User blog:DevinMarston/PE Proposal: Muscular (My Hero Academia)

For my next proposal, I'm gonna recommend the villain Muscular from the manga/anime series, My Hero Academia.

What's the Work?
My Hero Academia is a popular manga/anime series created by Kohei Horikoshi and serialized in July 2014. It tells the tale of Izuku Midoriya, a boy born without superpowers (or "Quirks" as their called) in a world where they are commonplace and superheroes are a regular part of society; yet still dreams of becoming a hero himself. He is soon discovered by his idol and the No. 1 hero, All Might, who shares his Quirk with Midoriya after seeing his potential and enrolls him in a high school for heroes in training, where he goes through several hero exams and occasionally battles with several villains.

Who is He?
Muscular is an A-Rank supervillain and a member of the main antagonistic faction, the League of Villains. He is a homicidal maniac with the ability to augment the muscles in his skin, and is responsible for the deaths of the superhero team, Water Hose; during which he lost his left eye in the battle and now wears an artificial one to replace it. He joins the League and aids their elite team, the Vanguard Action Squad, in an attack on the students at their training camp to kidnap Bakugo. He soon encounters Water Hose's son, Kota, and tries to kill him only to be stopped by Midoriya. Midoriya battles Muscular to protect Kota, and Muscular easily overwhelms him while laughing at his desire to become a hero and to protect Kota. Before Muscular can finish him off, Kota uses his Quirk to distract him, allowing Midoriya to unleash the full extent of his Quirk to defeat Muscular and knock him unconscious. Muscular is later found and arrested by the authorities in the aftermath of the attack.

What Has He Done?
-Attacked a village and attempted to murder it's civilains

-Murdered the hero team, Water Hose

-Attempted to murder Water Hose's son, Kota

-Brutally assaulted, tortured and attempted to kill Midoriya

-Aided the League of Villains in attacking the heroes and students at the training camp to kidnap Bakugo

I'm just speculating here, but based on how he has a reputation as a "bloodthirsty murderer", he's probably committed more killings than what's been shown.

Heinous Standard
While the level of crimes and destruction he caused is not as immense as other villains in the series, what I believe makes Muscular stand out as the most heinous villain is his personality. Muscular is extremely bloodthirsty and sadistic, and admits that his only desire in life is to use his Quirk freely to kill people; including innocents and children. He takes extreme pleasure in brutally torturing his enemies, laughing at their pain and telling them to "Show me your blood!" He even flat out admits to Midoriya that he doesn't know or care about the League's reasons for wanting to kidnap Bakugo, and only joined up with them because it gave him an excuse to wreak havoc and kill people. When he stumbles upon Kota, his immediate instinct is to kill him, despite being unprovoked and Kota not being on his list of targets the League gave him. While other villains in the series have some sympathetic backstory or reasonable motivation for their actions, Muscular's has no tragic backstory and his sole motivation is to murder people to satisfy his sadistic tendencies.

Freudian Excuse/Mitigating Factors
He does have some ideals about people needing to live up to the promises they make and shows slight respect to Midoriya after seeing how powerful his Quirk is, but that hardly mitigates his sadistic personality or his actions.

Final Verdict
I believe he is easily one of, if not the most, heinous villains in My Hero Academia and qualifies as Pure Evil. But I'm willing to see people's thoughts on the matter.