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Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

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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:

     Previous Post 
Complete Monster Cleanup Thread

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. "[tup] 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

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#18951: Nov 11th 2013 at 7:29:06 PM

We gave a positive to him earlier. you can do a writeup.

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#18952: Nov 11th 2013 at 7:48:01 PM

@ACW

If you haven't seen the episodes he's in check out "Venom Returns" and "Carnage". The whole show's on Netflix, and it ain't hard to find elsewhere either. I'd recommend "Forgotten Warriors" which is the arc with the Skull as well, actually.

Klavice (Elder Troper)
#18953: Nov 11th 2013 at 7:56:51 PM

  • Hades from Kid Icarus Uprising is truly heinous, for these specific reasons. It's eventually revealed that the Underworld Army is produced through souls. Hades starts a widespread world war over a rumor that there is a wish granting treasure guarded by a Phoenix in hopes that the humans will fight amongst themselves so he can obtain more souls. While Hades does side with the heroes to face off some aliens, it's merely for pragmatic reasons according to his own agenda. He outclasses the other antagonists of the game by virtue of sadism and sheer malevolence. Viridi, a Knight Templar who nukes parts of the world to return the world to its natural state, is even horrified by Hades' callous use of souls.  It's later revealed that Hades doesn't use all the souls he gets, and either devours the excess souls or sends them into oblivion, a fate worse than death. When Viridi asks if Hades couldn't be any more callous, he proves her wrong and states he has a sick pleasure in toying with the souls, and that he'd love to devour every soul he could. To compare Hades with one of the other antagonists, as said before, Viridi, the Knight Templar natural goddess, is disgusted by his behavior and disregard for human life. Hades also enjoys torturing Pit, the hero, who is only a 13 year old angel, even when they're on the same side at one point! Hades also isn't above leaving his minions to die when he has no further use for them and will kill them if they even so much as become an inconvenience to him, as shown by the ending where after bringing back Medusa, he simply kills her off permanently just because she betrayed him. He's behind several of the conflicts of the story, and outclasses the other three villains in sheer malice.  He's also responsible for many human deaths by his troops, when he wants to harvest souls.

edited 11th Nov '13 10:27:02 PM by Klavice

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#18955: Nov 11th 2013 at 9:00:02 PM

This was on the YMMV page for Lex Luthor Man Of Steel:

  • Complete Monster: Luthor. The point the series makes is very much the same as Paradise Lost: regardless of his eloquence and delusions of grandeur, Lex is still a monster who destroys the lives of people around him while claiming it's for the greater good. It's bad enough that he's remorseless, but the fact that he thinks of himself as the good guy puts him beyond redemption.

First of all, not a good writeup. Secondly, I don't think it's accurate. In the story, Luthor definitely crosses a lot of lines. He has the families of a scientist and union boss threatened. He turns Winslow Schott (still in paedophile mode) loose on a bunch of kids, then has Hope, his robot girl, try to kill him. He provokes a fight between Superman and Batman, has Hope attack Superman, and then blows her up in order to try and generate public outcry. He's a bastard.

However, there's also a lot of Nice to the Waiter going on, in his interactions with some of his staff, and most notably his janitor. He seems to genuinely respect Bruce Wayne. While he blows up Hope, he seems upset about it, and sheds a single tear. And finally, the entire point of the story is presenting Luthor's humanist philosophy, and belief that Superman is ultimately going to screw the human race over.

None of that mitigates how bad Luthor is, but calling him a CM defeats the purpose of the story. Not to mention that we know Luthor can do worse than this, and we've seen him do worse than this. It also still fars short of the heinous standards established by Mongul I, AU!Zod, Superboy-Prime, and Brainiac.

I say cut. What say we all?

TheOverlord Since: Jan, 2015
#18956: Nov 11th 2013 at 9:31:00 PM

Yeah Luthor is not a CM in that story, cut.

So we have write ups for animated Carnage, Landon, Creed, Apocalypse and Sabretooth.

Do we need a new write up for Dark Aegis or is the one in the Iron Man YMMV sufficient? Its short, but Dark Aegis only appeared in one episode and is Canon Foreigner, so really he didn't get a lot of screen time, but he did manage to Kick the Dog a lot in every scene he appeared in. Here is the write up as it stands:

  • Dark Aegis. In the episode he appeared in, he wiped out an entire planet and showed no remorse over the deed, even expressing Fantastic Racism when Iron Man comments on it; used a superweapon to destroy a moon; and was willing to destroy a sun, not caring what'd happen to the solar system they were in.

I can try to a rewrite on him after work tomorrow, but again there is not much else to say, considering his rather limited screen time. He had no Freudian Excuse and seemed to go out of his way to mock the planet he destroyed, making jokes at their expense and using Fantastic Racism as a justification at one point. Though there was a flash back in the same episode where he tried to use a Stark super weapon to devastate the Earth. Now the planet is destroyed off screen, but we do see the aftermath of the devastation.

edited 11th Nov '13 9:49:43 PM by TheOverlord

Sterok Since: Apr, 2012
#18957: Nov 11th 2013 at 9:48:55 PM

While I'm not completely sold that Hades overshadows Viridi and the Chaos Kin, I'll say yes to him for what he does with souls(apparently they taste like chicken) and because he never stops antagonizing Pit, even when they're technically allies. Dude sent some monsters after him when they were fighting an alien invasion. He really just wants to plunder the Earth himself.

despoa Since: Aug, 2012
#18958: Nov 11th 2013 at 10:06:10 PM

I have created a list of works copied off the subpages of the Complete Monster trope that has a Complete Monster in it. Some of those works may not have a work page and some may be duplicates. I'm thinking this list can be used as a checklist for the YMMV pages on this page so we can clean up some more of the works.

http://pastebin.com/HyegtVSm

edited 11th Nov '13 10:08:01 PM by despoa

Klavice (Elder Troper)
#18959: Nov 11th 2013 at 10:09:19 PM

Lighty, could you format it for me? I tried to format it and it still looks weird.

I'd like it not to look like a wall of text either.

Also, Viridi pulls a Heel–Face Turn and apologizes. Nuking parts of the world is pretty heinous any way you look at it, but at the same time, it's Hades who started that by indirectly starting wars between mankind.

And I don't remember a moment in the game where he doesn't want Pit dead. Viridi eventually gets a grudging respect for Pit, but Hades gets nothing of the sort. Viridi also has the redeeming qualities of her love for her minions and nature, so while she's certainly NOT a good person, she is a lot better than Hades.

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#18960: Nov 11th 2013 at 10:13:25 PM

just write everything out and put an asterisk before it. Don't asterisk every line.

Klavice (Elder Troper)
#18961: Nov 11th 2013 at 10:28:05 PM

I just did that but it's still kind of wall of text-y.

Sterok Since: Apr, 2012
#18962: Nov 11th 2013 at 10:44:00 PM

Screw it, I'll try and write up Hades.

Hades in Kid Icarus: Uprising is the true leader of the Underworld, outranking even Medusa. As the God of the Underworld, he's supposed to collect the souls of the deceased and prepare them for the reincarnation cycle. However, he decides to kill as many humans as possible in order to gain souls for his own purposes. In addition to warring on them with his own army, he also manipulates the humans into fighting each other over a nonexistent Wish Seed. He never misses an opportunity to insult Pit, and especially enjoys Pit's suffering. Even the other gods, like Viridi and Dyntos, who aren't fond of humans themselves, oppose him for his sheer malice and the destruction he causes. He briefly sides with the heroes when the Aurum start destroying the planet, but he freely admits that it's only because he wants to plunder Earth himself. Then he sends monsters after Pit anyway just for giggles. Eventually he reveals what he's doing with the souls he's been collecting; he's molding them into whatever shape he wants and using them to fuel his army. He even enjoys eating souls, which removes them from the reincarnation cycle. Not even his own troops are safe from his whims, as he sees no problem with reviving Medusa as much as he wants before disposing her. Ultimately, his desire to control everything leads to every surviving faction trying to stop him.

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#18963: Nov 12th 2013 at 1:25:16 AM

Oz has several, that need expansion or cutting. Actually, since that show seems SO dark, can that even HAVE any monsters?

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
SomeNewGuy Since: Jun, 2009
#18965: Nov 12th 2013 at 8:48:26 AM

Honestly, I have to disagree with the idea that Viridi and Chaos Kin overshadow Hades. Viridi, for all her boasts about her Kill All Humans agenda, really doesn't do anything towards that goal outside of her introduction, and most of her screentime pre Heel–Face Turn has her arrogantly boasting and bragging about how Pit and Palutena will never defeat her instead of actually doing heinous acts.

The Chaos Kin...as horrible and nightmarish as the thing and its acts are, its trophy outright calls it a Generic Doomsday Villain, and its moral agency is really questionable.

So yeah, I think Hades overshadows them because he does have moral agency (the level where you play as Dark Pit outright says he doesn't have to commit genocide due to being Lord of the Underworld, but he does it anyway because he wants to) unlike the Chaos Kin, and unlike Viridi, he actually backs up his gloating with results. (The Phoenix comes to mind)

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#18966: Nov 12th 2013 at 10:02:23 AM

This was on the YMMV page for Vandal Savage:

  • Complete Monster: Vandal Savage practically invented evil as a human concept. Over the millennia, he has been one of the most vicious and depraved men in history and one of the most efficient manipulators in the DCU, with billions of bodies to his name. Judging by some of his offspring (for instance, Grendel), he's responsible for the existence of various other horrible monsters. His daughter Scandal, fucked-up as she is, absolutely despises her father and wants nothing to do with him, with anything related to him usually acting as a Berserk Button. Most of his fellow villains either despise him or are fucking terrified of him, usually both. With no redeeming qualities in him, either, he can be seen as the absolute most despicable being in the DCU. There are others who approach his level of atrocity (Doctor Psycho, Junior, Black Mask, Professor Zoom), but none of them have done it as thoroughly or for as long as he has.
    • Millennia worth of murders should certainly count. Plus there's this little statement of his from The Flash Vol. 2, #14:
—> I used to be France's court physician, you know. I would use the royal family for syphilis experiments...
  • He invented cannibalism.
    • He invented evil as a human concept. Is it any wonder he's considered to be Cain?
      • Everyone in the DCU hates him. You won't find many people who would be willing to work for him; hell, you probably won't find many people who wouldn't rather die than be forced to work for him. And if someone is willing to work for him, then chances are very high that they're probably disgusting individuals themselves. He's just that bad.
  • This was once subverted, however, in the DCAU - his alternate future self in "Hereafter", having wiped out the human race 30,000 years ago, came to deeply regret his past sins and became The Atoner. It's telling that he was aware his self-realisation would be erased, but he considered it a form of redemption if it brought back the true future that was meant to occur (whether this means he might've been redeemed down the line in the regular timeline is never elaborated on, though the future Savage that Superman met would have clearly liked to think so).

Didn't we clean this up once before? I'll also note that it's hyperbolic—Brainiac, Monguls I & II, and of course Darkseid more than match him in the atrocity Olympics, and that's just picking a few examples at random. I'm not denying he qualifies, but we need a better write-up here, and one that doesn't mention the DCAU etc.

edited 12th Nov '13 10:28:09 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#18967: Nov 12th 2013 at 11:08:08 AM

[up]I'm glad you mentioned that; that was on my to-do list (literally). BTW, is the Grendel the same one from Beowulf?

EDIT: And the royal family thing (though interesting) is Offscreen Villainy.

edited 12th Nov '13 11:08:57 AM by ACW

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#18968: Nov 12th 2013 at 11:20:06 AM

[up]I wouldn't know about Grendel, though I suspect so. We've got a better write-up for him on the DC subpage, yes? Because if so, let's just swap it in.

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#18969: Nov 12th 2013 at 11:25:00 AM

[up]The one on DC And Vertigo is the same; it just ends after "...usually both."

EDIT: It's not bad, but doesn't really describe any of his actions.

edited 12th Nov '13 11:26:09 AM by ACW

rmctagg09 The Wanderer from Brooklyn, NY (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: I won't say I'm in love
The Wanderer
#18970: Nov 12th 2013 at 11:32:19 AM

It kinda forgets to mention the whole "using his own descendants as Human Resources" thing.

Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.
Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#18971: Nov 12th 2013 at 12:35:45 PM

I hate to say it, but I don't think anyone on Oz counts...Schillinger has feelings for his family, and even Adebisi has a moment of conscience (his famous "sometimes, it's nice to be human" bit)

Thank you very much for the Hades writeup, Sterok, let's roll with that.

Vandal...let's elaborate on his currently entry:

  • Vandal Savage practically invented evil as a human concept. Born Vandar Og, a caveman who received super intellect and immortality from a meteorite, Savage used his endless live to be the the biggest monster he could. Over the millennia, he has been one of the most vicious and depraved men in history and one of the most efficient manipulators in the DCU, with billions of bodies to his name. Savage has spent his time as The Man Behind the Man to many conquerors, organizing conquests and massacres. Vandal has also fathered legions of monsters, but with the exception of one child, he considers the rest pathetic and treats their lives or deaths as not worthy of his attention. His treatment toward his sole legitimate child Scandal was no better: on her birthday, he forced her to run a gauntlet of men beating her, and if she failed, he swore he'd murder her mother. despite Scandal being a lesbian, Vandal wants a male heir- and has no compunction having Scandal raped by other supervillains to get it. Vandal's crimes have also including introducing a new drug in the stead of heroin that burns out its users to death very quickly, multiple murders and cannibalism (which he might well have invented as a concept), attempting to pull an asteroid down to earth and murdering Golden Age superheroes with their families after founding a Neo-Nazi group called The Fourth Reich. All to either stave off boredom, or to shape the world in his twisted image.

As for Commando...Bennett and Arius have their worst crimes offscreen, admittedly, but their actions during the film (kidnapping little Jenny to force Matrix's cooperation so Matrix will murder a benevolent president, throwing a country into turmoil so Arius can take it over) are heinous enough overall, IMO. I mean, both intend to murder a little girl and other people besides, so I'm gonna say the entries are fine.

Here's a new writeup for Dark Aegis

  • Despite appearing in only one episode of Iron Man, Dark Aegis outstripped any other villain in sheer monstrosity. A foe of Tony tark who'd been hurled out into space, Dark Aegis later wiped out an entire planet and showed no remorse for it whatsoever. Dark Aegis later attempts to use a superweapon to destroy a moon, and then attempts to destroy a sun as well. His attitude towards what this will do to an inhabited solar system amounts to: "So what?"

Here're some of the film ones I promised

  • Douglas "Dawg" Brown of Cutthroat Island is the Black Sheep of the Adams pirate brothers and the captain of the ship Reaper. Each of the four brothers has a piece of a map to a fabulous treasure and Dawg wants it all to himself. The first thing we learn about him is he murdered one brother and has another hostage to murder after he gets his piece of the map. When his brother gives his map to his daughter Morgan, Dawg stops at nothing to kill his niece. He attacks his last brother Mordecai and threatens to run him through if Mordecai doesn't give up the map. When a luckless mook accidentally falls into Mordecai and impales him on Dawg's knife, Dawg kills the man growling that h killed Dawg's brother, though he's only angry Mordecai died before Dawg got the map. He attempts to torture Morgan by trying to let an eel eat her face, guns down a crewman when the man complains they're running out of food and stops at no crime short of trying to steal the treasure from Cutthroat Island.

  • Alan Yates of Cannibal Holocaust is a filmmaker who decides that realism requires a filming on location. After he and his crew visit the Yacumo tribe in South America, Yates grows steadily more warped in his attempt to make a film. Yates has the entire tribe of the Yacumo forced into a hut and sets it afire. Yates also later leads the gangrape of a girl of the Yanomamo tribe. The tribe finally has enough and sets out to kill the filmmakers. When one of the group is hit by a spear, Yates shoots him to cripple him so he can film how the tribe mutilate and kill him.

edited 12th Nov '13 1:26:54 PM by Lightysnake

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#18972: Nov 12th 2013 at 12:46:01 PM

[up]The part about his other children should be "lives and deaths" not "lives or deaths". The sentence dealing with Scandal needs a capital at the start. And it shoulds say has "no compunction about having Scandal raped". The bit about the drug should say "burns out its users very quickly" or "burns its users to death very quickly" but not both.

Otherwise looks good.

EDIT: So if we are going to break up the DC page and put the New 52 monsters in their own section...Maro from Batwoman, the New 52!Anton Arcane, and I would presume, New 52!Joker (who'll need a write-up) are the ones who should go in for now? Because quite frankly, I don't think anybody else has qualified yet. They've tried to give Brainiac good traits (still not over that), they've turned Darkseid into a Generic Doomsday Villain, and a whole lot of other major villains haven't even been reintroduced yet.

EDIT: Am wondering if Dr. Light needs a rewrite. The current one is more gravedancing than anything else.

EDIT: I think that AU!Zod also needs a rewrite. The current version focuses more on Superman executing him than anything else, and is inaccurate (Superman's killed more than a few times).

edited 12th Nov '13 12:53:34 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#18973: Nov 12th 2013 at 12:54:01 PM

[up][up]Much better. Few grammatical things, but please place on Vandal Savage and I'll take care of that tonight and then request the change, along with requesting cutting all Oz examples (just took care of YMMV).

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#18974: Nov 12th 2013 at 1:04:11 PM

While I'm at it...

  • Dr. Arthur Light was a man with one singular passion: his absolute love of rape. Light was a supervillain with powers over energy who had been considered a joke for a time. It was revealed the reason was because Zatanna had given him a magic lobotomy. The reason was because Light had sneaked aboard the League's satellite and found the Elongated Man's wife Sue Dibny there alone, and took the chance to violently rape her. After he regains his mind, Light returns to his favorite habits. He also stole the powers from the heroic Dr. Light, Kimiyo Hoshi, comparing his violation of her to a rape in of itself. Becoming steadily more sadistic and depraved, Light enjoyed hurting every superhero he could and threatened to rape their loved ones as he had Sue Dibny. When the Spectre, the spirit of God's vengeance itself, visited Light to punish him, he was in the midst of preparing to rape a group of girls he'd dressed as heroines from The Teen Titans to satisfy his hatred of and lust for them.

DrPsyche Avatar by Leafsnake from Hawaii Since: May, 2012
Avatar by Leafsnake
#18975: Nov 12th 2013 at 1:07:03 PM

Ah yes, good ol Dr. Light. (Hey, I like this funny villain on the Teen Titans show, I wonder what his mainstream counterpart is like. Looking on Wikipedia…. AHHHH, why, dear god why?) I Have a question about the last sentence, was he going to rape those girls, or were they just a bunch of protitutes he hired to dress up as the Teen Titans? I haven't read the arc, but I think I got the latter reading from Wikipedia, or somewhere.

edited 12th Nov '13 1:08:04 PM by DrPsyche


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