"This is the way I want all prisoners treated in my command! Colonel Jun's soldiers will not take prisoners!"
"I'll teach you to violate my person... To dare touch me with your crawly hands! I'll let your carcasses rot in the sun... Now get back to work, you swine! Or you'll all rot in the sun with them!"
— Señor Pedro Tobosa, Tales from the Crypt issue #42's "The Bath"
EC Comics, as well as related adaptations, combine horror and comedy, but aren't so comedic as to lack some truly vile villains.
All spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!
open/close all folders
Comic Books
Examples
- Crime SuspenStories issue #25's "Dog Food": Lester Hoag is the depraved head guard of a prison labor camp, who uses this position to indulge his cruel, sadistic tendencies. Hoag regularly subjects the inmates to physical and psychological torture, surrounding his courtyard with vicious guard dogs that Lester starves into a bloodthirsty craze. Hoag deliberately leaves the front gate unlocked so he can enjoy watching any prisoner trying to escape be torn to shreds. When one man is left barely alive after a mauling, Hoag splays his dying body out in the courtyard to break the prisoners' spirits. When he catches onto an inmate's plan to distract the dogs with meat and take revenge for his friend's death, Hoag sabotages his escape route, taking glee in the thought of the man being torn apart.
- Shock SuspenStories issue #16's "A Kind of Justice": Sheriff Judson is a corrupt small-town cop who rapes 16-year-old Shirley, telling her that any attempt to inform anyone will be her death. When Shirley's father presses the issue, Judson frames a drifter named Nichols and subjects him to psychological and physical torture, something it's implied is regular for him, to force a confession that he uses to give Nichols to an angry mob for a painful death just before he repeats his threats to Shirley with the strong suggestion his behaviors will continue.
- Tales from the Crypt issue #42's "The Bath": Señor Pedro Tobosa is the greedy owner of a South American silver mine, whose prime hobbies consist of horrifically brutalizing his workers and bathing constantly to relieve himself of their "filth". Viewing the people under him as lowly, diseased vermin, Tobosa would force them to mine in horrific conditions, personally whipping the starving workers for requesting food and water, and at one point ordered a man to have his mouth sewn shut for coughing in Tobosa's presence. When he and his men raid a village for more workers, Tobosa drafts a young boy to the mines, despite his parents' pleas. He then takes special pleasure in whipping the child and ultimately causes his death. Tobosa brushes off the boy as a weakling and later guns down his grieving parents when they attack him in revenge, simply for getting his clothes dirty. He then orders their bodies to be left in the sun to rot out of spite.
- Two-Fisted Tales:
- Issue #18's "Conquest": Juan Alvarado is a brutal conquistador obsessed with enriching himself and gaining glory in the Kingdom of Spain. Traveling to the shores of Mexico, Alvarado wastes no time bombarding an innocent village of natives before slaughtering his way into their capital city. Upon the King refusing to submit and spitting in his face, Alvarado murders him on the spot, intending to take all they have and murder whoever tries to resist him.
- Issue #20's "Massacred!": Colonel Jun is a heartless North Korean officer with no regard for human rights, having a squadron of surrendering American soldiers denied amnesty and massacred by his men. Jun not only encourages but insists that his troops Take No Prisoners and kill everyone they come across. Jun earns his Karmic Death when oblivious soldiers on his own orders massacre Jun after he dresses up in the uniform of the very Americans he butchered.
- The Vault of Horror issue #18's "Dying to Lose Weight!": Dr. Perdo is a Traveling Salesman who arrives in town with what he claims is a miracle pill that can cure obesity. After selling it to four overweight citizens for a large price, the pills initially seems to work and significantly improves their social lives, only for them to waste away and die from massive weight loss. It's soon discovered that these "pills" are actually mutant-tapeworm eggs, which when hatched would slowly eat away at the consumer's insides, one of whom was a teenage girl. Perdo showed no remorse for the lives he destroyed, and shortly after this truth came to light, tried to skip town with the money he had made from his customers' deaths.
- Weird Fantasy issue #14(2)'s "Atom Bomb Thief!": Paul Arnold and his equally corrupt accomplice Karl are a greedy duo seeking to profit from selling military secrets. Boarding a plane across the Pacific Ocean with the stolen blueprints for an atomic bomb, the two plan to auction off the data to paranoid nations for a high price, both men cheerfully indifferent to the potential death and devastation that will ensue. Karl later attempts to betray and murder Paul so he can keep the fortune for himself, and when their plane crashes, Paul in turn leaves Karl to drown and be eaten by a shark while he escapes with the plans.
- Weird Science:
- Issue #15(4)'s "The Radioactive Child!": President Benito Perez, dictator of Argenta, desires to rule the world and discovers Pedro, an orphan boy with superhuman intelligence from nuclear fallout. Using the child's gifts to enrich his armies and resources, Perez wages a brutal war across South America, leaving hundreds dead in his bid to take over the world, and gleefully announces his plan to bomb the United Nations to cinders when they take military action against Argenta. When Pedro refuses to give up the formula for a hydrogen bomb, Perez flies into a rage and tries to beat the truth out of him.
- Issue #20's "50 Girls 50": Sid, while seeming an unassuming charismatic technician, is truthfully a simple yet selfish, misogynistic sociopath. Selected to be one of 100 colonists placed into suspended animation for 100 years, Sid altered his own D-F Unit causing him to wake up after only two years, so that he could live his fantasy of having as many women as he desired for the rest of his life. Upon waking up, Sid murdered the 49 other male colonists, and awoke his first victim Laura Masters. Tricking her into believing they were both victims of malfunctioning units, Sid comforted and seduced Laura, playing the caring lover for a year until growing tired of her he revealed the truth, taking sadistic glee in Laura's realisation he had stolen her entire life, then forcing the conscious but paralysed Laura back into the D-F Unit and slowly freezing her to death. Sid then went to awaken his next victim, planning to repeat the process of enjoying one woman a year before murdering her until he died of old age.
Tales from the Crypt
Examples
- "Television Terror": Ada Ritter was a seemingly kind caretaker of the elderly, but hid a depraved bloodlust and greed beneath her harmless appearance. She would use her boarding house to lure in old folks and murder them with knives or other ghastly methods, before dismembering and hiding their bodies so that she could collect their social security checks. Ada killed at least a dozen men in life, and even after dying, she continues to haunt her boarding house, where she brutally maims and kills the visiting television host Horton Rivers and his cameraman.
- "Undertaking Palor": Sebastian Esbrook is the crooked mortician of a small town who conspires with the local pharmacist, Mr. Grundy, to murder town residents by poisoning them while they split the proceeds from the funerals. Esbrook murders a woman who previously rejected him, assisting in multiple poisonings before turning on and killing Grundy via acid poured down his throat before attempting to murder the teenage boys caught filming him.
- "Mournin' Mess": Mr. Copard is the founder of the Grateful Homeless Outcasts and Unwanted Layaway Society, or the Grateful Homeless Society for short. Copard purports to help the homeless find resting places after their deaths. In truth, Copard is the mastermind behind a vicious rash of homeless killings—including of one who knows too much—to steal away their butchered cadavers for one purpose: meat. Copard and the others in the Grateful Homeless are secretly ravenous, sadistic ghouls with a Cannibal Larder full of dozens of half-eaten hobos; when episode protagonist Dale Sweeney finds out, Copard ends the episode having the ghouls converge on him while helping himself to a piece of the man's ear.
- "None but the Lonely Heart": Howard Prince is a charming man who courts rich older women and poisons them after they marry. Introduced callously murdering Matilda Mason, Howard learns he and his partner, Morty, are due in court for tax evasion, so targets Effie Gluckman. While wooing Effie, Howard starts receiving letters telling him to end his crime spree, causing him to grow paranoid and kill Morty, his unknowing accomplice Baxter, and Effie's butler, Stanhope. After killing Effie by throwing her down the stairs, Howard is contacted by the local gravedigger, who Howard kills by impaling him with his shovel when he believes he is the one blackmailing him.
- "What's Cookin'": Gaston is in truth a Serial Killer who has murdered people in other states before arriving at Fred and Erma's eatery. Murdering Fred's landlord to make him into steaks, Gaston murders numerous other people to put them on the menu. When he realizes the heat is upon him, Gaston attempts to murder Fred and Erma before making his escape.
- "Werewolf Concerto": Lokai, secretly a vicious werewolf, is introduced as seemingly a werewolf "hunter" at a lodge beset by werewolf attacks. After numerous brutal assaults, Lokai has killed enough people that the owner has called in a "specialist" to deal with the threat. Lokai proceeds to murder a guest he believes is the hunter before brutally beating a maid to death when the moon rises. Attempting to murder the true hunter Janice, Lokai intends to massacre the entire lodge.
Examples
- "Dead Men Don't Jump!": The faceless basketball player is a monstrous entity who tricks aspiring athletes into life-or-death rounds of basketball, using his demonic powers to give himself the advantage. When they inevitably lose, the being transforms his opponents into withered undead husks that he collects as macabre trophies. Challenging the protagonist Nathan, the monster sadistically toys with the boy and sprains his ankle, laughing at his impending doom and taunting Nathan's brother Aaron when he steps up to finish the game.
- "Town Gathering": Sleazy businessman Ben Arnold is secretly working for a group of aliens who have developed a taste for human flesh. The aliens have hired Arnold to find a small town where they can capture the town's population and devour them, without attracting attention from the government. After stumbling across the small town of Deep Woods, Arnold goes to the mayor and suggests holding a town meeting to discuss a business proposal for the town, so that the aliens can capture the town's population all at once. When a local young girl named Erin discovers the aliens, Arnold tries to silence her by trying to feed her to the aliens. Arnold also reveals that after the aliens have devoured the town's population, he plans to sell them out to the government for a reward.
Presents
Examples
- Demon Knight: The Collector is a demonic Bounty Hunter searching for the final key his species needs in order to bring about the apocalypse. The Collector is a soulless monster who hides behind a veneer and delights in joking as he leads his victims to damnation. When Frank Brayker, a Demon Knight entrusted to guard the final key from the demons, seals himself in a boardinghouse alongside its residents, the Collector summons an army of demons and lays siege. Through his psychic powers, the Collector is able to possess the humans in the boardinghouse by tempting them with their deepest desires. However, the Collector never provides what he offers and instead the boardinghouse residents, such as Cordelia and Uncle Wally are turned into low-level demons, tortured souls trapped in monstrous bodies that the Collector controls. At the film's climax, the Collector possesses a little boy through a comic book and uses him to mortally wound Brayker. With the last key in his possession, the Collector merrily chats with the sole survivor, Jeryline, about how humanity will be reduced to leftovers, and attempts to cut out her heart as a memento after he fails to corrupt her.
- Bordello of Blood: Lilith, mother of all vampires, upon being resurrected, brutally murders three treasure hunters. Running a brothel of vampires, Lilith either turns clients into vampires or kills them by shoving her humongous tongue deep in their throat and ripping out their hearts before eating them. She also hires new recruits by siring clueless innocent women and at one point decapitates a minion for complaining. After trying to seduce and kill private eye Rafe Guttman, Lilith fatally stabs a reverend before gleefully molesting Catherine in front of the latter's psychotic brother, successfully turning Catherine into a vampire.
Others
- Perversions of Science's "The Exile": 50557 is an aberrant member of a peaceful futuristic society, a serial killing Mad Scientist who has experimented on and murdered forty people, both to "relieve the pressure" and to try and eliminate what he sees as "impurities" like the brown eyes of an otherwise ideally "Aryan" woman. 50557 disposes of his victims' remains in barrels, dozens of which are found in his lair after he is arrested and placed in the care of Doctor Nordhoff. After 50557 kills his cellmate and defiantly resists all of Nordhoff's attempts to treat him, he is sentenced to have his memories erased and replaced with false ones before being exiled to an Insignificant Little Blue Planet. When a subordinate expresses concern over dumping 50557—who, despite his new memories, will still be guided by his buried subconscious—on an unsuspecting populace, Nordhoff reassures him by saying, "He's just one man, how much damage could he possibly do?", as the episode ends with footage of the rise of Nazi Germany.
