I'm David, welcome to my brain. Here I write to not only show that I can but to share my opinions on various topics. Mostly Video Games, Anime, Movies and Tokusatsu. Though I am open to suggestions and never afraid to admit when I'm wrong. Have a good time in here and be sure not to mess with my memory, it's bad enough as it is.
Sure while the Solder himself wasn’t the big mastermind in his own movie he was still the major threat and provided a great personal conflict between him and Cap. Normally while I’m against characters that have little to no agency in their own story in this case it’s an exception since any self agency he had was striped away by Hydra. Steve’s one time best friend turned into a cold, emotionless killing machine, striped of his memories and free will and replaced with every form of killing known to man made for a fantastic conflict for Cap, trying to save thousands of lives while trying to free the man trapped inside the monster. If his internal conflict wasn’t enough to captivate you his relentless and deadly fighting prowess will certainly do the job. Thankfully Bucky was saved eventually, only for Infinity War to happen, but still whether he’s Bucky Barns, The White Wolf or the Winter Solder he’s a man you don’t want to find his cold Robot hand on your throat.
Ok now why is this guy so high up on the list when when you break it down he's just another asshole in a suit like he rest of the Iron Man villains. Well aside from the awesome costume I feel that there's more of a personal antagonistic connection between Darren Cross and Scott Lang compared to the previous examples. While Scott was personally trained and earned the trust of Hank Pym Cross on the other hand may have been taught by the man he was basically seen as the failed son due to a combination of Hanks ego and the lost of his wife Janet causing him endless grief. The result was a man who had absolutely no scruples in selling this dangerous technology to the highest bidder, in this case being remnants of Hydra. I kind of see the relationship between Cross and Lang in a similar vain of Gene and Big Boss in Portable Ops, both were in someway shaped and influenced by The Boss but where one has actually earned the respect of their mentor all the other inherited was a hollow shell of a legacy.
On paper this guy is a genuine threat. An AI granted sentience and consciousness via the Mind Stone having the persona of Tony Stark, full access to all information on the internet and able to transfer his consciousness to any Wi-Fi signal on the planet, all wrapped up in a super powerful metal body with a God Complex, odd daddy issues and a pretentious comeback to any argument you can label against him. That's not even taking the fact that he's also a one man army and an army of one since he can control multiple bodies simultaneously and even transfer his consciousness into them when his main body is too damaged. This guy nearly managed to destroy the entire earth and even though he ultimately failed he set the stage for the events that would tear the Avengers apart. Now if that doesn't make an interesting villain I don't know what to tell you.
Now aside from the aesthetics and design of the Vulture suit; which are still awesome there's some things about this incarnation of Adrian Tombs that I really do like. For one thing this isn't just some asshole billionare with delusions of grandure or a powerful alien with a god complex and a magic stone, he and his crew were just a bunch of blue-collar Joes trying to put food on the table whose operation just kept getting more and more out of control. Trying to make a living is one thing, but reverse engineering alien technology and selling these weapons to criminals, yeah a few sparks is all it takes to set the whole forest ablaze. This coupled with the charismatically threatening performance of Micheal Keaton makes this version of the Vulture one of the highlights of an otherwise ok Marvel movie. I doubt that this is the end of the Vulture however considering the ending and loose plot threads of Spider-Man Homecoming maybe he'll be back for an actual Sinister Six movie.
First of all I was honestly surprised that Marvel even could use the this guy in GOTG Vol 2 in the first place considering the then rights issues between Marvel and Fox who owned the Fantastic Four movie rights which Ego fell under at the time. But what they came up with when all those issues were cleared up was worth the headaches in the end. Diverging from his comic book counter part this Ego is the father of Starlord and planed to terraform several planets into versions of himself to satiate his loneliness and the key to all of this is with the power of another being like himself, thus he tried to create many children but they were incompatible with his power, all except for Peter Quill. I mean that alone would make him a sizable threat, a monster who was this close to destroying most of the galaxy but what really places him here was that he was the one who gave Peter's mom the Cancer that killed her. I believe that Peter's real daddy said it best about him, "That guy was a jackass!"
"An empire toppled by its enemies can rise again, but one that crumbles from within, that's dead, forever." This one sentence sums up the impact, motivations and menace that drives this former Sokovian solder. After Ultron launched his attack on Sokovia he thought that his family would be safe, at least until he found their bodies, and where were the Avengers? He knew he could never out power Earth's mightiest heroes, so he waited until the time was right, acquired all the pieces he would need, set up Cap's best friend Bucky for the murder of King T'Chaka and just sat back and watched them tear each other to pieces. Zemo might not have been the most powerful or the most cunning villain, but he did what no other villain could do, he broke the Avengers.
#3 Loki from.. just Loki
What else is there to say about Loki? He was the break out villain of the MCU and Tom Hiddleston brought this petulant, mad trickster god to life. From his first appearance in Thor where he was the well meaning but misguided prince of Asgard to the would be despot of the first Avengers movie Loki was the one who drew those butts to those seats. Much like the God Dan Kuroto Loki started off as pretty standard bad guy and while he can come off as scheming and mad he mostly became the focus of really good comedy. Though considering what happened in Infinity War I doubt he'll be making any more mischief for the Avengers; for for the trickster god that made the MCU we have one thing to say.
If you haven't noticed with this list most of the top ones are characters that I can empathize with or detest the most. The former were misguided but you could see how their circumstances lead them to become the antagonists that made our heroes lives that much worse while the later is often too big of a threat to just ignore. These two views can't be intersected more than with Erik Stevens Aka Killmonger. Born the son of Wakandan Prince N'Jobu Erik having lost both of his parents; plans to continue his father's plan by taking over Wakanda to conquer the world by giving their advanced weapons technology to oppressed Black people all over the world, leading to his own brand of conquest, violent revolution and vengeance. While his grievances against both Wakanda and the western world is more than justified; he plans to just continue the cycle of death and madness just with a different hand on the trigger.
I also have a good rule for villains, any standard villain can easily oppose the values of the protagonist but a great villain is also one that the hero can learn from. If not as a cautionary tale but by acknowledging that while their cause is justified their actions or motivations are just as abominable as the ones they're trying to oppose. T'Challa by fighting and learning of the plight of Killmonger knows that Wakanda can do real good for all the people of the world, not just for those of African descent. Of course this would be for nothing without the excellent acting of Michael B. Jordon, this coupled with the upcoming Creed 2 means that yes, we can let him off the hook for Fant4stic. I could go on but if I did I'd just be plagiarizing Wisecrack so I'll just cut out the middle man and point you to their video on why Killmonger is the best villain since Heath Ledger's Joker.
Here we are at last, the absolute best villain of the MCU, Thanos the Mad Titan. Now while Killmonger is the most empathetic and understandable Thanos not only has the same empathy and understanding behind his actions, he also has the power to not only make things hard on earth but the entire universe. Now like everyone I got more than annoyed when for all of his talk Thanos just did little over the course of the MCU past Avengers. Sure he may have backed Ronan and Loki but other then that he really didn't have that much of a direct presence. But as soon as he got his big purple ass off of that chair and we saw him hovering over the Asgardian escape vessel that was when we knew that he was here to play, and he came to win!
Just like Killmonger Thanos' actions while abominable are actually understandable and most horrifyingly, logical. Having seen his home planet of Titan destroyed by overpopulation Thanos made it his goal to insure that no planet had to suffer that same fate, by wiping out half of the populations of the planets he conquered to save them from themselves. However he eventually realized that going planet by planet wasn't enough so he sought the Infinity Stones to wipe out half of the sentient life in the universe. The worst thing about this is that he succeeded, but not without cost, for him to get the final Infinity Stone he had to kill the one person he truly cared about, Gamora.
Now I know that eventually this outcome will be undone because how could Spider-Man have a sequel if he's a pile of dust; but when we were watching this movie and we saw Thanos snap those fingers all we could think about was "Mr Stark, I don't feel so good." What really sold me on this version of Thanos aside from the scene were he acquired the Soul Stone was the last scene where Thanos sat down on that porch on that farm and had that look on his face that said "I did it". To be honest only one other movie has made me feel this way and hit me that hard watching a villain take this somber victory was when Homura was taunting Sayaka at the end of Madoka Magica Rebellion. Both Thanos and Homura overcame terrible hardships, made unconscionable decisions, gave up everything that they cherished all to achieve their goals, for Thanos to save the Universe, for Homura, to give the one person she loved a chance to be happy, the price was the uprooting and destruction of everything.
Thankfully they changed his motivations from his original comic book incarnation. Where there he was a nihilist who literally wanted to court Death only to fail and be upstaged by a murderous Canadian tumor. Here, he's fully aware of how monstrous his actions are but feels that it's his duty to cary out this horrible task, even if he's only remembered as a demon. That kind of conviction coupled with his goals actually being based on something that happened to him and not just some hypothesis or theoretical outcome not only justifies his crusade but actually gives him a sympathetic perspective as he genuinely hates himself for killing Gamora to acquire the Soul Stone. Of course he's nothing without the acting of Josh Brolin, his acting coupled with the brilliant script makes a giant purple emo into a powerful, terrifying and nuanced character, in a word, Fantastic.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support. Captain America The Winter Soldier is owned by Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company. Based on the character created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Ant-Man is owned by Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures. Based off the comic book character created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby.
Avengers Age of Ultron is owned by Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures and is written by Joss Weadon. Based off the Characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Spider-Man: Homecoming is owned by Sony Pictures Releasing, Marvel Studios, Pascal Pictures and Colombia Pictures Guardians of the Galaxy is owned by Marvel Studios and Walt Disney Motion picture studios based off "Guardians of the Galaxy" created by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. Captain America Civil War is owned by The Walt Disney Company, Marvel Studios and is based on the Comic "Civil War" Written by Mark Millar Marvel's The Avengers is owned by Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Joss Whedon and Kevin Feige. Based off the comic by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.
One Piece is owned by Eiichiro Oda, Toei Animation, and Viz Media
None Piece is owned by PurpleeyesWTF.
Black Panther is owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Marvel Studios and Ryan Coogler. Based off the character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby Avengers: Infinity War is owned by Walt Disney Studios motion Pictures and Marvel Studios Based off the original comics Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Sorry this one came out so late, lots of factors this time, chief among them being the subs not being up at their usual time. Maybe I should just go for the HD instead of waiting for the 720p versions. On to my Streams I keep having the same damn problem with my internet connection. I don't know maybe it's the Wi-Fi or the upload speed I have no clue. I swear I might just have to directly connect my PS4 to the broadband thing at this rate.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Alright we're now finished with the main worlds and once we head back to Twilight Town we can get started on the endgame content. Though first we take care of the last of the Absent Silhouettes littered around the worlds. Next we clear out the Ghosts in the Pride Land, because that's a thing apparently. After we finally wrap up Atlantica we head back to Hollow Bastion to clear out their Bugster problem. So now that Moses and Shockwave are derezzed we head back to Twilight Town, explore the underground and finally head back into the Matrix to stop Organization XIII.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix, Disney Interactive Studios, Tetsuya Nomura, and Shinji Hashimoto.
Finally done with Mega Man 11 until the DLC shows up. Now we can finally get back to recapping Kingdom Hearts 2. So where we last left off we had the best part of the game, now it's back to the worlds dealing with the Organizations nonsense. We also see old enemies return from the first game. But we also have to deal with Atlantica again, goody.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix, Disney Interactive Studios, Tetsuya Nomura, and Shinji Hashimoto.
All of these bad guys, yet we all know that the only ones everyone talks about is Thanos and Loki.
Alright ghosts and ghouls, time for another installment of my 10th anniversary coverage of the MCU. To wrap up my coverage of the MCU for this year I've decided to take a look at the villains that Earths Mightiest Heroes have fought. Now there will be some stipulations here as always. First, only one spot on this list per movie meaning that a villain can only have one spot if they've made multiple appearances so Loki won't be counted twice because he was the main villain in both Thor and Avengers. Second, main villains only, the big bad, the mastermind the final fight of the movie only, so if a movie has multiple villains it only goes to the big boss.
Third I'm strictly looking at the movies only so no Kingpin (sadly), no Cottonmouth, no Kilgrave, no Hand (thankfully) and nobody from Agents of S.H.I.L.E.D, Inhumans, Agent Carter you get the drill. So enough stalling here's what I consider the biggest bad of the MCU starting off with what I consider the worst of the bunch.
Now who was surprised to see this pointy eared plank of wood on the list so early? Nobody that's who and speaking of surprises the lowest ranked villain on my list came from the lowest reviewed and received movie in the franchise, now who could have seen that coming? We've seen guys like Malekith 1000 times before, the ancient nihilistic monster who sees life as a blight on the universe and wishes to restore the universe to it's dull, empty lifeless splendor and oh my god I'm getting bored just remembering this crap. Now that's not to say this type of villain can't work, I mean it can with the right kind of menace and personality behind it, the Anti-Spiral from Gurren Lagann and the Black Lanterns immediately come to mind. They had the shear scope, drive and overwhelming odds to back up those claims, this dollar store Legolas has just a ship full of dudes, satanic Kool-Aid and a personality so bland and lifeless even Ben Stein is telling him to stop being so boring.
You'd think that an interdiminsional demon with powers beyond human comprehension would make for a compelling final fight. But Disney already has that with Bill Cypher so they had to make due with this thing. Throughout the movie we've heard from his worshipers how badass and powerful he is and how does Steve put this demon down? By coming back every time he crushes him like a grape until he gets so annoyed he agrees to leave. Admittingly it's a very clever way of dealing with a threat like this which is why he's still better then #19 up there but for all the build up to just be a wet fart, come on. Unless he comes back in a sequel or a future Avengers movie we have this big bad demon that was a whole lot of nothing, also looking like Paralax from that god awful Green Lantern movie isn't doing anyone any favors.
That however did us all a lot of favors, thanks Wade.
The first big bad in the MCU and it shows. While it is awesome to see the Dude running around in a giant mech fighting an actually realized live action Iron Man it was still kind of weak. We know that the Iron Monarch suit is just a reversed engineered MK 1 suit and it just reinforces the old adage of "bigger isn't always better" so how did you expect a upgraded hunk of junk would hold up against a suit made by Tony with his full resources at his disposal? I honestly feel kind of bad putting this so low on the list since it was the first big bad of these movies so they didn't even know if there was going to be anymore movies if this didn't do well. But I guess that just goes to show how much better these guys got after this so, yeah fair is fair and if you think I'm wrong then here's the Iron Monger himself to speak on my behalf.
Well it's a Hulk movie so they probably figured that if the hero was a big muscle monster then his perfect match would be another big muscle monster. I mean arguably I could have put General Ross in this spot then this thing but again, rule of the final encounter and all that. But aside from this guy being as developed as putting a block on top of another block we did at least get ourselves a climactic fight scene at the end. Considering the lack of one in the Ang Lee version (which was still fresh on everybody mind when this first came out mind you) we at least got a big lug that the Hulk can check into the smackdown hotel.
At least this ghost doesn't have to repeat her back story every time she shows up, unlike another Ghost themed character I could mention, right Takeru?! Though much like the Abomination I should probably also put Ghost and Bill Foster on this list together since they really were partners in all of this. But Bill tried to stop her when she went too far so no. As for Ghost herself she was another victim of Hank Pym being Hank, when he inadvertently turned her life upside down leading her to be made into a weapon for S.H.I.E.L.D and wanting revenge. Though she was cured of her condition and she and Bill will go and live happily ever after, or at least as close as they can get considering all the horrible stuff they did, also Thanos killing half the universe and all that.
Yes, Whiplash was the true villain in Iron Man 2. What did you want me to put the little tool in the suit on here instead of the cold badass Mickey Rourke with a genius intellect, an army of robot suits and electric whips, what are you stupid?! Though this does break away from the trend of all of Tony's villains in the movies mostly being just assholes in suits it's not going to get much higher on the list. Besides he was the bad guy in the movie where Tony wasn't exactly on his A game so yeah. But a genius intellect, a serious axe to grind with the Stark name for basicly leaving his father to die, this guy could have been a major threat to Tony, if only he wasn't taken down like a chump.
Oh goody another douchebag in a suit, he might be the best from the Iron Man movies but still just another douche in a $200 bag. Though don't get me wrong Killian did make for an interesting twist villain, though his motivation was weak getting snubbed by Tony for a pitch at a New Years party when he could have just scheduled an appointment. This dude was not only the mastermind behind the Mandarin (which I still think is a great way to solve the problem with adapting the Mandarin in the first place) but was also creating super solders to compete with the rising Superhero population, he even became a test subject himself. Which not only cured his paralysis but also gave him enhanced strength and heat powers. It would have been far cooler if the Mandarin really was the real deal MCU Osama Bin Ladin and not just this tool pulling his strings but for what we have it's not that bad.
Our second teasing of the scope of the threat that Thanos and the Infinity Gems represented and he made a fairly decent case. A religious fanatic of the Kree empire; Ronan joined forces with Thanos to destroy the planet of Xandar. But once he found what he was tasked to retrieve Ronan welched on the deal and decided to destroy Xandar himself. So we have a deranged religious fanatic with the power of a god ready to destroy a planet with holy hellfire, that would normally make anyone shit their pants, but if only the guy had an actual personality to go along with the threat he posed. He served his purpose well and we will be seeing him again in Captain Marvel but in his lead villain role he wasn't too bad.
From a guy with the powers of a god to a literal god with a love of blood and death. Hela was the first daughter of Odin and was his second in command in his conquest of the 9 realms. But once he decided that he wanted some image changing he figured his war crazed, conquerer daughter might be a bit of a PR no-no and had her sealed. Like I said in the review of the movie she was one of the prefect personifications of the evils of colonialism, the one who sees nothing more to a kingdom then the land itself, the people, it's culture, who gives a crap all she cared about was conquest and absolute power. More then scary enough on it's own but the fact that it literally took the end of the world to stop her makes her quite the threat to deal with and a worthy final villain for the solo Thor movies.
Yes this is the boarder of villains in the MCU, a literal Nazi is the half way point of compelling villainy on my list. Here we have Johann Schmidt a former high ranking Nazi who figured out that Hitler was chump change compared to his agenda and was basically relegated to a desk job due to being too smart and dangerous for the Nazis liking, so he created his own evil organization with blackjack and hookers. Let me reiterate; we have a guy that the Nazis thought was crazy! He managed to acquire one of the Infinity Gems in the form of the Tesseract and tried to start his own world conquest schemes with his new organization Hydra; but thanks to Captain America we all know how well that turned out, being stuck on a barren planet in the cosmos babysitting another magic rock he can't use until a giant purple man and his green foster daughter showed up to get it leaving him free to do whatever he wants now. Not sure if we'll be seeing more of the Red Skull in any future MCU projects but that remains to be seen.
So here we have the first 9 of the top 19 MCU movie villains, and let me tell you, this was the hardest part of the list to compile. As we go on we have far more interesting villains to talk about which are more compelling then these guys for various reasons. But for the stock, evil for evils sake guys like the first 5 it was a slog just trying to say anything other then falling asleep at the keyboard. But next time like I said we finally get villains that I can really sink my teeth into. So next time I'll have my personal top 9 villains of the MCU movies.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Thor The Dark World is owned by Marvel Studios, produced by Keven Feige based off the comic by Larry Leiber, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Doctor Strange (2016) is owned by Marvel Studios, The Walt Disney Corporation and Scott Derrickson Iron Man is owned by Paramount Studios, Marvel Studios and Fairview Entertainment Based off the original comic by Stan Lee, Larry Leiber, Don Heck and Jack "The King" Kirby. The Big Lebowski is owned by Joel and Ethan Cohen and Working title films. The Incredible Hulk is owned by Paramount Pictures, Marvel Studios based on The Hulk created by Stan Lee and Jack "The King" Kirby Ant-Man and the Wasp is owned by Marvel Studios, Walt Disney Studio Motion Pictures. Based off the comic book characters created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby. Iron Man 2 is owned by Paramount Studios, Marvel Studios and Fairview Entertainment Based off the original comic by Stan Lee, Larry Leiber, Don Heck and Jack "The King" Kirby. Iron Man 3 is owned by Marvel Studios, Written by Shane Black and based off the characters created by Stan Lee, Don Heck, Larry Leiber and Jack Kirby. Guardians of the Galaxy is owned by Marvel Studios and Walt Disney Motion picture studios based off "Guardians of the Galaxy" created by Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning. Thor Ragnarök is owned by Marvel Studios, produced by Keven Feige based off the comic by Larry Leiber, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Captain America The First Avenger is owned by Marvel Studios, Paramount pictures and The Walt Disney Company. Based on the character created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Deadpool 2 is owned by 20th Century Fox, Marvel Entertainment and The Donners' Company Based on Characters created by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Lefeld (Kinda sorta)
I promised you two Tokusatsu V-logs this week and here they are. A little late but better late then never. We also start a new stream of Grim Fandango Remastered. But again I still have my problems with streaming and my absolutely garbage internet connection. Hopefully this will be resolved next week because this is just getting ridiculous.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
So yeah, Mega Man 11 is one of the best games of the year and a great return for the Blue Bomber. Though is it just me or is this like the easiest Wily Castle so far? I mean there was more then a fair share of troubles what with the gear jumps, Yellow Level Mk3 and Wily's new machine is crazy but yeah overall it's not too bad. Now hopefully there'll be some DLC with Protoman or Bass. But you know what would be really awesome, Mega Man X9, hopefully this game's success will get Capcom off their butts and get on that.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Megaman 11 is owned by Capcom, Koji Oda and Kazuhiro Tsuchiya.
Yep here we are with Part 2 of what might be my most controversial list in the history of this blog. So to reignite the fires of anger, here's the link to Part 1 of my list and off we go.
Ghost was a botched mess of a show. While it did have a moderately good opening arc it just kept dragging on the whole 99 days to collect the 15 eyecons to resurrect Takeru arc. Not helped by the Ganma, the villain faction for the series. Not only did we have to wait until the V-Cinema to actually get any backstory for them but before hand their MO was inconsistent between the series and movies. In Movie War Genesis the main bad guy was the Da Vincci Ganma who apparently was the real Da Vincci who turned evil for some reason but its inconsistent with the Advanced Ganma in the main series. Not to mention the designs for them is rather, economical. It’s basically just an advanced Ganma Grunt suit with some parka style alteration, a good inversion to Ghost and Specter’s parka ghosts. But then again maybe if they had a bit more of a budget to work with these issues could have been mediated, but I wonder how that could have been resolved eh?!
Now I’m not expecting complex backstories for every monster faction in Kamen Rider but at least have a consistent one. But with how Ghost was handled we should be grateful that it turned out at least as coherent as it was.
#4 Christabella from the Silent Hill comics.
In the big debate between which 90’s horror video game franchise is the best I’ll always take Silent Hill over Resident Evil any day of the week. That's even in lieu of the unholy bullshit heaped upon the series due to Konami being Konami. When you think of Silent Hill monsters you think of nightmares brought to life, abominations against god, man and everything decent brought forth by an otherworldly force to torment some schlub who just so happened to wander into the titular town. Each of these creatures are manifestations of the twisted and dark psyches of the visitors to the town as either a form of punishment, judgement or what have you. All we do know is that they’re unholy monsters that will not stop until you’re dead. What we don’t think of is an annoying demon girl who thinks that doing her worst impression of the Angry Video Game Nerd is being scary. What we have is Christabella, a reoccurring antagonist in the dreadful Silent Hill comics written by the late Scott Ciencin. Linkara just covered the very last Silent Hill comics written by him so he can give you a general view of his Silent Hill work, in short it’s not good.
Forgoing any of the themes of Silent Hill Christabella is an inconsistent little brat who is either a ghost of a girl who was killed by child molesters or is a shapeshifting demon. Either way she's an overly snarky, annoying, bratty waste of ink who is the complete antithesis of the spirit of Silent Hill. Whatever Scott was going for with this character and his version of the town we’ll never know; so what we’re left with is 11 issues of this stupid demon trying to do, something while dancing around the machinations of her sociopath sorcerer sister Lauren and the even more pointless and annoying not-villain Whately. Also, no she has no relation to the Christabella in the equally bad Silent Hill movie so there, I just saved you more time avoiding bad Silent Hill content. Now if only there was a way to get rid of those Pachinko machines.
#3 The Daleks from Dr Who
No I’m not trolling with this one, I have absolutely no idea how anyone can take these Cycloptic trash cans seriously. Now I have very little exposure to Dr Who and the Daleks in particular. What little I’ve seen is from Nash’s reviews of classic Dr Who which includes such highlights as Daleks in Manhattan, Evolution of the Daleks, Revelation of the Daleks and the two Dr Who movies where the Daleks are portrayed as basically weaponized bumper cars. https://vimeo.com/radiodeadair Anyone who’s seen these episodes or those reviews can see why I can’t take these dumb things seriously. Yes I'm aware that these are apparently supposed to be Nazi allegories but if I wanted that I’d stick to the real deal as Alucard rips them to shreds thank you very much. Oh and I can’t really take these things seriously when I see what they really look like out of the weaponized bumper cars either. I don’t get a feeling of dread and terror I get a feeling of relief that there aren’t any Japanese High school girls nearby as well as annoyance that I don’t have an open grill, olive oil and lemon wedges. To reiterate I’m not a Dr Who fan and I don’t have a vendetta against the show I’m just calling it as I see it. And all I see is the oddest serving of Fried Calamai I’ve ever seen.
#2 Sparkly Pricks (Vampires from Twilight)
Yeah yeah you all knew this was coming, like anyone who has a functioning brain cell I cannot take these glitter ghouls seriously. For the longest time Twilight has tainted the image of the Vampire from a blood sucking demon of the dark who turned his back on God and is cursed to stalk the night, feasting on the blood of innocents to survive to Sploosh material for a horny cougar. Yeah not exactly the best adaptation of the French classic Beauty and the Beast but hey if it makes money who cares? Though granted considering how convoluted the myth of the vampire is there’s plenty of depictions and routes for adaptation. Hell the only other thing in popular media that’s more disconnected from the source material are Ninjas. But there has to be at least some standards. Not to mention these things were so influential they’ve tarnished the image of the vampire in popular culture. For those too young to remember Twilight was everywhere and of course everyone with merchandise, parodies and what have you. If you mentioned vampires you were automatically redirected to Twilight, all the classics, replaced with that tool from the fourth Harry Potter movie. Now werewolves didn’t get off so easily since they got dragged into this BS too but the vampires were the focus and thus got dragged through the mud the most. Especially since the main focus was a boring plank of wood trying to save another plank of wood from getting killed every other second. Whether is was by her own doing, trying to boink a grown up Shark Boy or by being a manipulative psychopath he still wound up with one of the worst types of people you could hope to never come across. At the end of the day Twilight and its author was forgotten and for good reason. It’s a real shame that Toei did better with the concept of the Vampire in Kamen Rider Kiva (which I have no doubt was made that way to cash in on Twilight’s popularity like how they later copied Persona 5 with Lupinranger vs Patranger.) then Stephanie Mayer, just put a steak in this franchise, it’s done.
Now for a list of honorable mentions.
The Robot Masters from Mega Man.
I was going to put them on for the their non threatening appearances, weak powers, not being as intimidating as the Mavericks from Mega Man X and Dr wily being him. But then Mega Man 11 happened and the double gear system made that crop of Robots completely change my opinion of them, especially if Mega Man games following 11 keep up the Double Gear gimmick and make them just as hard to beat.
Monsters from Stephen King
Now King has made some great work as well as hilarious so that’s why I cut him some slack this time. But still there’s plenty I could have chosen. Let’s see we have Tim Curry as a shapeshifting killer clown who likes to troll people, Bill Skarsgård as another shapeshifting killer clown who likes to do crazy dances, killer chocolate rum balls with chainsaw teeth who eat every second of time, killer corn, the Green Goblin’s face on a sentient truck, a modern day flowers for Algernon patient becoming Skynet, rejects from Cats, and to top it all off, Shit weasels.
Space Shogunate Jark Matter from Ucchu Sentai Kyuuranger
Now I never finished Kyuuranger thus why this villain faction didn’t make it on the list. But from what I can tell it was just a random mishmash of aliens lead by a dumbass immortal who got beaten by a group of dumbasses lead by the worst Red Ranger in Sentai to date.
Majin Buu from Dragonball
He’s a giant pink man child who turns people into candy with it’s antenna thing that quite frankly should be censored. He did get more dangerous when he regressed back to Kid Buu but the big pink bubble gum Jinn is still around and you can tell that Toriyama wanted to end Dragonball Z with Cell because it really does show here. But now all that leaves us is my #1 pick.
#1 Any monster by M. Night Shyamalan
Yes of all the monsters I’ve gone over are debatable and up to everyone’s own personal standards. What’s scary for some people might be silly for others that’s totally understandable. But for the life of me I cannot think of anyone who was truly scarred of any of the monsters created by M Night Shyamalan. From the dumbass Aliens from Signs, the killer tree farts from the Happening to the, whatever it was in Lady in the water, the dumbest depiction of the lord of lies in Devil to the monsters from After Earth who were killed by a guy named Cypher Raige. Whenever Shyamalan tries to go off the beaten path he just winds up going off the rails. I’ll tell you how they’re just so dumb in their own unique ways going in the order I just listed. In Signs it turns out the aliens are weak to wood and water is like acid to them. So why in the name of Jesus Paint huffing Christ did they try to invade a planet that is mostly wood and water?! Also focusing on Mel Gibson and his farm instead of major government capitals? You know you’re dumb when the aliens from Mars attacks are doing more logical military moves then you. On to the trees from the Happening, apparently they can somehow make people decide to kill themselves in over the top fashion because of, reasons that make Birdemic look like a nature documentary. I mean at least Bridemic give a cause for their stupidity, this is just becausethe plot said so! Also Devil taught us that if you drop a piece of toast and it lands Jellyside down, you’re under the light of the Morningstar, uh huh. The lore behind the whatever they are in Lady in the Water is so convoluted and ridiculous it only could have come from the mouth of sheer, unfiltered, Kishin grade madness. As for the monsters that can only hunt by a person’s fear in After Earth, they were killed by a guy named Cypher Raige, need I say more?!
I know that Shyamalan has been making a come back with the Visit, Split and the soon to be released Glass but we can never forget the many, many time we took a look at his body of work and just asked “what was this guy on?!” So that’s it for the top 10 monsters in in fiction that I can’t take seriously. Any thing I overlooked, got wrong or just didn’t get? Then leave a comment as we wait for next time where we cover my personal list of villains of the MCU to cap off the 10 year anniversary.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support. Kamen Rider is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Silent Hill is owned by Konami Computer Entertainment #FucKonami Doctor Who is Owned by BBC, Sydney Newman, C.E. Webber and Donald Wilson. Twilight is owned by Stephanie Meyer Megaman is owned by Capcom. Super Sentai is owned by Ishinomori Productions, Toei Productions, and Bandai. Dragon Ball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT and Dragonball Super is owned by Funnimation, Toei animation, Fuji TV and Akira Toriyama.
Hey, yeah sorry there's no V-Log of Zi-o and Lupinranger Vs Patranger for this week. Yeah due to circumstances beyond my control I haven't been able to record today. But I will record a V-log later this week and make it a double feature for next Saturday's post. Besides how could I talk about a somewhat decent Super Sentai series and a Kamen Rider series written by a complete troll when I have seen the face of GOD!? Yes I played the demo of Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise and let me tell you, get it now or Kenshiro will blow you to pieces! Seriously folks, I haven't had this much fun with a demo of a game since Doom 2016, only this time I will put this sucker on my Christmas list!
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise is owned by Sega, Nobuhiro Suzuki and Jun Orihara based off of the Manga Fist of the North Star written by Buronson.
Here we are with the last of the new Robot Masters. I have to admit, having played all of the stages I find Bounce Man's stage to be my favorite design wise. Mostly because it's a giant bouncy castle and the music just makes the whole thing just good old fashioned fun, even if it does borrow a bit from Spring Man's level design. And of all the Robot Master weapons I find the Tundra Storm to be my personal favorites, have to give it up for the Screen Nukes. Now all that's left is Wily's Gear Fortress and the best music of the game.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Megaman 11 is owned by Capcom, Koji Oda and Kazuhiro Tsuchiya.
Yep ghosts and ghouls it’s that time of the year again for monster malarkey. Last year I talked about some of my favorite monsters, from their designs to the personalities and backstories I just loved most of them. Now this year is where I go the polar opposite, and let me tell you this is going to be the hardest list. Mostly due to me not really encountering a whole lot of monsters that really bore me or I honestly just point and laugh at. Like last year, one monster per franchise, have to have actually seen them and state why I find them so hard to take seriously.
#10 Chucky from Childs Play
I believe that everyone is familiar with the possessed toy idea. It’s a good one when done right but in the case of Charles Lee Ray it tends to vary depending on what movie he’s in. Charles is a serial killer who just so happens to be a practitioner of Voodoo (not real voodoo but just roll with it.) One night he gets shot by a cop and his only chance of survival is to transfer his soul into a nearby doll. But he wants a real body so throughout the series he plans to transfer his soul into a new human body so he can resume his spree. The first movie was just fine but as it went on things just got more and more ridiculous to the point where you can’t take him seriously at all. I mean when you show up on WWE, you know any real credibility is flushed down the crapper. I believe that everyone that hasn’t checked out of this franchise with Bride of Chucky, they would have with Seed of Chucky. Some horror franchises have the potential to last a long time. But for Chucky the killer doll I believe that once was more then enough, so yes I did just fuck with the chuck and what’s he gonna do about it?
Yeah that's what I thought.
#9 Necron from FF9
For those who don’t know I’m not the biggest fan of Final Fantasy. I’ve played a few of them and they’re just not for me. But the one I can definitely claim to be my favorite is undoubtedly Final Fantasy 9. With the technical innovation of the PS1 era engine combined with a classic, uncomplicated story, fantastical setting, likable characters and solid (but too easy and some what BS; looking at you Trance system) combat system it’s an underrated classic of the series. However the final boss, for me is the crack in the otherwise finely crafted gem of a game.
So far the major villain is Kuja, the fabulous homunculus who has been trying to destroy both the worlds of Terra and Gaia in an act of spiteful and mad vengeance against the wishes of his creator Garland. Zidane and his party manage to reach him and defeat him but it’s not the end. Suddenly this flying blue monster comes right out of nowhere and is all like “hey I’m the final boss now, deal with it!” We have absolutely no idea where this guy came from, what his motivations are, nothing is established about him or what he’s even here for. It’s like he just came in from a completely different game just to mess up this one.
Say what you will about Yu Yevon from FF 10 in terms of being a final boss and believe me there's a lot to say how much of a horrible final boss it is. But at least Yu Yevon was established and has actual relevance to the story of FF 10. Necron on the other hand literally comes out of nowhere. It’s not enough to ruin FF9 for be but Necron was basically the final boss version of a big lipped alligator moment.
#8 Dream Eaters from Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance
Yet another enemy type for Kingdom Hearts that aren’t Heartless because the design, Nomura and plot said so. Say what you will about the Nobodies and the Unversed but at least they had plot relevance to their games. The Nobodies are the leftover Body and Soul left behind when strong person’s heart becomes a Heartless and the Unversed are the manifestation of Vanitas’ negative emotions (for the most part, looking at you Symphony Master, Cursed Coach and Spirit of the Magic Mirror.) But the Dream Eaters only serve as party members and enemies for Sora and Riku to respectively party with and fight during their mark of mastery exam in the dream worlds. Apparently they’re just the manifestations of Darkness in the sleeping worlds since they’re cut off from all outside channels, apparently not even the Heartless can get into them, ignoring that we encounter Ansem, Xemnas and Xigbar during our time there but whatever.
I mean yeah the Spirit Dream Eaters are necessary to party with and unlock new abilities. But aside from that and being cute little battle brothers they’re just a gimmick to take advantage of the 3DS and PS4’s touch screen controls and that’s about it. Plot wise the Nightmares don’t even do anything different that couldn’t have been filled by a Heartless. Let’s see, the Heartless were gathering hearts to create Kingdom Hearts for Xehanort’s incarnations, the Nobodies serve Organization XIII to gain hearts of their own and the Unversed were used by Vanitas to lure Ven, Terra and Aqua away, make Terra and Ven stronger for their eventual parts in Xehanort’s plan and are extensions of Vanitas himself. The Dream Eaters have nothing in terms of plot relevancy, just glorified Pokémon knockoffs and that’s it, sorry little dudes you're cute and all, but that's about it see you in Kingdom Hearts 3.
#7 The Mummy (2017)
These days cinematic universes are the big gimmick that Hollywood wants to cash in on. Aside from the MCU that took several years of planing, preparation and let’s face it prayer before they got Iron Man out the door, everyone else who tried this formula rushed it out the door or assigned the absolute wrong person to set the tone for their universes and the results were complete disasters. The Mummy was the result of the former instead of the latter. Universal tried to revive the original cinematic universe with the classic movie monsters. Their first and last attempt was a second reboot of the Mummy and you know it's a bad movie when I can take the series with The Rock as a CGI scorpion monster more seriously. Now say what you will about the Brendan Fraser series but it seemed to be more focused on being an action movie and doing its own thing instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. 2017 Mummy was them trying to reinvent the wheel and they wound up with a triangle. Nothing about this Mummy makes sense, from her origin, her powers, her weaknesses, motivation nothing adds up, if you try to apply the mythological inspiration or either of the previous movie incarnations, nothing adds up either. It honestly feels like they lost the original plot and instead decided to make an even worse version of Enchantress from Suicide Squad. Universals shareholders were promised their own MCU and the result was Tom Cruse with ambiguous superpowers and a zombie best buddy, enough said.
#6 Harvest #3 from DC Comics
What a horrible waste of a good character design. I wasn’t reading Teen Titans during their New 52 iteration but thanks to Linkara’s massive review of the Crossover event “The Culling” we were all introduced to the dumbass known only as Harvest. While he did have a good look his actions and backstory are what landed this idiot on the list. Apparently he was a Colonel from the future who fought in a war against Metahumans. So he decided to go back in time to eliminate Metahumans, he decided to do this by kidnapping superpowered Teenagers, have them fight to the death and recruit the winners to his team. Now this is stupid for many reasons, the most pertinent of which is that why would anyone agree to work with this idiot? See when Blackbeard from One Piece did this with the Level 6 Impel Down prisoners, he wanted the strongest of the worst criminals in the world to join his crew and help him takedown Whitebeard. They were all criminals with life sentences doomed to be erased from history due to their crimes and were just as sick and depraved as he is so it makes sense why the prisoners would want to join him, not so for Teenagers who were kidnapped, forced to live in hellish conditions where they had to fight to the death for the recruiting process of the dumbass who put them there in the first place! Also when the heroes eventually fought him he kept rambling on about how he was actually a good guy for doing all of this. Which was elaborated after the Culling, too little too late, but don’t worry apparently even when his entire operation was falling apart around him is was all according to cake.
Even with all of the events that he couldn’t have possibly accounted for, had future knowledge or was even there for it was all part of his master plan. See when Master Xehanort did this schtick he only did it relatively sparingly and you could see how he could have planed everything out in his favor, but when Harvest does it he doesn’t come off as this grand Machiavellian schemer, he just seems like a dumbass over his head playing spin doctor! Also saving the future by kidnapping and torturing teenagers, now does that sound like a hero to you? If not then I justhave one question.
Special thanks to my Patreon backer Jesse for his support.
Childs Play is owned by United Artists, MGM/UA Communications Co Final Fantasy 9 is owned by Square, Hironobu Sakaguchi and Hiroyuki Ito. Nostalgia Critic is owned by Doug Walker and Channel Awesome.
Kingdom Hearts is owned by Square Enix, Disney Interactive Studios, Tetsuya Nomura, and Shinji Hashimoto. The Mummy (2017) is owned by Universal Pictures, Perfect World Pictures, K/O Paper Products and Sean Daniel Company Harvest is owned by Scott Lobdell and Brett Booth
Dragon Ball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT and Dragonball Super is owned by Funnimation, Toei animation, Fuji TV and Akira Toriyama.
Dragon ball Z abridged is owned by Team Four Star.
Yugioh is owned by Konami, Kazuki Takahashi, Toei Animation, Shonen Jump and Viz Media. (#FucKonami)
Yugioh Abridged is owned by Little Kuriboh (Martin Piers Billany)
