This guy gives a whole new meaning to "cold-blooded torture".
Well, for once, I’m proposing a villain who doesn’t have an attempted or confirmed mass murder of any scale in their luggage. Like with many others, I'm unsure if he'll pass, but believe me, he’s still a nasty piece of work.
What’s the work?[]
Sonic the Comic Online! Is an “unofficially official” continuation of Sonic the Comic…Basically, it’s a fan work with a high enough level of Approval of God to be allowed on this wiki…for now, at least. Like the original comic, it’s about Sonic and Freedom Fighters defending Mobius against Dr. Robotnik and other threats, but there’s also a long-arse arc about Sonic becoming a fugitive due to a combination of slander and a frame-up which takes up most of the comic, which many fans weren’t happy with, and it’s currently on a hiatus, as if the issues didn’t take long enough to be published in the first place…But whatever, that’s not what you came for, did you?
Who’s Bleed? What has he done?[]
Bleed is an anthropomorphic mosquito from another dimension known as the Special Zone, and a criminal who’s part of the Family gang. When the Family was tipped off by Grimer about Dr. Zachary’s plans to destroy the Special Zone, they made a hasty escape to Mobius, where they set up like it was their own planet, and kept doing crime anyway.
What kind of criminal activities does Bleed specialize it, you may ask? Well, activities like theft, robbery, larceny, torture…He found himself a nice street in Eldorado Zone to rob every night, and when the police and Amy Rose came to apprehend him one night, they were in for a nasty surprise. Turns out Bleed has hemokinetic powers (which is basically bloodbending before bloodbending), and he used them on his would-be apprehenders, turning their blood icy cold and rendering them unconscious. Tails took it up on himself to avenge his hospitalized friend. He deduced that Bleed actually wanted to be found, and thus was able to catch him stealing a valuable piece of art after taking out it owners. This time, the mosquito thief used his powers to raise the adrenalim level in Tails’ blood, which caused the fox boy to go crazy and eventually lose consciousness.
This couldn’t last forever, though, as Tails finally discovered Bleed’s one weakness – his powers only work on endothermic creatures, so if he were to come across an ectothermic or bloodless creature…After another job at the museum, the thief was met by a group of reptiles, robots and ghosts, all those immune to his devious powers. Since Bleed was never a good fighter, he was quickly beaten up, thrown into jail, and never heard from again.
Heinous Standards[]
Okay, that’s gonna be a tough one. All of the original Sonic the Comic run is canon to the Online continuation, so we have to take its villains into account, and this way we are left with over ten mundicidal villains. Since Bleed obviously isn’t one, not to mention he has no resources to destroy a planet, does he have a chance to stand out? Well, if other mundicidal villain-filled franchises like Marvel, MCU and Star Wars can still have lower-level villains approved as PE, I’d say we could give Bleed a chance as well.
What we know about his powers is that they certainly cause great pain to victims. We also know that they can be lethal if medical help isn’t provided in a certain amount of time, according to the nurse who was treating Tails. Another thing I want to mention is that Bleed is the only villain in the comic to use henokinesis for his crimes, so that means he is unique in this department. Let me give you a rundown of his on-screen victims, with images too:
· Amy Rose and a police officer, turned their blood cold;
· Two people at the museum, seemingly the same “icy cold blood” trick (page 2);
Seven on-screen victims, out of which only three can be considered heroes/threats. While none are confirmed to die, hoo boy do the effects look horrifying, and Bleed obviously gets some sort of sadistic enjoyment over what he does. In fact, it’s heavily implied that these seven aren’t his only victims, as Tails has read Bleed’s criminal case, which states that he’s been raiding houses on Eldorado Zone for quite some time, so we do see a pattern, and it’s unlikely that he would’ve stopped at just these seven. So, on his own, Bleed sounds bad enough for PE even with a zero kill count, but when compared to other villains in the comic? I can’t compare him to literally everyone, that would be quite an archive panic, but I know two members of the Family who can rival him: Harvestman and the Dice.
Harvestman is a serial assassin who has ranked up over 500 kills. Seems difficult to top, but since most of his kills are off-screen, and he doesn’t attempt to assassinate anyone but some of the heroes on-screen, I don’t think there’s enough of a pattern established, plus most of these may be under Don Long-Legs’ orders. We don’t know how autonomous Bleed’s operations were, but most evidence points at him being independent. The Dice threatened to blow up the casino if they didn’t let him play the tables, but the mastermind behind that crime was Bean, so once again, following orders. With Bleed, neither of these excuses works, so my guess is that, through unusual cruelty, highly expressed sadism and lack of more destructive resources, he meets the series’ HS. Again, you could make the argument that he doesn't use his powers as often as he could have, but he does mention that he uses them at night because that's when endotherms are at their most vurnerable, so perhaps there's a limit to how strong they are.
Mitigating factors[]
Much easier. Bleed doesn’t seem to regret the supposed destruction of his home dimension, so it’s not a tragedy on his part. In fact, he doesn’t express any redeeming qualities throughout his appearance, period. Even his defeat, while having a comedic visual or two, like him working out in his cell and feeling his bruises, is presented seriously, as karmic retribution.
Verdict[]
Yes from me.