User blog:DragonDude83/PE Proposal: Simon Stagg (Arkhamverse)

As promised, I’m proposing two more Batman: Arkham villains. Here’s one of them, Simon Stagg (Arkhamverse)

Who is Simon Stagg, and What Has He Done?
Simon Stagg is a corrupt businessman in Gotham City who founded Stagg Industries alongside his brilliant partner Alex Sartorius. After a long time of his company being legitimate in research, Stagg’s greed allowed him branch out to other areas.

Stagg started developing bioweapons and WMDs and had them sold to the military and other areas around the world. Basically, he sold them to the highest bidder. Every death and war started from those weapons is on Stagg’s hands, all so he can make a profit.

For testing his bioweapons, Stagg resorted to kidnapping people, and tested his weapons on them, bring more death in his hands. He brushed these off when Sartorius hesitated to help him by claiming he made sure to kidnap people "no one will miss."

Stagg developed something called, "Project Meta," by using a chunk of Clayface’s mass that eats up anything it touches, and fed it "organic materials" (people)," to keep its form, so he can study it as a potential weapon.

Eventually, he allies with Scarecrow and supplies his militia with weapons and armor to assist him in taking over Gotham City before creating the "Cloudburst," a dispersal device meant to spread cures for diseases at a fast rate, but he modifies it as a tank to spread Scarecrow’s fear toxin, knowing that Scarecrow intends to flood Gotham with it.

Stagg decides to create his own strand of the fear toxin, and continues to experiment on more people, resulting in more deaths, as people die from the toxin by scaring themselves to death, tear each other to shreds, and spend weeks in agony as Stagg keeps them alive as long as he can. When one of his victims is reduced to nothing more than a whimpering vegetable, Stagg says that it’s not good enough, and coldly has him killed, only showing interest when one of his victims goes into an insane rage, and attacks everyone around him.

Eventually, Sartorius has had enough of what Stagg is doing, and is looking to expose his evil. So Stagg turns his "best friend" into one of his test subjects, releasing a strain of toxin that makes him believe he is being burned alive constantly.

Stagg finally creates a strain of fear toxin so powerful, not even gas masks can provide any protection. Believing that it is "world changing," and planning to use the Cloudburst as a WMD, Stagg betrays Scarecrow so he can sell his weapons to the highest bidder, but Scarecrow and his militia get the drop on him and take control of his airships, torturing him into giving away the Cloudburst and its power sources.

When Batman finally confronts him, Stagg first tries to cover his own hide, refusing to acknowledge the Cloudburst or what Scarecrow plans to do with it and the millions who will die, before Batman threatens him into giving up the details of it and locks him up in a cage close by some chimpanzees Stagg has been drugging, at which point Stagg freaks out at the possibility of the chimps eating him.

Stagg’s last appearance was getting arrested by GCPD. He proclaims that he made Gotham what it is today, and says that he’ll be out by the next day, then he’ll work on destroying Batman and his true identity, Bruce Wayne.

Freudian Excuse/Mitigating Factors
None that hold up. Stagg was never about helping people, and was all in it just for the money. He had his best friend, Alex Sartorius, killed when he was about to expose his experiments.

He does, like in many continuities, have a daughter named Sapphire who he only mentions in the tie-in comics, but even then he only mentions her in one scene, where he tries to set Bruce Wayne up with her. But nothing indicates this is more than him seeking a merger with Wayne, as Bruce later says that Stagg has "tried to set me up with his daughter at least 6 times, it's creepy," and otherwise he never even acknowledges her.

He does manage to tell Batman how to defeat the Cloudburst, but it was not out of altruism or remorse. It was because Batman had threatened his life. Stagg fully knew about Scarecrow’s intentions to kill millions and feigns innocence, refusing to help Batman until he threatens his life.

Finally, Stagg is seen as a pathetic coward when he fails to betray Scarecrow, and spends most of his onscreen time begging for help or acting incredibly smug, but he and his crimes are still trended as especially heinous, and Batman says that he will hold him personally responsible for every death in Gotham.

Heinousness
Easily overlooked, because he spent most of his onscreen time as a coward, but when looking at the actions he’s done, he qualifies, especially for the Arkhamverse.

In Sartorius's audio logs, he reveals that Stagg sells bioweapons to terrorists and the military alike to profit off of war and death, and reveals that Stagg has been experimenting on people for years, resulting in countless deaths. In a Gotham City story, it is revealed that Sartorius was later turned into another test subject and saw himself being burned alive.

In the tie-in comics, he collected a mass from Clayface to create a monster that eats humans, whom Stagg has been feeding them too, in hopes of creating a new kind of bioweapon.

In Arkham Knight, not only does Stagg help Scarecrow in flooding Gotham with fear toxin, Batman stumbles across several cells with corpses inside. Each one of them were experiments with Stagg’s narration of the fear toxin, and the effects it had on them. People screaming in terror, begging for death, reduced to vegetables and killing each other are all heard over intercoms, and there are a lot of corpses seen. Stagg keeps countless people alive for weeks while drugging them with fear toxin, driving them insane until he disposes of them and moves onto other test subjects.

Finally, Stagg plans to use the Cloudburst as a new weapon to sell off world-wide to cause more death and mayhem for his own profit, knowing that it will be used to make "entire armies rip themselves apart."

He’s not personally affecting as Joker, Hugo Strange (Arkhamverse), etc., but still, Simon Stagg is a warmongering sociopath who is personally responsible for hundreds, possibly thousands, of deaths, and has profited off of them. He’s killed through bioweapons, experiments, and helping Scarecrow take over Gotham. He is a pathetic scumbag, and it’s laughable what he’s reduced to, but it doesn’t undermine the fact that he’s one sick son of a bitch.

He’s not a psychopath trying to blow up Gotham or a mob boss trying to control Gotham like Penguin, he’s a corrupt businessman who profited off of death and experimentations.

Final Verdict
It’s easy to overlook what Simon Stagg has done. Even I’ve done that. But when you truly look at everything that he has done, he easily qualifies. He gets a yes vote from me, and I’ve got one more proposal left from the Arkhamverse.