More specifically, a personal attack on one of their archenemies. There have always been cases of loved ones, children, friends being kidnapped, but generally, that all comes out gravy in the end. But every now and then, a villain does something incredibly haneous and vicious to a hero, so I’m curious as to what you think is the worst. (Spoilers to follow, of course)
Personally, my favorite comes from an issue of The Authority. There’s a character named “The Doctor” who has the ability to control reality and do, well, whatever the hell they want to, essentially. There’s generally only one, but in one storyline, the current Doctor had to grant a “retired” Doctor his powers back in order to save the world…then the team had to kick his ass. The best “attack” he pulled off was to go back in time to when one of the heroes was a small child in boarding school, and molested her. She immediately went into shock and retreated mentally at being face to face once “again” with her attacker. Just the sheer mindfuck of that is such a cruel and horribly thing to do…and truly genius for a villain.
I think that comic book writers are getting a more and more evil imagination as time goes on, because the most cruel two attacks I can think of come from comic books published within the past year:
Doctor Doom sending Franklin Richards to Hell during the Fantastic Four “Unthinkable” story.
Darkseid murdering Superman’s second wife, Beautiful Dreamer, in a very “in-your-face” manner in Generations III # 10. Darkseid killed two of Superman’s children before that, but he was being attacked by them. His murder of Beautiful Dreamer was calculated for emotional effect on Superman.
I second the shooting of Barbara Gordon, but must point out that he didn’t just shoot her. He shot her (paralyzing her, btw), stripped her naked, and photographed her.
He then stripped her father naked and made him go through a carnival ride displaying said pictures while he was tormented by midgets. All in an attempt to drive Commissoner Gordon mad to prove a point to Batman.
To Barbara, that’s the cruelest part. The crippling attack on her was two steps removed from the Joker’s actual goal. It wasn’t like she was shot in the line of duty as Batgirl or anything.
Another vote for The Killing Joke, which is one of the best Batman books ever.
If the stories are true, Keyser Soze had a pretty good start – killed his own family so as not to see them raped and tortured, then hunted down every living relative of each of the perpetrators and paid them back over a period of years.
In the third (fourth?) season of Angel, Holtz (whose family were all killed by the vampire Angelus) returns to the 21st century, and sets up an extremely devilish game of sealed envelopes, pawns, and murders, using his own death as the capstone on the plan. Angel ends up betrayed by his own son and sealed in a steel box at the bottom of the ocean. Unable to breathe, eat, speak… or die.
Angel, in the second season of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, when he kills Jenny Calender and leaves her body in Giles’ bed, and then sets it up like Jenny had dropped by for a little romance. The expression on his face when he goes to look for her in the bedroom and finds her corpse was heartbreaking.
'Course, then Giles catches up to Angel and beats on him with a flaming baseball bat, which was very satisfying to watch.
One of the Norman Osbornes ('can’t remember if it was Sr. or Jr.) engineered the stillbirth of Peter Parker and Mary Jane’s unborn daughter.
Although, now that I think about it, I seem to remember that the comic’s writer had set it up to imply that Osborne had kidnapped the baby, leaving Peter and Mary to think she was dead. Wether that’s better or worse, it was never really followed up on, so I think she’s supposed to be “officially” dead, now. Poor thing.
I agree on “The Killing Joke.” At least The Joker was able to maintain a sense of humor about it – during No Man’s Land (a couple years ago), Gordon got the drop on Joker after he (Joker) had murdered Gordon’s second wife (Sarah Essen). It looked for a moment like Gordon was going to kill The Joker in cold blood, but instead he blew out his knee. Joker’s reaction: “What? Oh, I get it – just like your daughter! HAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Yeah, but I wouldn’t characterize that as cruel either. Emotionally wrenching? Yes. But Master Pandemonium wished Vision and Scarlet Witch no ill will…he just wanted the rest of his soul back. I don’t think that it qualifies as an act of cruelty if it was done without malice.
And I’ll add my vote to the “Killing Joke” list - I can’t believe I forgot about that.
Yup, you pretty much nailed the badness of it, Menocchio - that’s why it came to mind first. I guess I am surprised that it is holding up as one of the most cruel - simply because I have been out of comic reading for years, and with the more adult slant of a bunch of work, thought newer stuff would be more intense.
Guess Mr. Moore remains the best at what he does…
But nothing from Neil Gaiman or other top writers?
I vote for Mad Max, where the biker gang murders his wife AND his baby. That really bothered me when I first saw it at the age of about 9. (What the hell were my parents doing letting me watch Mad Max at 9 years old???) I still think those guys got off too lightly. Well . . . except the guy who had to saw his own leg off. That was pretty intense.
And as far as attacks directly on the hero as opposed to his/her loved ones, I’d rank Murphy’s “death” in Robocop pretty high up on the vicious scale. And I always thought it was particularly evil of Goldfinger to set that laser headed toward Bond’s family jewels. I don’t care how cool 007 is, you know he was on the verge of pissing himself there.
Minor nitpick…I think it was his hand, not leg. (Just the thought of that scene still gives me the willies.)
I was always impressed by the scene in “The Lion King” where Scar makes young Simba think he’s responsible for his dad’s death. Lying to little kids to make them feel responsible for a murder you committed, to make them feel so bad that they run away from home, just to achieve your own political ends…that’s pretty evil for a Disney flick.
