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
First off, cool.
Second: Yeah, can't use Word of God alone, but as a supplement it's great (I've done that with Keith R. A. DeCandido about the 90s Marvel novels; dude's QUITE responsive on Twitter, and has been quite helpful).
I did say previously; Niniri is manipulative as hell. She has many moments of seeming affection with many people she subverts, but if I have WOG as intent that other moments of affection are meant to be genuine and it gels perfectly with what we see?
Niniri is manipulative, selfish, power hungry and very, very evil, but her care for her closest comrades is conditional, but genuin
I've found two candidates from two separates fan works based on the DC Universe. Here's the first work.
What's the Work
A Life in Shadow
and its sequel Into the Darkness
is a Young Justice fanfic written by CostumeChick. It focuses on Shadow, an OC character who is forced to serve the Light, which is essentially the Legion of Doom for Young Justice. There's quite a bit to unpack here, so onto the candidate.
Who is Deathstroke and What has he Done
Deathstroke is a member of the Light and an assassin who is looking for an apprentice to carry on his legacy and fill out the ranks of the Light. Initially, he was interested in taking Nightwing as his apprentice, but Shadow takes his place to spare him and others from the sheer torment they'll face from Deathstroke. In this continuity, he married and had three children, including Shadow, but he wanted to mold them into assassins like he was. He gives performance-enhancing drugs to one of his children and subjects them brutal training sessions, including beatings, to achieve said goal. Additionally, the drugs make his children more submissive to him and allows him to influence their actions, making it easier for him to mold them into assassins. He started out with the older siblings, in which both of them get killed. Although they were seemingly killed on a failed mission, but it's later revealed that he got them killed, as one of his children was disobedient to him and thus killed her and framed her death on the mission, while his other child got shot by a sniper, but Deathstroke decided to leave him behind, discarding him as "weak" (the second death gets retconned, more on that in the sequel). This results in his wife leaving him, unable to bear with the fact that her own husband got two of her children killed. This hardly phases Deathstroke, as he just moves on to turn Shadow to renew the process.
Her first assignment was killing an employee of LexCorp that was getting nosy, in which she was forced to kill him in front of his wife and kids. Once the jobs is done, Shadow protests against the brutality of said assassination, so Deathstroke begins subjecting her to more drugs that make her more obedient. However, she soon gets anough immunity to the drug to escape Deathstroke, forcing him to find a new apprentice. He starts by doing the same training process with dozens of other children, in which none of them survive. Additionally, he trained Rose, another one of his children and Shadow's half-sibling, in which he subjected her with so many drugs that she tried to be emulate Deathstroke by carving out her own eye, so she was discarded as well. Eventually, he finds Nightwing and is interested in him becoming his next apprentice, in which he becomes interested in turning him into his apprentice. However, Shadow is able to spare Nightwing of this fate by returning and convincing him into taking her in as his assassin, not wanting Nightwing to suffer the same fate she once had. As a result, he subjects her to the same torturous training process and even places a tracker on her to ensure that she doesn't "step out of her place".
Deathstroke is then seen assigning Shadow into collecting information from and destroying Poison Ivy's lab (even though it has innocent people) and assassinating Nightwing, who is going to the same school as Shadow's citizen identity. Though it's technically the Light giving this assignment to test Shadow's commitment to them, Deathstroke takes obvious pleasure from this order, especially since her employer encourages Shadow to toy with Nightwing before killing him. Of course, Shadow is reluctant to carry this out and ultimately doesn't have the heart to follow through with it. She returns to Deathstroke, who is obviously not happy to hear the news. He begins to physically beat her as punishment, until she submits to Deathstroke's authority again, which satisfies him.
Later on, Deathstroke is sent on a mission by the Light and likewise, he sends Shadow on a mission to stop the Young Justice team from stealing something from the Light. She fails Deathstroke again and as punishment, Deathstroke begins to whip her, unsympathetically telling her to "mask her pain" each time she grimaces from her pain. Eventually, Deathstroke is called to another mission, so he leaves Shadow behind to bleed on the floor. Upon returning, Deathstroke sends her to the League of Shadows to be further trained as an assassins and be initiated into the Light, subjecting to her a few more days worth of harsh training.
As time passes, Shadow is becoming close to Nightwing, which enrages Deathstroke. However, Shadow pretends that she's merely acting as a double agent to Nightwing, planning to to gain his trust and then kill him when he least expects it. Although Deathstroke is impressed by this plan, he still physically beats her as punishment for not following his orders to the letter. Afterwards, Deathstroke learns that Ra's al Ghul revived Jason Todd and plans to give them to the Young Justice team as a double agent. In the meantime, Deathstroke tells her to try to kill the Young Justice team in morbidly sadistic manners, including burning Miss Martian and breaking Kid Flash's leg before killing him. Although he doesn't expect her to kill them, he hopes to break their trust in Shadow, which would make her submissive to Deathstroke again.
Once this is done, Deathstroke tests her loyalty to him again by assigning her a target associated with the Light. Specifically, he assigns Shadow to assassinate Neil Hartmann, an assassin employed by Count Vertigo. He also tells her to kill anyone that witnesses the assassination, as the Light won't take kindly to Deathstroke's treachery. Said order also meant eliminating Hartmann's daughter, since she saw what transpired and although Deathstroke comforts Shadow after the job is done, it's clear that he's hardly phased by this. Distraught, Shadow secretly spends time with the Young Justice team under the excuse that she's been captured, but Deathstroke later comes to "rescue" her, in which he states that he and the Light have placed several bombs around Bludhaven and threatens to detonate them and kill hundreds of people unless they release Shadow. They reluctantly do so and thus Shadow is back under Deathstroke's grip.
However, Shadow meets with the Young Justice team again and uses an EMP to disrupt the tracker on her so that she can receive comfort for the horror she faces from Deathstroke. When she returns, Deathstroke (surprise, surprise) beats her again and when she regains consciousness from the beating, he manipulates her into thinking that it was the Young Justice Team who has used a chemical to subdue her and that it was Deathstroke who saved her. Deathstroke then sends her to another assignment: Bialian rebels are attempting to overthrow Queen Bee (a member of the Light) and Rumaan Harjavti of Qurac is sending aid to the rebels, so Deathstroke sends her to destroy the rebel base and the shipment there. Although Shadow is the one to place the bombs, Deathstroke is the one who has the detonator, in which he waits until Nightwing enters the base and then detonates the bombs, killing numerous soldiers and possibly the members of the Young Justice team. Of course, this doesn't kill Nightwing and Shadow, already emotionally strained, is about to call it quits, but Deathstroke not only threatens to kill her, but proceeds to assault her again. Shadow tried to call Nightwing for help, Deathstroke quickly snatches the phone and tries to manipulate Nightwing into coming for her, clearly meant to set him up to a trap.
While Nightwing plans the rescue operation, Deathstroke subjects Shadow to three weeks of torture in a forest, planning to break her into becoming loyal to the Light again. To finish off the torture, Deathstroke subjects her to a stronger dosage of drugs that makes her mindlessly obedient to him. He decides to send her to capture the members of the Young Justice team and the Justice League, wanting them to witness him kill Nightwing in front of their eyes. He sends her to capture Aqualad, Miss Martian, Martian Manhunter, Artemis, Green Arrow, Red Arrow, Wally West, the Flash, Impulse, Superboy, Superman, Batman, Red Hood, Red Robin, Damian Wayne, and Nightwing. Once this is done, Deathstroke sends her again to behead an unnamed foreign military leader to add more to her guilt and thus emotionally cripple her even more.
Now that he's captured Nightwing and several other superheroes, Deathstroke prepares for Shadow to beat Nightwing in front of everyone, where he gives her explicit directions to not use weapons until the finishing blow, just to make Nightwing suffer even more. To ensure that the rest of the Batfamily doesn't try to escape when he releases Nightwing, Deathstroke places explosive collars on all of them, where he threatens to detonate them if they try anything. Although Shadow seemingly kills Nightwing, her growing anger is enough for her to overcome the drugs and she tries to attack Deathstroke, but he's already prepared for this, knocking her down and deeming her as another "failure" like her siblings. However, Shadow stabs a blade into his chest and he falls down the elevated platform they were on, seemingly dead. Despite this, Deathstroke posthumously left a chip in Shadow's mind so that she sees the image of Deathstroke every day, at least until the Young Justice team manage to remove the chip.
In the sequel, Deathstroke (somehow) survived his previous fight and employed another apprentice, Watcher (who is the child that was seemingly killed by the sniper fire, so this is the retcon I talked about earlier). Deathstroke has used heavy dosages of drugs on him to keep him obedient and then had him start a family to birth two more children, whom he plans to turn into more of his apprentices. Eventaully, Deathstroke reveals himself to be alive to Shadow when he launches a terrorist attack on Gotham, where he plants bombs on the most populated buildings of the cities and plans to kill thousands of people. In the meantime, he and Watcher faces off against Shadow, though she ends up escaping. When Shadow goes to rescue Watcher's children from Deathstroke, she sacrifices herself and gets captured to allow them to escape. Remembering their previous encounter, Deathstroke physically tortures for three weeks and emotionally manipulates her into thinking that her former allies abandoned her. Then, he acts like a fatherly figure to her again and thus regains her loyalty like an abusive father. Afterwards, he sends her and Watcher on a mission to Wayne Manor to extract information from there and kill the Young Justice team.
Unfortunately, the fanfic has not received another update in almost four years, so it's safe to assume that it's dead and thus the story has been inconclusively finished.
Does he have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Deathstroke doesn't have an ounce of care for his family. He beats his children into becoming assassins and doesn't care that he gets two of his children killed and causes his wife to leave him. While he was horrified to see Rose cut her own eye to adopt his likeness, he's more horrified by how crazy she is and not what he's done to her. Even if it was care for Rose, it clearly didn't amount to much, as he repeats the process with Shadow, only using a different dosage of drugs. On occasion, he'll act sweet with Shadow and have several Pet the Dog moments with them. However, it's clear that these moments are just meant to distract Shadow from all the abuse he subjects to them and that their overall relationship is harmful. Plus, his Pet the Dog moments all come after he's abused her or after she successfully completed a job, so there's no genuine love behind his gestures. It also doesn't help that he has no hesitation to kill his apprentices like Shadow, so his "love" for them is clearly hollow. Additionally, he doesn't have a Freudian Excuse to speak of; he's just abusive to his apprentices because he wants to mold them in his image.
While this fanfic does feature torture, it doesn't reach excessive levels by DC standards (for example, it's comparable to Jason Todd's torture from the Joker) and thus wouldn't count as grimdark. Combined with the substantial plot of these fanfics, it's safe to say that these works are worth considering.
Does he meet the Heinousness Standard?
This version of Deathstroke is more despicable than his canon Young Justice self and gives Fire Lord Ozai a run for his money in the Abusive Parents category. While Deathstroke doesn't have the same large-scale plans that CM's like Lord Orm and Granny Goodness from the canon Young Justice series, the sheer torment and abuse he subjects to his apprentices is heinous enough for him to stand out, where he subjects them to physical beatings, sleep deprivation, and starvation. While he is under the command of the Light, he goes way beyond the orders he's given by them, such as how he abuses his apprentices and directly tells her the sadistic manner he wants Shadow to kill the Young Justice team. Deathstroke is also a major member of the Light, so he clearly had a hand in the orders he gives to Shadow. He also got dozens of children killed and had several terrorist plans to kill thousands of people, so he's no slouch in the attempted body count department.
Final Verdict
A
.
Edited by DrUnknown on Jun 26th 2020 at 12:08:18 PM
Deathstroke (should be our 3rd version, after Teen Titans and DC Animated Movie Universe)
Okay, i have checked out the final game in the trilogy and the worst one, Soldier of Fortune: Payback, and it has no keepers, due to confusing nature of the plot (hard to figure out which specific antagonist responsible for in overall plot) and the fact that nearly all of them are generic as hell and the one, who don't is very vague in his intended goal and how much he was personally responsible for. So here is the last candidate from me for this trilogy from the original game instead
What is the Work?
Soldier of Fortune
is a solid FPS from Raven Software, released in 2000. Inspired by the mercenary magazine of the same name, the game follows freelance mercenary John Mullins, as he gets missions from "The Shop", which orders him to stop terrorists around the world.
My candidate is the Big Bad of the game - Sergei Dekker
Who is Sergei Dekker?
A South African, who got exiled from the military due to his radical actions in trying to use 7 nuclear warheads to gain leverage against the UN and lift the embargoes aroudn the country, Sergei decided to create his own fascist organization, The Order, and supply his brother, Wilhelm Dekker, leader of the White Supremacist group in New York called Ministry of Sin, with weapons, so he could steal money for him and cause chaos in the streets, at one point taking a full subway of people hostage, with his men gleefully killing several innocent people. For his next move, Sergei stole four Nuclear Warheads from Russian base and sold three of them to the highest bidder, like to a Serb faction, that wage war on the city and could use the warhead to destroy NATO headquarters, another terrorist cell, who wanted to profit from a personal Nuke and to Mohammed Amu, a general within Saddam Hussein's army, who wanted to use the Nuke to attack US.
After Mullins tracked down and killed his brother to find a location of his facility, Sergei captured his friend and comrade Hawk and offers him to let them live if Mullins can give him any new information, as Mullins starts telling about "The Shop", Sergei interrupts him and says that he knows everything already and killing Hawk, when Mullins was unable to tell him anything new.
Later Sergei attacked SUNI corporation, taking everyone hostage, trying to force them to tell him the location of their neutron bomb "Jessica Six", killing everyone, who refused to tell him what he wanted to know. Later on he managed to get "Jessica Six" and orders his men to kill Mullins, who infiltrated the building and later sending a helicopter to kill him.
When Mullins tracked down and was interrogating Mohammed Amu, since Sergei bought uranium from him, Sergei killed Amu to prevent him from talking. After Mullins destroyed Amu's facility, where he digged up uranium to sell to terrorists, he discovered Sergei's true plan, to use "Jessica Six" (a neutron bomb, capable of wiping out all life from entire cities, but leaving buildings intact) to kill all life in New York and some other UN cities as well, as a revenge for the fact that US had South Africa to exile him from military in the past. As Mullins infiltrated Sergei's castle, from where he intended to launch "Jessica Six", he confronted Sergei by saying "You killed my friend." to which Sergei replied "You killed my brother.", before intiating countdown to launch. Mullins was able to stop the countdown and prevent the launch and then confronted Sergei directly, where he killed him.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
The only one is his possible care for his brother, Sergei never shown to interact with him and from all descriptions he only shown to value him as a partner in crime, who helped him to move ahead with his scheme. The only line that might indicate that Sergei cared is when Mullins confronted him in final mission by saying "You killed my friend" to which he answers "You killed my brother", but despite that, neither before nor after (when Mullins confronted him directly in a fight), Sergei never shown to mention his brother in any way, not even when he holded Hawk hostage (which happened one mission after Mullins killed his brother), he simply coldly said to Mullins that he was willing to trade Hawk's life for any new information and then killed Hawk, when Mullins was not capable to present him any. So, judge it as you will. The dialogue of "you killed my brother" is at 2:54 time mark in the below video:
Here is how Sergei interacted with Mullins after he took Hawk hostage, a mission after Mullins killed his brother (14:08 time mark):
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Easily passes by selling three Nukes to the dangerous terrorist groups, who he knows will use it to kill countless people and his goal of using "Jessica Six" to wipe out all organic life from entire cities (he openly tells that he will not stop at New York and will target more heavily populated cities). Also, him killing people at SUNI corporation and the killing of Mullin's friend Hawk adds him some heinous points.
Final Verdict?
What do you think?
Edited by VeryVileVillian on Jun 26th 2020 at 12:22:20 PM
Leaning no regarding Sergei. His intonation suggests he actually cares about his brother, and there is no indication he loses that care in the second video.
I hope nobody minds me asking, but did anyone else watch the videos? I personally felt like I could not ignore them.
Edited by SkyCat32 on Jun 26th 2020 at 6:14:00 AM
Since it seems that Sergei is not a keeper, here are my writeups for Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix keepers:
Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix:
Assistent Director Aaron Wilson is the greedy member of "The Shop" command and the secret head of Prometheus organization. Misiing the old days of Cold War, Wilson decided to bring it back by using his old contacts in KGB to create Prometheus and have them develope a deadly Romulus virus, which he soon tested it by forcing a drug lord Manuel Vergara to sell it to a rebel terrorist group La Fuerza del Dios and led them to use it on a village full of innocent people, leading to many people dying a slow and agonizing deaths. Later on leaking "The Shop's" moves to Prometheus and blowing up a secret base under the book shop, which caused several deaths and then has Prometheus attack hospital to kill the survivor of the explosion. At the end abandoning all pretense, Wilson leads an attack on "The Shop", killing countless people and openly announced his intention to use Romulus virus to infect the world leaders and plunge the world into another Cold War.
Alexei Nachrade is one of the highest members of the Prometheus, who acts as its official leader. Eagerly joining Wilson's scheme of using the Romulus virus to plunge the world into a Cold War, Nachrade takes an equal part in trafficing the virus to US territory and delivering it into the hands of La Fuerza del Dios for testing. When Mullins starts getting too close to discovering the identity of The Mole within "The Shop", Nachrade has him lured to japan to his personal prison, where he has his men torture people to death. Later on taking the airport full of people hostage and having his men murder several innocents along the way, Nachrade distracts Mullins enough for Wilson to attack "The Shop", announcing that without the organization nobody could stop Prometheus from doing whatever they want.
Edited by VeryVileVillian on Jun 26th 2020 at 2:20:40 PM
to Sergei Dekker.
Onto the second DC fan work.
What is the Work
Nightweaver (Year One
and Year Two
) are a pair of Teen Titans fanfics from Ubiyasta that follows a thief who becomes sick of being disrespected and tries to defeat the Titans to earn notoriety, but eventually joins their team and becomes a vigilante, the titular Nightweaver. In other words, they're your classic "edgy" fanfic that, thankfully, doesn't reach grimdark levels and has a substantial plot. While the fanfics showcase a good number of DC villains, only one manages to stand out from the rest.
Who is Black Mask and What has he Done?
Black Mask is a minor mob boss in Gotham who murdered his own parents to inherit their wealth early and start his criminal career. In Year One, Black Mask initially doesn't do much, first collaborating with Deathstroke and several other supervillains to defeat the Teen Titans and the Justice League. Black Mask is easily beaten and arrested, until Nightweaver goes to prison himself (it's a long story, but that's besides the point of this effort post). He conveniently becomes cellmates with Black Mask, who later decides to hold Nightweaver at knife-point and threatens to kill him if he isn't released from prison, though Nightweaver easily subdues him.
Later, Black Mask incites a prison riot and tries to escape on a helicopter, in which Nightweaver tries to hang on to stop him, but Black Mask easily knocks him off to kill him. Afterwards, Black Mask incites a city riot to attract the Titans' attention, in which he uses the opportunity to capture Kitrina (Nightweaver's girlfriend) and kill her in front of his eyes, relishing in his suffering. Enraged, Nightweaver tracks down and kills Black Mask. Or so he though, as it's later revealed that it was a clone Black Mask prepared just for that occassion. Black Mask later captures Raven and a revived Kitrina before presenting them to Nightweaver. He presents a Sadistic Choice of who to save. Despite Nightweaver choosing to save Kitrinia, Black Mask decides to kill them both and then shoot both of Nightweaver's legs with a shotgun to cripple him, knocking him out just to make him live with that emotional torment even more.
In Year Two, Black Mask learns of Nightweaver's revival (he committed suicide in between the two fanfics) and decides to grab his attention again by killing both Scarecrow and the Penguin, Nightweaver's then primary enemies upon his revival. When Nightweaver and the Teen Titans prepare to capture Black Mask, it seems that he has a mutant army and a nuclear bomb at hand. In reality, these are just threats are only used to intimidate the Titans and lure them into a trap with Chemo.
After Black Mask manages to beat Nightweaver and retreat to his own separate warehouse, he captures a spying Robin and releases one of his mutants, Chemo, on Nightweaver and co. However, Nightweaver previously hired an assassin, White Death, to kill Black Mask, in which the White Death turns on Nightweaver to kill both him and Black Mask, simply to preserve his record of killing his employers (*sigh*). As a result, Black Mask decides to work with Nightweaver against White Death. Despite this, Nightweaver grows more enraged with Black Mask and, like every edgy OC anti-hero, kills him.
Does he have any Mitigating Qualities or Freudian Excuse?
Black Mask lacks any mitigating qualities or Freudian Excuse. Also, even though I've been throwing a jab or two at the work, it still has a substantial plot to it, so it is worth considering.
Does he meet the Heinousness Standard?
I think what sets him over the heinousness standard is his Sadistic Choice with Kitrina and Raven, as well as crippling Nightweaver. It is the most brutal crime depicted in the fanfic and it is heinous enough to stand out. His murder of his own parents further seals the deal.
As for the empty nuclear threat, I think it can be explained with Black Mask's lower resources than most continuities. It's made clear that most mob bosses don't respect or fear him and they treat him as a useful distraction for the heroes away from their own activities, so Black Mask is on a lower league than most of the crime bosses of this series and clearly doesn't have the resources needed to acquire a nuke or create his own mutant army. It also helps that the other villains in this fanfic series don't do anything that is extremely heinous in particular like destroy a city, except for maybe Darkseid's invasion of Earth, but even that is a bit ambiguous and he has more resources than Black Mask anyways. Plus, the above mentioned crime is heinous enough to make Black Mask stand out.
Final Verdict
I believe that he's a
.
Edited by DrUnknown on Jun 26th 2020 at 4:39:17 AM
Two effortposts from me today. I got up Beria's right hand man a little while ago—let's try for Beria himself.
What's the setting?
I'm sure all of us know about The Death of Stalin, a fairly recent black comedy about the degrading state of the USSR after the death of its leader Josef Stalin. What I'm sure at least half of you don't know is that the movie was based upon a French graphic novel, A Morte de Stálin, written by one Fabien Nury, significantly (and ironically) less comical than the movie but with the same sharp satirical edge. The candidate here is, shocker, the same guy who kept in the movie and the real life person who embodied the absolute worst of Soviet Russia: Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria.
Who is Lavrentiy Beria? What has he done?
Beria's first scene in the comic dispenses with the Rape Discretion Shot the movie employed and opens on him violently raping a young woman, casually ordering shortly after that her father be arrested and tortured to death. All, of course, usual behavior for him; as one of the highest-ranking politicians in the country, Beria uses his authority to enforce massive amounts of torture and execution of dissidents (i.e. anyone he or the state remotely consider an enemy), and while Stalin may genuinely care for the country, "Beria only cares for Beria."
When Stalin has a stroke, Beria sees it as his opportunity to take over the entire country. Beria tries to ensure Stalin dies during the attempt to resuscitate him from his coma, and the literal second it becomes clear Stalin has no chance of recovery Beria has the NVKD forcibly occupy Russia's major cities to start snuffing out "unrest," which leads to wonderful things like planes landing on crowds of people. Beria has dozens more tortured and murdered in the depths of the Lubyanka prison while striving to make his control over Russia iron-tight, attempting to groom Stalin's unstable son Vasily as a successor, while trying to discredit and frame rivals like Khruschev. Ultimately Beria's ousted, and in probably the biggest change to both real life and the movie, faces his execution with nothing more than a quiet, stoic frown.
Any mitigating factors?
About as many as the real Beria had. His affection for Vasily is based on shaping the grieving young man into becoming a fanatically loyal asset. Releasing Molotov's tortured wife from the Lubyanka is a calculated move to buy the man's desperate loyalty ("what Beria gives, Beria can take away."). Nothing the man does is for anything but his own self-interest.
The comic doesn't quite delve as deeply into his Serial Rapist tendencies as other works are—I'd argue comic!Beria is a touch less heinous than movie!Beria, who himself wasn't half as bad as the actual Beria—but it still blatantly establishes them while placing most of the focus on Beria's insidious manipulation and mass executions. He's easily heinous enough and the comic is enough of its own property to warrant a separate listing from the film.
Conclusion?
Easy keeper, as any fictional version of Beria tends to be.

Yes to Nachrade.
Sidenote, I had a chance to ask Colleen Doran a few questions about A Distant Soil recently. She did confirm for me that Niniri does care for the other members of the Hierarchy. As twisted, conditional and selfish as it is, her care is genuine and makes her a deeper villain, so Sere and Emeris will be the only keepers.