Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

We voted him down already on that exact charge.

Yes to all the candidates I missed.

I read yet another Marvel novel from the 2000s and this one is interesting, its pretty grim. Its called Wolverine: Lifeblood and instead of featuring a traditional X-Men villain, features another appearance of everyone's favorite Nazi super villain:

Who is the candidate?

In this story Red Skull....actually its someone who does not show up as much, the villainous Baron Wolfgang von Strucker.

What does he do?

In this story, Baron Strucker is member of the Red Skull (nice reference) SS special projects unit, tasked by Himmler himself to create super humans for the Reich. Strucker creates a crack SS team, made up of the most fit members of the German army and given a cocktail of drugs and herbs that enhance their abilities, but quickly lead to burn out.

Strucker shows off his team, by taking several Russian P.O.Ws and giving them better weapons and a fortified position over his troops and his troops still easily kill the Russians. However Himmler is not impressed by this demonstration. He wanted true super humans, not just enhanced soldiers. To his end, Strucker begins combing the Nazi concentration camps for mutants that he can use in his mission. Strucker finds several mutants, but most of them are not useful (Strucker states he has dissected the ones he finds particularly useless) and also states he has removed embryos from camp inmates to experiment on and then sends the inmates to the crematorium.

Strucker's luck changes when a SS division manages to capture a pre Wolverine Logan in Italy. They declare him a partisan and send him a concentration camp in Poland. Logan is slowly driving the staff the camp mad, with him surviving their various attempts to kill him for defying him. Strucker arrives, releases the drunken half mad commandant of the camp (who was slashing Wolverine with broken wine bottles for hours on end) of his duties. Strucker puts the commandant's assistant in charge of the camp and begins to work on Wolverine. He has Wolverine nailed to a table and begins to dissect him, removing part of his femur, to get at his white blood cells which he believes will make him immortal. However a inmate uprising leads to Wolverine escaping and Strucker fleeing. When Strucker finds out the new commandant was writing a report to try to blame this situation on him, Strucker shoots him dead.

Strucker is able to get enough of Wolverine's blood to make a formula that will keep him young for decades. When Germany is on the brink of losing of the war, Strucker uses his Nazi super soldiers to help him escape Europe, not caring that they burn out and die in the process.

Strucker escapes to the Middle East and ends up joining with a group of jihadist terrorists called the Green Fist, creating new super soldiers for them and staying young due to his formula. Strucker has not changed much, he shows off his new terrorist super soldiers to a client from Yemen, having them kill British and American prisoners they capture and as usual, he gives the other side an advantage, like the British or American prisoners get a knife, but the terrorist has to use his fists, but the new cocktail of drugs and herbs he gives his new troops still makes this unfair fight.

Anyway in this story Wolverine has lost his memory again and is being manipulated by the Weapon X project in modern times. Strucker manages to capture Wolverine again and uses his lack of memory to try to manipulate him. Strucker takes blood samples from Wolverine in order to mass produce his immortality formula and sell it the rich and powerful, as well as make himself permanently immortal (he needed to take the old formula every month to stay young). Strucker tests his new formula on a janitor in his desert base, giving him a healing factor. Satisfied Strucker orders the janitor to be buried alive and for the spot to be marked so Strucker can see if he survives within a couple of weeks.

Anyway Strucker wants to use Wolverine as part of a mission he is doing for his Yemeni client, to assassinate the President of the United States who is visiting a field hospital in Iraq. Strucker's terrorist manage to kill all the guards in a post that would not accept their bribes and they make their way to their Iraqi HQ. There Strucker tries to trick Wolverine into taking a drug that will completely erase his memory to make him a better tool, but Wolverine is no fool, he sees through Strucker, makes the Yemeni terrorists take the drugs instead, leaving him a blank slate. Wolverine ties up Strucker and goes to the hospital to save the President and kill the terrorists. Wolverine returns and threatens Strucker a pretty violent death if he does not help him get his memories back. Strucker begs for his worthless life and gives Wolverine a drug that completely restores his memory, Wolverine decides not to kill Strucker, but will leave him tied up, so the Americans can capture him.

Is he heinous by the standards of the story?

I am judging this story on its own, because I do not think there is much continuity in the 2000s era novels, because this story does not jive with other X-Men stories in these novels and Keith De Candido, a writer for one of these novels, said as much.

That being said, despite there being some cruel Nazis and terrorists in this novel, Strucker is the most proactive villain in the story, with the biggest body count of any character and most of the bad stuff that happens in this novel is his fault.

Now this Strucker is more low key then other versions of the character, he does not have the massive attempted body count of his 90s novel counter part, but he has far less resources. He does not have Hydra or any super science weapons at his command, he was a big wig in the Nazi party, but after the war, he has to sell his services to Jihadist terrorists to make his living, but he makes up for this by being gruesome and ghoulish, we may not see the dissection of most of those mutants or the stuff with the embryos directly, but Strucker's program and torture of Wolverine sets a pretty nasty pattern and Strucker's war crimes and Bad Boss impulses are in full display here, so he has that in common with his past versions. More low level, but still pretty nasty.

Strucker is a war criminal and terrorist and even without Hydra is still a nasty customer.

Any Freudian Excuse or other redeeming qualities?

Yeah right.

He is a total Bad Boss who cares nothing for his own troops and seems to only care about himself, secretly heaping scorn on his Nazi and terrorist pay masters.

He claims he is helping Wolverine, but that is clearly a lie. He tortured Wovlerine, planned to get rid of him as soon as he was no longer useful and only gave Wolverine the drug that would restore his memory after Wolverine threatened him with a violent end.

Final Verdict?

More low key then usual, but I think this version of Strucker counts.

Hey, at least its not another version of Red Skull.

Easy yes to Strucker.

Strucker

The good ol' Baron.

Baron Wolfgang von Strucker

Yes to Strucker.

Sure on Strucker

As we had discussed, yes

Oh right so shouldn't we write-up the rule that a character needs to appear even if its a really small appearnace in order to count.

Edited by miraculous on Sep 24th 2018 at 7:24:34 AM

Strucker again.

Strucker.

for Baron Wolfgang von Strucker.

I guess, I think that is just common sense, but if it comes up that often. If it does not come up that often, I do not know if we need a rule

I will say though, a lot of these novels go for the more obscure villains then say always Red Skull (though he shows up a fair amount in the novels). This would only be the 3rd version of Strucker to count and the Robot Master A.I is one of the most obscure Spidey villains around and the novels from the 90s and even the 70s covered some less used villains as monsters: MODOK, Mr. Sinister, Maestro, etc. I am waiting for a novel in the mail, that will cover the last of the 90s era Marvel novel villains (he is not one of the usual suspects either), I do not think after this last candidate from those novels, I doubt there would be anyone left, but there could still be some from the 2000s or modern era Marvel novels.

Edited by Overlord on Sep 24th 2018 at 7:59:54 AM

I'm actually kinda surprised Sinister's not used more often.

Anyway, yes to Strucker, with a caveat. It looks like while all those novels might not be connected, some Wolverine ones might be.

Okay, but do not mention the events of this book in any other, I would be skeptical about how continuity there is between these novels. Because this one really puts Wolverine in a weird place, but it did look like he was going to get revenge on the party that wiped his memory and stuck him in some random condo in Ottawa at the end of Lifeblood. If any book picks up that plot thread, that would show some interconnected universe, but I think Strucker is a good keep regardless, given how personally cruel he is, it would take a lot to out heinous him, especially since he has less resources then usual. It could just be branding thing rather then an actual continuing universe, I would not know.

There are lot of Wolverine solo novels in this series of books, I got Road of Bones, but did a little reading ahead and it seems like the villains in that story have redeeming values and I remember the villains from the Weapon x not being heinous enough. Of those novels, the Nature of the Beast seems like the one most likely to have a keeper, with a villain who wants to commit genocide against mutant kind.

Strucker.

Strucker.

Just a reminder that Sherlock Holmes will be requested for locking either tomorrow or when they put up this week's batch, whichever is later.

Also, I've created the D & D reformat. At this moment, it's just a new header and caption. Today I also plan to de-pothole/re-pothole the video games and the non-Drizzt literature.

EDIT: Lit's done.

Edited by ACW on Sep 24th 2018 at 3:27:27 PM

to Strucker

So, I found this on Irenicus's character page:

• Heel–Face Turn: If you have an addon for Ascension (appropriately titled Redemption), it's possible to turn him against Amellysan and redeem him.

True or not?

Anyway, I've done all the VG ones besides him and Rejiek (the latter could probably be trimmed).

Gotcha.

Edited by ACW on Sep 24th 2018 at 4:11:45 AM

It's a fan mod. Baldur's Gate had a very active fan-mod community. Not that Redemption isn't very well written, but it has no bearing on the canon game.

Edited by Lightysnake on Sep 24th 2018 at 1:15:50 AM

Strucker

Yes to Strucker.

BTW, Lighty (or anyone else): Does Reljek need to be so long?

• Rejiek Hidesman is initially introduced as a tanner based out of Athkatla's Bridge District but is actually the Skinner Murderer, a Serial Killer who targets paupers and beggars and kills his victims in cruel and disgusting fashion by skinning them like beasts while they're still alive. When Gorion's Ward confronts him with evidence linking him to two recent killings, he tacitly admits to his crimes and regrets only that he got careless and ended up incriminating himself. As he flees into the lower reaches of his home the party discovers his basement is full of flayed, dead and rotting bodies, including that of the good Lieutenant Aegisfield, whom Rejiek killed to maintain his secret, and a shirt made of Genuine Human Hide. He escapes thanks to the aid of his Necromancer friend, but later appears again in Trademeet after the party go to comfort a young man called Tiris and learn he and his girlfriend Raissa were attacked by a skinless monster and she is now missing, presumed dead; investigation reveals that Rejiek was responsible for her disappearance and has infected himself and her with a virus that turns the victim into a "skinless dancer", a humanoid monster capable of wearing the skin of others to disguise itself. Assuming Raissa's identity and foisting his own upon her, he tries to trick Gorion's Ward into killing her under the pretense of killing him, and when they are not fooled he tries to kill them himself. Even after he fails and is killed, Raissa finds her skin will not fit her and unless the player casts one of two spells on her, she will succumb to the virus and be lost to its monstrous instincts. His own transformation into a skinless dancer represented a final apotheosis of the darkness in Rejiek's soul and his willingness to commit ghoulish, sadistic, horrifying murders.