destroyed in a row. Others are rounded up to the last and dumped into a gigantic pool of vile liquid known as the "Cauldron of Conversion," to be horrifically absorbed. The remainder of the Korbinite race (Beta Ray Bill's species) is subject to this, dumped en masse and screaming into the Cauldron until Votan's general hits his quota, at which point they flush the remaining Korbinites out of the airlock. Votan demands that anyone who fails him blow not only themselves up, but their starships and their entire crews as well.
Votan is the architect of the massacre I described earlier; a peaceful coalition of ten-thousand worlds named the Charter has three million of their members massacred by Votan's men so he can frame Earth for the carnage. All of Earth is nearly destroyed in the ensuing reprisal, exactly according to Votan's plan, until Beta Ray Bill and the Silver Surfer show up.
Votan's next and most horrifying scheme is to use the result of the many, many races he's fed to the Cauldron; a "hybrid plague" that can infect any race. Votan tests it out on a planet, on another race known as the M'ndavians. Within hours, every single M'ndavian on the planet is dying agonizingly, throwing up their own organs as the plague rips its way through the planet. Votan schemes to use this hybrid plague upon every other planet in the galaxy, spreading it through an exceptionally awful means; loading up the dead bodies of the Charter envoys he's murdered with the plague, so that when their respective races receive the funeral caskets, the plague will be spread from the caskets themselves.
When his hated brother Landar exposes Votan as a traitor, Votan throws his entire planet into a brief but bloody civil war in an attempt to regain control, snatching up the minds of those who resist him and using them to massacre those who he can't control. Votan is even too proud to acknowledge he's about to have his entire planet destroyed by the ensuing reprisals from the many, many races he's harmed in some way, and he's ultimately deposed by Beta Ray Bill, who turns him over to what remains of the Charter to be judged by the bereaved of his countless victims.
Any mitigating factors?
Again...can I be laconic here? For five issues, Votan wracks up a body count of serial genocide, each depicted in varied and horrifying ways. The dude subjects entire planets to Cruel and Unusual Death and by the end he's willing to drag his entire species, including his brother, into oblivion if he can't mentally enslave them into obedience. No, not a goddamned thing. Even for a foe competing with people as powerful as Beta Ray Bill and Silver Surfer, who are as strong as Marvel's heroes get, Votan is well bad enough to distinguish himself as one of their worst.
Conclusion?
Keeper.
Edited by Scraggle on Nov 28th 2021 at 2:44:27 AM
Cube Warden's weird 'cause he's a Young Avengers and Runaways foe in the same run. I'd just put him under Civil War: Runaways & Young Avengers since all but his death are in that series.
Votan should just be under Star Masters. The final two issues were published under an ongoing called Cosmic Powers Unlimited, but it was still the same series.
Votan
Final Morrison Doom Patrol candidate (for now), and I want to thank Scrags for informing me about this one. Another baddie who would be adapted to the 2019 show... kinda.
Who Are They?
The Archons of Nürnheim, from Issues #31-33, are a duo of ancient, sentient puppets who run the Cult of the Unwritten Book, seeking to unmake all of reality and destroy the entire universe.
What have they done?
Harboring an anger towards humanity after they were discarded by their owners for being broken and worn out, the two toys seek nothing more than vengeance against all of mankind, having become nihilists who want to turn all life in the universe into literally nothing. The hatred festering in them allowed them to gain powers of their own, especially once they resided in the abandoned ghost town of Nürnheim (which is located inside a snow globe).
Creating the Cult to worship the Unmaker, the Archons desire a special boy, one who was born with the markings on his body needed to summon the Unmaker in existence, having waited over 2,000 years for this day to come. Once the boy was of age, the Archons killed his parents, entrusting the boy to some of their own occultists, only to kill them too.
The Archons also perform deadly experiments on people to create monster slaves out of them, like the Mystery Kites, made from keeping the souls of murder victims imprisoned inside bodies made from their own torn off skin. These monsters are sent to find the boy, destroying a majority of Barcelona in the process as they search for him.
The Unmaker is later summoned once the Archons acquire the boy, and starts undoing most of reality. The Archons are destroyed when Nürnheim disappears into nothingness after Crazy Jane is able to create a counter-vibration interference pattern by using a massive cathedral as basically a giant tuning fork. And as for the Unmaker? Well, all Jane and the rest of the Patrol do is make him undo reality very, very, very slowly.
All in a day’s work for the Doom Patrol.
Redeeming Qualities?
None. While their backstory might make them sympathetic, the two puppets are shown to ultimately be nihilists driven by hate, willing to undo all of reality itself because of said hatred, while showing no remorse for anyone else. The ones who threw them away have long since been dead, so their plan ultimately affects billions who aren't even aware of their existence.
They don’t really display any affection for each other as well, with the male puppet constantly whacking the female puppet on the head until she bleeds repeatedly.
Heinousness?
Their plan to unmake the entire universe out of petty vengeance helps set them out from other villains. The fact that they’re just a bunch of magic puppets who come close to wiping out trillions of lives pushes them even further, as despite their appearances, they're portrayed as very serious threats.
Conclusion
I think they're a keep.
Edited by therealjackieboy on Nov 28th 2021 at 2:09:13 AM
It's Spooky Month!Since there seems to be a bit of a "wave" of minor Marvel and DC villains going around these days, I'm proud to present a double dose of one of my favorite Western comic writers, Peter Milligan. Here is the first, from DC and Vertigo:
What's the work?
Shade, the Changing Man is one of the iconic classic Vertigo titles, and like a lot of the early ones it's set in the main DCU and features a seldom-used character reimagined through a surrealist Dark Fantasy lens, to great success. Rac Shade is an agent who has come to Earth from the alternate dimension of Meta, equipped with a magical vest that lets him transform himself and other things. His goal is to root out The Madness, an energy field of pure insanity that has been leaking into our world; it latches on to disturbed individuals and grants them bizarre abilities based on their distorted views of the world (Milligan beat Persona to this premise; can you believe it?). The initial main antagonist is the American Scream, a sort of Madness avatar of all the US's negative qualities, but after he's dealt with about a quarter of the way in it becomes a purely arc-based story. In one of these, Shade and his two girlfriends Kathy and Lenny are mysteriously willed ownership of a bizarre hotel that, conveniently enough for their mission, seems to attract people with Madness powers, and while most of them are benign victims of circumstance, others are, well... this guy.
Who is Brian Juno? What has he done?
Brian Juno grew up fascinating by the legends of the great martyrs, who it is said became "closer to God" due to experiencing extreme pain, such as St. Sebastian, who was skewered, St. Bartholomew, whose skin was ripped off, and so forth. He got it into his head that, if agony was a valid path to enlightenment, surely inflicting it could get you there just as much as experiencing it, and he thus decided to become a great torturer and succeeded with aplomb. As a result of his extremely warped mind, the Madness granted him a Hell of a win on the Superpower Lottery - the ability to create a pocket dimension, the Garden of Pain, a sort of reverse Eden made out of torture implements, and formidable magical powers that increase the more he mutilates his victims there. He's eventually able to pull angels down in the Garden and torture them, too, and that's where our story begins...
Shade is given a job by some fellow angelic colleagues of Brian's victims to take him down, and initially seems reluctant until he finds out Brian has kidnapped Kathy after she ran into him in the hotel's hall lugging a bag with a dead body in it. He straps her down and forces her to watch him skin an old man alive, her mental agony compounding his physical. He brings Shade and the girls into the Garden of Pain to watch him complete a ritual to generate enough pain to ascend him to straight-up godhood, and though our heroes try everything they can to disrupt the ceremony, the Garden's defenses are too powerful and they're forced to retreat back to the "real" world, seemingly giving Brian the victory... only for, a few seconds later, the pocket dimension to amusingly spit him back out too, now completely powerless. Shade nonchalantly blows him to gibs, and the angels stop by to congratulate him; their efforts to ruin the ritual did actually work, and though Brian's plan would've been a wash anyway - the human body can only take so much divine mojo before it blows up - he still would-be been a god long enough to kill half the population of Earth, so, good job!
Heinous standard?
For a complete nobody plugged into extrademensional magic by pure chance, Brian is a consummate sadist who comes damn close to achieving godhood. Since most antagonists aren't outright malevolent in Shade his only real competition is the Scream, and while he nearly pulls all of America into a Negative Space Wedgie, Brian planned to wipe out half the planet essentially just to prove he could, with far less resources, and the even the Scream never makes it personal - by contrast, Brian describes such lovely things as force-feeding a victim his own disembowled organs before finishing him off.
Mitigating factors?
Nothing in the way of loved ones of excuses, and his backstory indicates he was messed up long before the Madness invasion, too. My only hesitation is that he might be too straight-up nuts; much of the arc is actually narrated by him, and the narration is basically non-stop godhood delusions and paranoid ranting. It's probably one of those calls that's up the the individual, but I thought I should mention it.
Verdict?
Unless he's too legitimately unwell in the head I see no reason why not.

A yes to yet another Himmler.