Skrak

Skrak is the central villain of a 1954 Marvel Tales comic strip, he is born of an age before Marvel became a prominent superhero company (known as pre-FF era) and as such is focused more on horror and shock than the superhero fantasies of the modern age : akin to comic book series such as Tales From The Crypt or Creep Show.

History
Skrak was a successful but enigmatic artist who specialized in macabre paintings that depicted strikingly realistic imagery of horror, pain and suffering : he amassed a fortune due to his skills and was highly sought after in the art world, even having his own mansion and personal servant.

Despite his incredible fame no one had ever seen Skrak work and he kept this a strict secret, retreating to his mansion by night to create new work - this would lead to a struggling artist known as Andre becoming obsessed with Skrak and his paintings.

Andre's obsession grew out of control as he began to grow angry and jealous, unable to compete with Skrak's popularity - he thus decided to sneak into Skrak's mansion one night in order to watch him work and gain the secret to Skrak's success.

In doing so Andre would learn the shocking truth, Skrak was not just an artist but an insane plastic surgeon who secretly captured many hapless individuals and kept them prisoner, experimenting endlessly on them in order to create horrific monsters, which he would then use as inspiration for his paintings.

The realistic depictions of pain, misery and horror came from the fact Skrak was copying the pain and suffering of his prisoners - all of which were deformed by Skrak in different ways : including one that was turned into a two-headed monster (showing that Skrak must of also had extensive knowledge of transplant surgery).

When Andre stumbled and revealed his presence in the process he tried to reason with Skrak that he was a fellow artist and was only there because he wanted to learn Skrak's secret - to which Skrak mocked him by stating that Andre would become his next victim, setting upon him.. the end-result is unknown but it is presumed that Skrak would mutilate Andre and keep him prisoner with the rest, as he had done for many years prior.