Complete Monster/DCAU



""I now see that slime for what he is; a murderous, manipulative, irredeemable... angel!""

- Harley Quinn on The Joker, from Batman: The Animated Series.

While you might expect cartoons based on comic books to dilute the evil of their villains, there are at least some who manage to be truly despicable nonetheless.

"Batman: Scoundrels like these are worse than the Joker. At least he's got madness as an excuse!"
 * The Joker. This is what happens when you really take a look at him:
 * He finally and indisputably crosses the line in Return of the Joker, in a Flash Back sequence that combines Nightmare Fuel, a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, the Joker pounding on every Berserk Button Batman has, and a . Two, if you count
 * One of the things which makes the Joker extra horrifying is how random his crimes are. Most of the time, his victims are just innocent bystanders in the wrong place at the wrong time. For instance, he once psychologically tortured a man for years, threatened to kill his family, and finally tried to blow him up, all for yelling at him when the Joker cut him off in traffic -- and the guy didn't know he was the Joker until afterward! Another time, he disguised himself as a birthday clown for Mayor Hill's birthday party so he could put a dynamite stick onto the birthday cake as revenge for Hill's attempt at comparing the Joker with Batman, which, had his laugh not tipped off Bruce Wayne, would have most likely resulted in a lot of children's deaths. As Bruce Wayne says in regards to Terry's question as to whether Joker was the worst of his Rogues Gallery; "It wasn't a popularity contest. He was a psychopath. A monster."
 * While Return of the Joker was where the character went beyond the point of no return, he was always a monster even in the more optimistic earlier episodes of the show and his actions would have had horrible consequences had Batman not stopped him (Return of the Joker was, among other things, an exercise in showing what would happen if Batman FAILED to do so). In addition to the aforementioned tormenting of Charlie Collins, his first appearance in Christmas with the Joker has him unleashing a reign of terror on Gotham in the form of a festively decorated tank rampaging through the city streets, derailing a train with the mother of one of his hostages on it ("Your mother? Well, that's different then! Yeah, it'll be more exciting when it crashes! Ha ha ha!") and letting a giant cannon fire randomly into the city, doing untold damage. And all this was to get Batman's attention so the Joker could pull a harmless practical joke on him. Joker's second appearance, if anything, upped the ante, with him unleashing laughing gas across all of Gotham which would eventually render everyone exposed to it permanently insane, and the Joker did this all so he could go on a crime spree and conduct relatively minor robberies with impunity. While Batman stopped all of this (except the tank), realistically, someone had to have been killed in those ordeals, and the idea of a maniac dealing out death and destruction with the goals behind them being so minor and petty in comparison is disturbing, to say the least, and ultimately becomes horrifying when Batman ends up being too late to stop him in Return of the Joker.
 * Speaking of Return of the Joker, what about the Kill Sat he unleashed in his attempt to kill Terry and, later on, his friends? By the time the Joker goes down, a good chunk of Gotham has been obliterated, most likely killing hundreds, if not thousands in the process. Even the version from The Dark Knight, who was just as capable of causing such destruction, doesn't have a body count as high as that.
 * Joker's treatment of his girlfriend, Harley Quinn, needs mentioning. Mad Love showcases his worst treatment of her, especially his reaction to her in-motion plan to kill Batman. He screams at her, hits her so hard she flies halfway across the room, and almost kills her by throwing her out of a several-stories high window. Why? Because HE wants to be the one who kills Batman! All of which would be bad, but then he sends her a rose and a note of apology while she's recovering in Arkham. Even the Bat feels sorry for Harley in this episode and taunts the Joker with the knowledge that she came closer to succeeding at killing him than the Joker ever has. (The Joker/Harley relationship is pretty messed up to begin with, but it never got any worse than it did in Mad Love.) It's no wonder she disapproved of her grandchildren's path.
 * There's also his fine work in Mask of the Phantasm, including the murder of There's also attacking Arthur Reeves in his office, giving him a heavy dose of Joker Toxin,  His pre-bleach self was no saint,
 * In Batman: The Animated Series, Ferris Boyle, the Corrupt Corporate Executive who caused Dr. Victor Fries', aka Mr. Freeze's, accident, killing his Ill Girl wife Nora and rendering him unable to live outside of sub-zero conditions, was definitely this. So much that even BATMAN was astonished and disturbed at the aforementioned discovery. And he does such terrible behind-the-scene things that ruin the lives of others while publicly claiming to be a humanitarian. Seeing him brought to justice was one of the few happy parts of that episode.
 * Oh, it gets better out-of-universe speaking. Boyle's voice actor? It's none other than Mark Hamill, the same guy who voices fellow Batman Complete Monster, the Joker. In fact, Mark Hamill's performance as Boyle was the reason why he even got the part of the Joker, who was originally slated to be voiced by Tim Curry due to his work as Pennywise the Dancing Clown from It, but he was unavailable at that time for the part.
 * There's also Warren Lawford, aka "Fox", from "The Terrible Trio". He's a bored rich boy who grabs two of his frat brothers and go on a crime spree for fun. His Complete Monster tendencies are hinted at as he manipulates his spoiled girlfriend, but don't come completely to light at first - until she finds out that he robbed and injured her father. Then he proceeds to knock her out with a chloroform-soaked rag and attempt to throw her off a cliff, over the protests of his own partners. Real sweet guy.

"Dr. Destiny:"Frère Jacques,Frère Jacques, Dormez vous? Dormez vous? Sonnez les matines, Sonnez les matines, Din, din, don! Din, din, don!""
 * There was also the Sewer King - who kidnapped children to use as slave labor and steal things from him. He trained them to be severely photophobic and afraid of adults. He also scares them with his trained crocodiles and makes it forbidden for the children to make a sound, punishing them by shoving them into a tiny little room with bright lights without food or water for hours - and sometimes, he does it on a whim, even to a kid who managed not to utter a peep despite the extreme scare tactics. In the Animated Series, the Sewer King was one of the few villains Batman had seriously considered killing on the spot, and that's saying quite a lot.
 * Along the same lines is Boss Biggis in "The Forgotten", an extremely repulsive and greedy slug of a man who kidnapped random poor people off the streets and forced them into working in the mines, not caring whether they got killed or not, all to satisfy his greed for gold. He also punishes people by locking them in a metal box out in the hot sun. He locks one guy in the box just for blowing a raspberry at him behind his back, and when another worker protests that the man will likely die, his response is "That's the idea!". Ultimately, though, he's not treated as seriously in-universe, as Batman doesn't hesitate to save him from being blown up, so he might not meet the trope's qualifications the whole way.
 * In the episode "Showdown", which was mostly an extended flashback to Arizona, 1883, we meet Arkady Duvall, Ra's Al Ghul's then-lieutenant, voiced by none other than Malcolm McDowell. When we begin, Jonah Hex has tracked him across twelve states "on account of what [he had] done to [a] girl back east", and a barmaid at the beginning of the story tells Hex "He hurt one of my girls real bad." They don't go into detail, but he at the very least violently assaulted them. When we first meet the man in person, he's whipping one of Ra's workman for slacking, when all the poor guy was doing was trying to pick up something he'd dropped. He comes across as insufferably smug and arrogant, with a huge sense of entitlement, and it's clear that Ra's does not approve of his actions and is only putting up with him . When Hex is caught spying on them, Duvall orders the workers to lower him head first into a vat of molten lead, but Ra's intervenes. By the end of the flashback, Hex has captured Duvall and turned him into the authorities and Ra's has washed his hands of him and left him to his fate. When the man who thinks killing 90% of the world's population in order to restore ecological balance is a good idea wants nothing more to do with you, you must be on this list.
 * Justice League has a few Complete Monsters, including Dr. Destiny, who was the first confirmed murderer in the series (giving his ex-wife a nightmare with strong rape overtones that's so traumatizing that she dies of cardiac arrest) and seemed to have given the Heroes their nightmares just because he can.
 * Make that "As blatant an implied rape scene as you can GET on a cartoon show NOT being aired on HBO". Seriously: "Now that I'm a doctor, I'm going to perform some surgery"? The guy is Nightmare Fuel incarnate. Normally, that look of his would be too goofy on a cartoon, too "Skeletor", but the writers and the voice actor make it work. Almost TOO well.
 * His mask falls away to reveal a grinning skull, did we mention? He didn't only give nightmares to other characters.
 * Karma did kick Destiny in the crotch (or mind) when he tried taking on Batman and was left in a drooling vegetative state.

"Deadman (possessing Wonder Woman): You killed my teacher! My friend!.
 * Devil Ray also qualifies. A gleeful psychopath and self confessed multiple killer, he's easily one of the most repulsive villains on the show.

Devil Ray: You'll have to be more specific, lady, I've killed a lotta people."

"Terry: You Killed My Father!
 * And then there's Lord Orm/The Ocean Master. Oh god, Orm. He tried to kill his brother, Aquaman, and Aquaman's infant son through a very cruel Death Trap that no parent should ever have to go through (which Aquaman can only undo ), and when attacked by Papa Wolf   Aquaman, he showed absolutely no remorse. Killing a child is bad enough, but trying to kill an infant hurls you well beyond the Moral Event Horizon.   And the whole Sadistic Choice deal came when Aquaman confronted him on that. He was beyond the MEH already when the choice was given.
 * Batman Beyond has one in Blight, AKA Derek Powers, a Corrupt Corporate Executive and the Arch Enemy of Terry. In order to test his latest chemical weapon, Powers purposefully infected Harry Tully, a member of his staff, with it. When Tully leaks the information to Terry’s father, Warren, Powers had Warren murdered to cover it up. Later, Powers sold the weapon to a Kaznian diplomat who wanted to wipe out resistance on his border. To promote his product, Powers showed the diplomat pictures of Tully’s gradual death at the hands of the chemical. Other crimes include committing industrial sabotage, exiling his son Paxton and causing Paxton to be corrupt and treacherous like him, and polluting the ocean by dumping radioactive waste into it. He played a part in Mr. Freeze's tragic demise as well; he used Freeze as a guinea pig to cure his own condition and when Freeze wanted revenge, Blight brutally crippled Freeze with his radiation. He’s also responsible for the creation of the super villain, Shriek, who he hired to assassinate Bruce Wayne for getting in the way of his plans to bulldoze Gotham's historical district for profit. There's also his response to Terry's use of You Killed My Father as a hint to Batman's real identity:

Blight: Do you have any idea how little that narrows it down?"

"Had I known one human's death would pain you so, I would have killed more (beats Superman down). And kill more I shall; take that agony with you to oblivion, Superman!"
 * If the fact that he killed the protagonist's father to keep anyone from finding out he was using the original Batman's family's company to make some flipping effective biological weaponry didn't already seal his status by the end of the first episode, there's also the way Blight says that line. He says it so casually, it makes you think about some of the other heinous stuff he's done that we HAVEN'T seen. He'd also just demanded to know who Batman is and why he keeps hounding him and sounds frustrated at being given such a useless piece of information.
 * And then there's his first act upon becoming Blight.
 * Darkseid. He is perhaps the absolute worst monster in the whole DCAU, which is obviously saying something since they have their own page. To put things in perspective, Darkseid is the only villain (Brainiac excluded, but he's a machine) that Superman is prepared to kill; indeed, he is the only one he wants to kill, such is his loathing. He's a walking Berserk Button for him. When Superman wants you dead, you must be truly, truly evil. And by God, Darkseid is.
 * Abusive Parents: Has two sons, Kalibak and Orion. Kalibak is loyal, but Darkseid treats him like dirt, and he is as batshit scared of his dad as everyone else. Orion was adopted by New Genesis as part of a peace accord; he loathes his father, who in turn respects him more than Kalibak because he is glad "New Genesis hasn't made you soft", but he doesn't seem to have any problem fighting him, manipulating him, or setting in motion plans that will likely result in his death.
 * Man Behind the Man: He supplies Intergang with space-age weaponry seemingly just to make trouble for Superman. This is before they even met and he just calcuated that Supes was the only viable threat to him.
 * You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The end result of this arrangement. Darkseid leaves Mannheim, Intergang's leader, on an island with a nuclear reactor that Mannheim was ordered to make explode.
 * What Measure Is a Mook?: Sends his general on a mission that, as his adviser Desaad predicted, incurs the wrath of New Genesis. When the general tells him they are outmatched and is cleary waiting for permission to retreat, Darkseid merely sighs that his plan didn't work and tells the general to "take as many of them with you as you can". When Desaad later remarks that it was a foolish move, he has an Oh Crap moment when he realizes how stupid that was before Darkseid executes him with his Omega Beams because "no-one questions me".
 * Although it wasn't stated in the show, the general Darkseid sent to his doom wasn't just a random general; it was his own uncle.
 * Mind Control: In an act of extreme pettiness and spite, he brainwashes Supes into becoming his Dragon and uses him to conquer worlds in his name, before unleashing him on Earth, where he takes on former allies and his own cousin, Supergirl. He did this because Superman had previously refused to be his henchman willingly and stood up to him, even though his actual invasion of Earth was stopped by New Genesis more than anything Supes did.
 * Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Doesn't understand why the people of Metropolis and, in the finale, Batman, continue to defy him when they must see that their situation is hopeless. When Superman explains that humans just don't give into tyranny, Darkseid promises him that he will teach them how to.
 * Kick the Dog: Murders Liutenant Dan Turpin before leaving Earth defeated as an example to Earth in general, and Superman in particular, of what happens to those who defy him, Turpin being the loudest voice in the crowd that opposed him.
 * But for Me It Was Tuesday: He didn't actually know Turpin's name, which pisses Superman off even more. When Darkseid realises this, he says:

"Apokolips...Now!: People of Earth, I am Darkseid, lord of Apokolips. Here is your savior, down and broken. I have crushed him as easily as I have crushed all who dared to oppose me throughout the cosmos. I am power unlike any you have ever known: absolute, infinite, and unrelenting. You have no choice but to prepare for a long dark future as my subjects and my slaves.
 * Galactic Conqueror/Dystopia Justifies the Means: Darkseid's ultimate goal is to take over the entire universe and turn it into Hell. The only meaning in life that people will have will be to worship him.
 * Story-Boarding the Apocalypse: Darkseid is very, very fond of this, and he is more than happy to give the viewer an idea of just how evil he is:

Twilight (part 2): You of all people should know the universe is filled with chaos, confusion, and uncertainty. I will tear it down to nothing, and then rebuild it, bringing order and discipline at last. Think of it, Superman. A new universe created in my image.

Alive: Only the slimmest of chances has allowed me to overcome my death at the hands of Superman. But let the universe howl in despair for I have returned!

Alive: As ever, to search for the Anti-Life Equation, that I might bring order to this aimless universe. But first, Superman must suffer for killing me. His adopted world will die screaming. Only then will I seek the ultimate end.

Destroyer: I hope you appreciate, Kal-El, that everything that happens from this point is on your head. The skies will rain fire, the oceans will boil, the streets will run red with the blood of billions. Only then, after your last pitiful hope is extinguished, will I end your life. Let's go."

"I am many things Kal-El. But here I am god."
 * God of Evil/God Is Evil: Darkseid is an actual physical god whose mission is to spread his evil to all of creation. On Apokolips, he has ruled for millenia as a cruel, merciless master who treats his subjects horribly, most of whom are slaves who do little more than toil to build bigger and bigger statues of Darkseid. But when Superman finally defeats him and throws him at the mercy of the oppressed masses, they gather round to help him and pick him up to take him back to his fortress. They have been trained, probably from birth, to devote their lives to a superhuman psychopath that treats them like dirt, and they do. Superman is horrified.

"Superman: Do you have any idea what you did to me?!
 * Manipulative Bastard: See his manipulation of Intergang and brainwashing of Superman above. Also, he sets up the Justice League to help fight off Brainiac, only to reveal they have done a Villain Team-Up to trap Superman. He then betrays Brainiac and reveals that, in truth, the whole thing was a set up to get close to his Hive Mind to override his systems and turn him into his minion.
 * This, by the way, is consistent with his portrayal in the comics. If anything, the DCAU toned down his evil.
 * Oh, come on, Darkseid's the "only" one Superman's wanted to kill? How about Mongul? Not many people can claim to have pulled off a Mind Rape on Superman and Batman in the same episode. The scene of Superman realizing that his happy life with his family on Krypton is all an illusion and saying goodbye to his (illsuionary) son whilst his imaginary world crumbles around him is a massive Tear Jerker, especially as he states he can remember all the struggles and joys of raising his son. The dialogue in the next scene, as Superman tears into Mongul, sums it up:

Mongul: I fashioned a prison you couldn't leave without sacrificing your heart's desire. It must have been like tearing off your own arm."


 * The difference is that Mongul was a heat of the moment emotional thing; it's unlikely he actually would have done it in different circumstances. With Darkseid, though, Superman actually threw him to Apokolips' masses with the expectation and told them to do what they will with him - which was obviously not pick him up and help him back to his palace, as they did; he later confronted him in the giant exploding Brainiac space station and told him that he was going with it. He's the only villain Superman has decided to kill and actually attempted to do so.
 * And that was when Mongul wanted revenge against Superman for dethroning him. In his debut appearance, he was the absolute ruler of War World, a place where constant fighting was done for entertainment, similar to the Gladiatorial Games in the Roman Empire, with the intention of distracting people from the poverty and oppression of the populace's day to day lives. It is also heavily implied that he wants the victors to execute those who are defeated. When Superman managed to defeat Draaga, the current, undefeated champion, and yet refused to kill him, he felt threatened about his position of power in regards to Superman's public support. He then attempts to blackmail Superman into losing on purpose against him by threatening to destroy Draaga's home planet, and he only chose his planet because Krypton, Superman's home planet, was unavailable. When Draaga learned of this, he was angered, even willing to agree with Superman in regards to fighting against Mongul, when he was feeling quite sore against Superman's allowing him to live after being defeated.
 * The aforementioned Brainiac, even for a robot. He knew Krypton was going to
 * Also for Brainiac, you better answer him. No, really, DO. If you don't, he will kill you. Even worse, if you do not give him the right answer, he will kill you.
 * Legion of Super-Heroes has a few that fit the criteria.
 * Dr. Mar Londo, not only is he abusive towards his son, Timber Wolf (being responsible for his current state as a 'Wolf Man', brainwashing him in an elaborate scheme to get him to work for him again and emotionally manipulating towards him). He has no remorse for his crimes, which included kidnapping innocent civilians and mutating them into beasts. He's basically a sociopath with a massive ego as he said that he created life and that his work is a gift. He shows callous disregard towards how his son feels about his current state even to the point of mocking him for running away before the procedure was complete and how he should be thanking him for the procedure conducted on him, he proceeds to disown Timber Wolf as his son after it was shown that he was too difficult to control through nanites he had implanted in his son's brain. Londo views morality and laws in society as childish and has manipulated the Legion into doing his dirty work. It was shown in a photo that he was a good parent or at least tried to be, but it certainly didn't last.
 * Brainiac is no slouch in this department either, this incarnation of him manipulated his descendant, Brainiac 5 and took control of his body in his plan to digitise the universe (travelling to Colu and overriding the Hive-like planet forcing them to do his bidding) and replace it with a utopia free from chaos. He openly mocked Brainiac 5 in his mind to Superman and Superman X over how weak he was and tried to have him eliminated after Brainiac 5 regained control over his body.
 * DC Animated DTV
 * Batman: The Dark Knight Returns shows that age has not dulled The Joker's Ax Crazy tendencies. Joker was catatonic for a decade until Batman returned, which snapped him out of it and resulted in Joker going on a massive killing spree. Joker kills his therapist with a broken coffee mug and then kills a studio audience at a talk show with poisonous gas. He then tries to sell poisoned cotton candy to kids at an amusement park. After Batman foils that scheme, Joker takes a gun and begins to shoot random civilians at the amusement park. After Batman defeats Joker in combat, Joker commits suicide and attempts to frame Batman for his death.
 * The Joker from Batman: Under the Red Hood is once again presented as an Ax Crazy Psychopath. He beats Batman's young sidekick Jason Todd with a crowbar, leaves him broken and battered in a warehouse and then proceeds to blow up the warehouse. Later in the film, Joker kills four of fellow Complete Monster Black Mask's mooks for no reason, after Black Mask (very reluctantly) freed Joker from Arkham. Joker then attempts to kill both the Red Hood's and Black Mask's gangs by covering them with gasoline and using a lighter to try to set them on fire. And throughout the movie, Joker never stops taunting Batman about Jason Todd's death.
 * Owlman from Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths was already a criminal and founding member of the Crime Syndicate of America. Upon discovering the existence of the multiverse, Owlman became enraged by the fact that, with every choice a person makes, they create another world in which they made the opposite choice. Determined that his choices had to affect not only his world, but all existence, Owlman journeyed to Earth-Prime, the Earth that supported the existence of all other Earths, planning to destroy all reality in a fit of existential angst. About as selfish as they come, Owlman was reviled even by his compatriots in the CSA.
 * Vandal Savage from Justice League: Doom is a conqueror with genocidal plans for the planet. He manages to steal the protocols that Batman designed to defeat the Justice League in case one or more members of the Justice League turn evil. Savage makes these protocols more lethal and sadistic and then uses them to take out the Justice League. After his Legion of Doom seemingly triumphs over the Justice League, Vandal Savage informs them he plans to conquer the world by using a missile that will cause a solar flare that will kill half the world's population. This event will also render the rest of the world's population so weak and helpless that they will naturally accept his leadership.
 * Eobard Thawne (AKA Professor Zoom) from Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox is the Reverse-Flash and opposes everything Barry Allen stands for. After the world is sent to its twisted alternate state where the world is devastated between a war between Atlantis and the Amazons, Thawne delights in Barry's agony at the new world and enjoys the carnage as it makes his nemesis suffer. When Barry tries to fix the realities, Thawne tries to stop him, meaning he is willing to cause and allow the deaths of countless innocents solely to satisfy his hatred.
 * From the same movie is Flashpoint Wonder Woman. A far cry from her benevolent regular counterpart, Flashpoint Wonder Woman is a cruel despot who kickstarts the war between Atlantis and her Amazons by murdering Flashpoint Aquaman's wife Mera and sending her head to him as a "gift" after having an affair with him. During the war, she and her amazons conquered the parts of Europe that weren't flooded by Aquaman and slaughtered over thirty million people, all for not being amazons. Other noteworthy atrocities are her murdering Steve Trevor (Ironically, he's her boyfriend in mainstream continuity) who had attempted to help stop the madness she was causing and her killing a helpless Billy Batson, who is a young child. And to top it all off, Wonder Woman is an enormous hypocrite to boot: she views men as the root of all evil while she took part in all the aforementioned atrocities, and is easily worse than her enemy Aquaman. While one could argue she loved Aquaman, it's pretty clear that this incarnation of Wonder Woman was fueled by pure lust and pride as opposed to true unconditional love.
 * Brainiac from Superman Unbound is a Control Freak and genocidal psychopath on a galactic scale. Brainiac seeks knowledge and feels the best to do that is to shrink and then steal a major city from a planet and then destroy the planet. He stole Kandor from Krypton (he didn't bother blowing up Krypton because he knew that Krypton would soon be destroyed by natural causes). Then he attacks another planet, again shrinking and stealing a city and then uses a device that causes the planet's Sun to go Nova, thus killing the remaining inhabitants on the planet. Brainiac also sends his drones to the planets he is attacking and the drones proceed to kill random inhabitants of the planet. He later steals Metropolis and tries to destroy Earth in a similar manner. He also tortures Superman for information and tries to experiment on Supergirl.