"Oliver Queen! I must break you!" (Sorry, I just couldn't live with myself if I didn't put that quote somewhere in the proposal.)
Alright, I've been procrastinating on this one long enough. I actually meant to do this much earlier but I got busy and forgot about it. I'm finally forcing myself to do it now. It'll also be my first Pure Evil removal proposal. Although I was once content with him being approved, thinking back about it, I think he just doesn't have what it takes to be Pure Evil. So, without further ado, I present you to Konstantin Kovar, played by Ivan Drago himself, Dolph Lundgren.
Also, I got permission from AustinDR to do this.
What's the Work?[]
Arrow is a show that I think most people are familiar with by now. It's part of the Arrowverse, which consists of other well-known DC Comics superhero shows such as The Flash, Legends of Tomorrow, Supergirl, etc. I feel like I don't really have to explain much about it.
Who is he? What has he done?[]
Alright, to spare time, I'm going to link to the original proposal for him. I think I'm allowed to do that. If I'm not, I apologize. I guess I'll learn one way or another.
Why doesn't he qualify?[]
Although the dude has zero redeeming qualities, the heinous standard of Arrow, and for that matter, the entire Arrowverse, is simply too high. For the most part, Kovar's actions really aren't that much worse than several other villains in the series, mostly just being limited to murder, drug dealing, abuse of power, chemical warfare, etc. We've all pretty much seen this before. Although he does plan to kill high-ranking officials of the Russian government so he can gain more power for himself, it's not shown how bad the outcome would be and he's only seen trying to kill only a few people via gas.
Also, he's the governor of a Russian city and a feared crime lord, so he does actually have more resources than quite a few of Arrow's villains, yet he really doesn't do anything that stands out that much. Villains such as Ricardo Diaz and Cayden James have slightly less resources than him and manage to do much worse, such as trying to destroy entire cities, while even villains such as Prometheus and Danny Brickwell have less resources than him and still manage to do worse by killing more people and inflicting deep trauma. Oh, and also Matthew Shrieve, also a flashback villain, has similar resources as a high-ranking general and completely blows him out of the water by unleashing a deadly virus on China that kills thousands of people. Compare him to all them and suddenly he doesn't seem that heinous.
However, I'll admit that there is one thing that could potentially deviate him from other villains. His psychological torture of Oliver in an attempt to break him to get revenge on him for ruining his plans is actually fairly messed up, but honestly, that's not too special for the show. There have been a few villains who have done the same thing, such as the aforementioned Prometheus and Diaz. Even minor villains with very few resources such as both versions of Count Vertigo have had their fair share of it, so it isn't too unique. While it's possible this act may put him above the baseline level, Kovar still fails the overall heinous standard pretty badly, even if he is cruel.
Verdict[]
He's a cut for me, but as always it's up to you guys.