Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Looks good.

edited 19th Mar '18 9:32:21 PM by therealjackieboy

Hosse and Marcus

Absolute to Ifter and as a Cold Case fan myself, I'm cool with Patterson being cut, he never struck me as bad as the others listed in tge form of Smith (Serial Killer with a case of Hope Crusher ), Frelly (pedophile who gets his victims through his job as a social services worker) Larkin (Brutal Serial Rapist ),Leland (Neo Nazi Evil Matriach ) and Mulvaney ( Killer Cop and a Domestic Abuser)

edited 19th Mar '18 9:56:29 PM by miraculous

So, been a while. PHD program's been keeping me busy and I haven't really been watching anything new. However, my fiancee and I are working our way through a Criminal Minds rewatch and I've got a cut to suggest.

I'll note I'm the one who did the rewrite for this character in the first place. This was back in 2012, when we were just trying to get the disaster that was the subpage to look remotely presentable. There was no real debate about the character, and no effort post, just an agreement he seemed bad enough. As anyone who was there at the time can attest "just seeming bad enough" was high praise considering what the rest of the page looked like (we had people with a single kill to their name listed, for instance). I rewrote his entry to be presentable and we moved on.

Anyway, here we go.

Who is Karl "The Fox" Arnold? What has he done?

Karl Arnold, aka "The Fox," is a family annihilator who first appeared in Season 1, Episode 7, "The Fox." A family psychiatrist with obsessive compulsive disorder and both Domestic Abuser and Control Freak tendencies, Arnold snapped after his wife and children left him. He began taking families, usually ones that resembled his own (two parents, two kids of opposite genders) hostage, forcing them to play house with him for a few days, with himself in the role of the father. Then he took the kids and the mother down to the basement in succession and knifed them to death, before shooting the father in the temple to make it look like a murder-suicide. He killed two families that we're told about and was attempting a third when he was arrested. Among his belongings they find eight wedding rings from father's he's murdered (he keeps them as trophies).

He reappeared in Season 5's "Outfoxed" when, in the obligatory Hannibal Lecter ripoff, they decide to interview him in order to find out more information on a new family annihilator. The episode retcons Arnold into being a rapist and torturer as well as a serial killer; it's revealed he raped the female children, and beat the male ones before killing them. There was no evidence of this in the previous episode, and it did not feature in their profile of him; more on that later. The episode confirms that two more of the eight wedding rings belonged to fathers of whole families. We also find out he did correspond with the new family annihilator, and that he's been in contact with George "The Boston Reaper" Foyet, Arc Villain of Seasons 4 and 5. Arnold's time on the show ends there, aside from a few sporadic mentions whenever family annihilators show up.

Are his actions heinous by the standards of the show?

In Season 1 when Arnold first showed up, I can see why someone wanted to vote him up. He wasn't the worst villain that season but he was a standout. Twelve seasons later? Not so much. Now we've previously kept villains like Frank Massuci who were standouts on their shows before heinous standards changed, but the problem is that Massuci was the worst villain on L&O for a decade, while The Fox was topped pretty quickly.

To elaborate: The Fox has, at most, 32 kills, 4 attempted kills, and 8 rapes. It may be quite a few lower than that—the show makes a point of the fact that family annihilators usually target single victims first, before escalating. 5 of the 8 rings are representative of entire families he attacked, but we cannot confirm that the other 3 are representative of 4 people apiece. Moreover, we do not know the size of the two unnamed families; they could be single parent households with one child.

Even if we grant The Fox 32 dead though, he's still not a standout. Jack Cally from that same season was attempting to start a race war that could have left hundreds dead. Charles Holcombe, from Season 2's "Legacy" killed 64 people. Frank Breitkopf of Season 2's "No Way Out" two-parter killed 171 people before his episode even began, and tried for 177 by the time he killed himself. The Boston Reaper massacred 36 people, and made the psychological torment of Hotch into an art form. Mason and Lucas Turner used 89 people for human experimentation, then killed them. Season 5's Billy "The Prince of Darkness" Flynn was responsible for over 200 attacks on couples, partners, and families, and killed upwards of 400 people—and in a manner not dissimilar from The Fox, save that he raped all members of the household, regardless of gender and age (and always left a survivor to remember the horror). Lucy, from Season 6's "Supply & Demand" ran a human trafficking ring responsible for 63 deaths that we know of, and even more rape and torture. The list goes on.

Beyond sheer bodycount, there's nothing uniquely horrifying about the manner of The Fox's murders; his only claim to fame is being the show's first family annihilator. Numerous other family annihilators have appeared on the show, most with bodycounts of 10 or more, and with a variety of rape and torture fetishes. We've also had some killers with truly extreme methods of torturing their victims—see Cy Bradstone's love of sulfuric acid for an obvious one. When you get down to it, even the show itself is aware that Karl Arnold has been left behind by the heinous standard—the Season 5 retcon about him being a rapist is a transparent ploy to make him bad enough that he can be a believable penpal for the Boston Reaper.

Any redeeming qualities?

In the first season Arnold was played as having a genuine belief that he was demonstrating to society what happened when fathers weren't strong and families are dysfunctional. That's not much of a redeeming feature, but this is a show based around serial rape and murder, so every little bit helps.

This is erased in Season 5, where's he's played entirely as a calculating sadist who did it because he likes it.

Freudian Excuse or other mitigating factors?

Season 1 presents The Fox as an obsessive-compulsive so thoroughly in the throes of his mania that he gives himself away by having a Freak Out about how they've arranged the pictures of his crime scenes wrong. Again, that may not be much of a mitigating factor, but he's at least portrayed as having a compulsive disorder, which is more than the likes of Holcombe or Lucy can say.

This is again, gone in Season 5, where they just try to present him as a psychopath.

Final verdict?

The Fox was trumped in heinousness by the end of the very season he appeared in, and has only fallen further behind since. He doesn't have the torture pedigree of a Cy Bradstone, and his list of rapes and kills is vastly inferior to that of numerous major antagonists in Seasons 1 through 6, let alone since then. He's remembered for his status as the show's first family annihilator, but he wasn't anything unique, and he likely should not be on the list.

Thoughts?

It has been my oft-expressed opinion that once you start having to talk about a character's crimes in terms of statistics, the heinousness standard is so fucked up as to be almost impossible to surpass. I would have no objection to cutting here.

edited 19th Mar '18 11:45:33 PM by nrjxll

Yeaaa......Given the high heinous standard and all. Cut Karl Arnold

I'm fine with cutting Karl (at the very least it seems he was out-heinoused by Flynn).

And then of course you have my own Hayman Vasher, who killed 150+ and tried to kill another 300+; and Mitchell Crossford, who tried to kill over 1000.

Scraggle: Holy shit, that was a Throw It In!? Huh.

HT: Drafts please.

Marcus. Seems like that WIE stuff on the work page is BS.

edited 20th Mar '18 2:04:27 AM by ACW

It seems that Ifter wouldn't pass. However if you replace him with Heradius would he pass?

Fox

How much is herdaius and how much is Ifter in this situation. Is it made clear whoose in control and the dominat personality ?

Also If were approving Marcus than somone should burn that WIE crap on the trope page.

Also sure Fox. Im more of a casual Criminal M Inds fan myself but even me looking over the page shows issues with him counting considering he doesnt even have an iterseting MO to make him standout.

edited 20th Mar '18 2:17:45 AM by miraculous

Cut the Criminal Minds and Cold Case baddies

NVMD. private PM ill ask him first whther I can bring it up here.

BTW ill remove the part about Marcus being a WIE

edited 20th Mar '18 3:57:48 AM by miraculous

Octavius. Cut the Fox.

BTW, according to the CM wiki, Fox "only" has 17+ killed and 5 attempted.

Marcus. That film's actually pretty hype and made a fun meme. I feel like we might have said Marcus should be looked at before, but put it on the backburner - or perhaps it's the Mandela Effect at play upon me. But yeah, another I regret not Effort Posting before. I don't really know why I didn't since he's way past heinous enough and his mitigating qualities are interesting but ultimately a joke.

@Scraggle and Irreversible - Jesus, that's horrible. One thing that often troubles me is the thought of what I would do when confronted with a horrible crime. Would I step in? Would I run away? Would I call for help? I... I don't know. I've fortunately never been in such a horrible situation.

So I was meaning to ask is there any reason that Yogoshimacritein from Engine Sentai Go Onger doesn't qualify. I was talking to Polar Phantom who said he was cut.

I did a search and the closest mention of him is here : https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=6vic3f9h1cy5qivsenw8llok&page=350#8749

Cut Karl "The Fox" Arnold. At this point, it's gonna be difficult to vote on anyone from Criminal Minds unless they're some kind of Omnicidal Maniac.

Okay, so after some time, bobg and I are ready to begin our RoboCop collab after sifting through the comics. Right now I'll be covering the 2010 continuity called Revolution, which takes place after the first film and was published by Dynamite Entertainment. Two things I need to get out the way though.

First off? I do not wanna hear anyone going "Oh my god! This series has eight or more CMs now! It needs its own page now! Oh my god! OH MY GOD! AW MAH GAWD NEW CM SUBPAGE!"

Please. At the very least, let bobg and I get out candidates out and voted upon, and then we can talk about subpages afterwards.

Second, as far as I know? Every single comic has its own continuity. Most of them take place after the first film, but other than that? They have no relation with each other. One continuity has Anne Lewis dying; two involve a Terminator crossover; one comic even reveals that Lewis had a sister. This kinda makes sense, given the sheer amount of different writers and various companies that were greenlit to make their own RoboCop story.

Anyway, enough about all that. Here's our villain.

Who Is She?

Edwina Odenkirk is the new chief executive of OCP.

What Has She Done?

Edwina is first seen giving a speech during a news broadcast, explaining how stocks for the company are falling and that the CEO has become gravely ill. Shortly after this broadcast, some ED-209s are deployed in the streets to stop a group of carjackers; said robots nearly kill Alex Murphy and Anne Lewis. While they're complaining about the ED-209s, Edwina shows up at the Detroit Police Department with her private army of mercs. She more or less tells everyone that they're fired (except for Murphy) and that the ED-209s will replace them. She gives them all ten minutes to comply, which they do.

Edwina spends her time hyping up how Old Detroit will be "safe" again on news broadcast, even as an ED-209s riddles an innocent man with bullets. She later threatens to shut Murphy down unless he agrees to work alongside the ED-209s. Seeing no other option, he does. While the ED-209s mercilessly murder rioters led by Mason Vogler, Edwina continues to manipulate the media to her advantage. After Vogler is arrested by Murphy, Edwina stops the prison van he was in and "frees" him, with a fleet of ED-209s pointed right at him. When Vogler refuses to play her game, she decides to release him, and gives him the location of a warehouse full of weapons, since she "needs someone to save the city from." As Vogler and his men cause more chaos in the streets, Edwina has her new weapons deployed: the ED-309s, which are more or less the ED-209s if they overdosed on steroids. Edwina keeps manipulating broadcasts, making sure they film the ED-309s dealing with Vogler's men and acting indifferent when one of the weapons destroys a media chopper. Even after Vogler dies, Edwina tells her scientists to command the ED-309s to gun down the remaining looters. Just as the police show up to stop the ED-309s, they suddenly shut down (for reasons I won't get into).

When one of the ED-309s is damaged and goes berserk, Edwina is indifferent about the situation, until she realizes that she'll be losing hundreds of millions of dollars if she doesn't gain control of it. As the rogue ED-309 continues its rampage, slaughtering many innocents and even destroying a military base, Edwina is informed that the rogue weapon plans on going to war with Canada (both Edwina and I were baffled when we heard this said out loud). Not wanting to lose money simply destroying the rogue machine, she considers taking over Canada with it. She calls the Prime Minister and informs him of the situation. Thinking hastily, she sells five ED-309s to Canada in exchange for a billion dollars, and they all destroy the rogue ED-309. A perfect demonstration for the international market, and another means for Edwina to make money.

Cut to the Road Trip comic, which takes place after Revolution, and Edwina is still selling the ED-309s. She also has the CEO use a new RoboCop prototype to hunt down the real RoboCop, although this fails. Eager to put her new "toys" to work, she decides to use Murphy the same way she used Vogler: turning him into a scapegoat to justify the use of OCP's weapons. Murphy is branded a terrorist on TV, and the media attempts to turn the public against Murphy and the police officers helping him. After this happens, she orders her scientists to send some of OCP's new weapons, giant robotic hounds, to chase after Murphy and his allies. While this is happening, her love interest, Underling, murders Wagner as well as the CEO of OCP, all for the sake of Edwina's love.

Edwina is understandably irritated at this, and decides to call a shareholder's meeting to try and fix Underling's mess. During the meeting, the shareholders try to fire Edwina, disgusted by her actions. Edwina retaliates by forcing them to sign over all of their OCP shares to her, as well as signing a letter claiming that they're responsible for the current state that America is in. When one of the shareholders refuses, she threatens to kill everyone with the ED-209s. They sign the contracts. And then Edwina has all the shareholders jump out the windows of the skyscraper they're holding the meeting in.

Aaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd that's it. The series ends with Edwina Odenkirk the new CEO of OCP, now in complete control.

Whoo-hoo.

I'm so fucking tired of running into well-made comic books that are Left Hanging.

Freudian Excuse?

Edwina claims she wants to clean up crime in Old Detroit. This is a sack of crap. All Edwina cares about is showing off her precious weapons to the world so that the world will see how "resourceful" OCP is, and so she can sell her weapons and earn billions of dollars.

Pass.

Mitigating Factors?

None. She gains a "love interest" in the Road Trip comic, but her relationship with Underling is completely sexual, nothing else. And when Underling professes his love to her, she's simply disgusted that she ever let a man like Underling have sex with her, and annoyed at the fact that she has to clean up the mess he made.

Pass.

Heinous Standard Issues?

So obviously, the heinous standard for this entire franchise is ridiculously high. Each comic I've read, and the movies, make it very clear that Old Detroit is a Wretched Hive and criminals are rampant all throughout the city. That being said, not everyone seems to reach the level of villains like Dick Jones or Boddicker or McDaggett. Seems like your everyday criminals will be responsible for a couple murders, maybe some shootouts and rapes. Even Mason Vogler, the man who started the riots, did so because he and dozens of other citizens couldn't get jobs, and therefore couldn't buy food, and therefore the food shops began closing down due to lack of business. So he and the rioters started stealing food from truck shipments.

Then you got people like Edwina, who's basically an Expy of Dick Jones, if not worse. She's a big-time villain who has loads of resources and mercenaries and deadly weapons at her disposal. And she goes well out of her way to do the worst she can just to show everyone that OCP is in charge, staging a coup and murdering all of the shareholders the minute they try to fire her. Anytime the ED-209s or ED-309s go outta control and murder innocent people, she doesn't care. All she does is manipulate any situation to her advantage, even if it means allowing hundreds of innocents to die. On top of that, in the Road Trip comic, she mentions that she sold some of the ED-309s to foreign countries, which more than likely ensures that more chaos will occur on a global scale.

Final Verdict?

Solid keeper.

Edwina.

to Edwina

@Tyk Out of curiosity, how many potential C Ms other than Edwina herself you and Bob will cover? And yeah, Have to say that Criminal Minds heinous standard is almost like GTA but with a lot of qualifiers unless if there is someone like Avon Hertz.....Yea, that would be something.

edited 20th Mar '18 5:49:08 AM by ElfenLiedFan90

At least three or four more. I have one or two more candidates, while bobg said he's got around two.

Edwina.

Edwinia

Holy shit, Criminal Minds must have a pretty damn high heinous standard. From the sound of it, cut The Fox

Yes to Edwina.

Oh yeah. Criminal Minds is a unique crime show in that it doesnt have bad guys so much as it has Supervillains.

Alright Super Sentai image pcikin is now open hence please come to this thread to help with voting. Rember your help is always appreciated. Link to thread in question https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1521305029020585700&page=1#3

edited 20th Mar '18 7:12:31 AM by miraculous

You have no idea. This dude fails the heinous standard. Hell, Floyd "only" killed 13, but counts because of his manipulation and force-feeding his victims to other people.

edited 20th Mar '18 7:11:21 AM by ACW

Could we not discuss Vargas? Guy's a horrible transphobic stereotype and I'm glad we're not giving him any more publicity.

edited 20th Mar '18 8:03:45 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar