Monday, January 13, 2025

Butch Slashes Into DEATH BATTLE!

                    

Butch, the Diabolical Mass Murderer of Harmony

Chopping block was created by Lee Adam Herold and Ryan Hohne, it can be read on Keenspot


WARNING

This blog discusses particularly violent and dark content. Due to the particularly graphic nature of the source material, certain images will be censored for the most comfortable reading experience. Viewer digression is advised.


Welcome back to the blog! I hope you're in for a scare, as this is the first spooky blog I've done in a long time. This one took a while to make considering the sheer amount of content in the webcomic, so I hope y'all enjoy it! As another disclaimer, I am aware that there is a physical spinoff series, but I have unfortunately not been able to read it yet. Once I am able to and can provide scans, the blog will be updated accordingly.

Background

“Victim secured to the table, meat cleaver in hand, Butch sat… and sat… and sat, for over an hour, with no idea where to begin. It was the worst case of ‘chopping block’ he’d ever endured.”


Oh Harmony, what a poorly named town you are.


On the outside, it may seem like your typical humble and charming suburban settlement, but make no mistake. You do NOT want to live there, lest you risk running into the masked maniac that has been terrorizing the town his entire life, Butch R. Mann.


Butch was a bad egg the moment he was born. Even though he grew up bullied by his peers and verbally abused by his own mother, that doesn't excuse his horrific actions throughout his childhood. He would maim kids regardless of their treatment of him, kill small animals, and even murder teachers. In spite of his unspeakable actions, Butch would get away with everything scott free, and that would remain the case during his adulthood. Whether it can be attributed to the sheer danger Butch poses to Harmony or the fact that everybody in this town is too dumb to realize the obvious slasher villain is bad news is up to you to decide.


Butch is a reserved fellow, never directly speaking throughout the comic. While he may come across as a gentle giant at times, don't get too comfortable around him. Butch is proudly merciless, cannibalistic, and necrophiliac; people of all genders, ages, and even animals aren't safe from his violence. Butch is the kind of twisted motherfucker who’d gladly eat a baby, then make a necklace out of their bones. He considers psychopaths an oppressed minority, and would kill anyone who says otherwise. In Butch’s perfect world, murder would be legalized. He kills for minor inconveniences, or just for the heck of it. Even if you avoid being slaughtered by him, you'll likely end up totally disfigured like his barber. 


His home is littered dozens upon dozens of different kinds of weapons, torture devices, and enough human remains to make Ed Gein blush. Butch keeps his favorite body parts to preserve, make into decorations and objects, and of course eat. He particularly has a knack for storing different body parts and assembling stitched up bodies out of corpse parts.


Since the death of his mother Peg, Butch has been constantly haunted by both her disembodied voice, and the still-rotting corpse he keeps in his house. She pressures him to continue his murder spree. She also instills misogynist sentiments in his brain, making women out to be trashy and promiscuous. As much as he hates her, he doesn’t dare disobey. Mother knows best, after all.


All things considered, Butch is living a decent life. He’s able to find work in a variety of places, go on dates (who all die by his hands), and best of all, he gets to strike terror across Harmony, rarely ever facing serious consequences. He hardly ever has trouble running into the law and frequently gets away with killing in broad daylight. 


While he is living the best life a serial killer can ever dream of, Butch faces hurdles like any average joe. He has trouble multitasking while on the phone, deals with carpal tunnel syndrome, feels uncomfortable in an empty house, forgets to coat his machete with non-stick spray and it gets stuck in a guy's head… all relatable struggles for someone so unfeeling. Serial killers have problems too, you know!


While his actions are unspeakable, there is capacity for redemption in the slasher’s heart. Behind that hockey mask is still that sensitive kid who cherishes the little time to himself he can get. He'd be a far happier man if Peg wasn't around to force him to continue killing people. Instead, Butch is horribly self-loathing. He hates his weight, his face, and wishes he was smarter, often venting frustrations through killing sprees.


Thankfully, it seems he is making some progress in becoming a better person. There is one person he befriended he has not killed yet, a local goth girl named Delora who is a fan of Butch's work. Delora’s introduction is where the extent of my knowledge starts to falter, as she is a major character in the physical spinoffs comics. In them, Butch’s heart is replaced by an eldritch horror named Hexagvultus, whom Delora has a mysterious connection with. It’s also revealed that Butch’s mother ran a cult in her living life to enslave eldritch deities, like she did with her son. By that I mean she made Butch immortal while her own body is effectively dead.


Yeeeeah, shit gets wild. That’s a lot to unpack at once, but I’ll save that for when I get around to reading the spinoffs. For now, at least Butch doesn’t feel so lonely anymore.



Experience and Intelligence

Butch has been killing people for his entire life, and I mean ENTIRE. Even in the womb, he strangled his fetal twin to death. His life experiences and frequent homicides throughout his childhood helped shape him into a master in the art of murder he is today.


Butch isn’t as sharp as the tools in his shed if his spelling skills are anything to go by. Don’t discredit him just because of that, as he’s well-educated in anything related to objects that can cause death. He may not be book smart, but he knows the human anatomy like the back of his hand. He can also be surprisingly crafty. For instance, he lures in robbers to his house by leaving a bunch of expensive items outside to make it seem like he's easy to steal from… then kills em! Another great example of his intelligence is when he ran a restaurant disguising it as an immersive murder mystery event. The following day, he's selling their chunks at said restaurant.


Beyond killing and killing and killing, he's actually qualified enough to take up a wide variety of professions. He has been a doctor, a boy scout leader, a teacher, and so much more.



Equipment


Before I continue, I'd like to spice things up here a bit. Much like the Serenity Rose blog waaaaay back when, most of Butch's toolkit doesn't need much explaining beyond what's explained in the short blurbs. As many weapons fit into different categories, I'll let the Chopping Block narrator describe everything in each link. I'll chip in when necessary!

Knives 

Butch carries at least five kinds of knives at all times at least when he remembers to. Here is a list of the different types of knives he owns:

Saws

That's a lotta chainsaws! It's best to assume he has owns many instances of each portable weapon.

Bladed Weapons

For anything too big to be called a knife.


Stationary & Torture Devices

Ropes

I will knot make any rope jokes.


Electronics

Bludgeoning Weapons

Tools & Utensils

Silly Butchie, these objects aren't supposed to be used to kill people.

Whipping Weapons

*whip crack sound effect*


Flammable Weapons

Axes

Just because he has an oddly wide variety of them.


Ranged Weapons

Gardening Tools


Cleaning Supplies

While some of these are used to clean up crime scenes, some have surprisingly deadly potential in the wrong hands (Butch's hands. They're the wrong hands).

Sports Equipment


Puncturing Items


Explosives


For anything that goes kablooey

Vehicles

Butch has participated in some vehicular manslaughter before. His car is also great for getaways and transporting bodies! How he was able to get a driver's license is beyond me.
  • Car
  • Steamroller: An oddly recurring item in his menagerie of death devices


Poisons

As if Butch couldn't be any more toxic.


Traps

These either require prep time to produce, can be placed out in the open, or Butch can directly wield them.


Inventions

While I'm sure Butch would be able to come up with something like Henrietta, I highly doubt Butch would be able to invent the others listed here. Who knows how he got his hands on those.


Animals

Most of these would be more fitting in the traps section, but it feels better to list out the animals Butch has used to kill people. 


Hexagvultus

In the spinoffs, Butch’s heart is replaced by an outer god known as Hexagvultus. As a sort of herald of the lovecraftian god Nyarlathotep, this tentacled nightmare is by far Butch’s most bizarre part of his arsenal. From what I was able to gather outside the spinoffs, Hexagvultus can utter forbidden blasphemies that destroys the sanity of anyone who hears them. Besides Butch, of course. Hexagvultus is able to live indepdently from Butch, and vice versa.


Other Weapons

The misc. section


Non-Lethal Tools (as far as you know ;])

The other misc. section


Abilities


Brainwashing

Through means I refuse to imagine, Butch can tinker with a person’s brain to make them as murderous as himself with a verbal command.

Disguise Mastery

Often doesn’t need a disguise since he kills people in broad daylight, but they’re good for getting out of a pickle or gaining intel among civvies. His disguises range from old ladies, to truckers, to even nuns. Although his hockey mask is a dead giveaway, everyone around him is too dumb to notice.


Immortality (Types 1 and 3) and Regeneration (Low-Mid)

While I haven’t read the spinoffs yet, I was able to learn from an interview that during them, it’s revealed that Butch’s mother is magically keeping him immortal while her own body is practically dead. This would explain the panels where Butch receives serious injuries like an arm being sliced off, and it being back in the next update.


Cloning

HOW???

Stealth Mastery

Given how quiet Butch is, it’s easy for him to sneak up on people without giving himself away… at least when self-sabotage doesn’t occur.


Pocket Dimension Creation

I’m just going to assume this is thanks to spinoff stuff.


Resistances


Techniques


Strangulation

Nothing beats a good 'ol strangle.


Feats


Overall


  • He has killed M A N Y people, more than enough to fill his house with his favorite body parts of hundreds of people
  • His most profilic victims consist of *NSYNC, Britney Spears, Demi Moore, Bryan Adams, Osama bin Laden, Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong, the Groundhog Day Groundhog, William Hung, and Criss Angel
  • Murdered a man who was implied to be the antichrist
  • Killed a bear by himself with only a knife and a log
  • Fooled Jason Voorhees with the Marx Brothers’ mirror gag
  • Drowned an adult in an apple bobbing tub when he was young
  • When he was a kid, he massacred a party to the point where the bodies were unrecognizable
  • Scared a guy into dying of a heart attack
  • Participated in American Gladiator
  • Slaughtered everyone in a bus TWICE
  • Killed the owner of a deli Tony, presumed his position, and made bank selling his delicious remains
  • Was a nominee for the Cartoonists’ Choice Awards
  • Made a pyramid out of at least 15 people he killed
  • Killed and ate an exact clone of himself
  • Took his bully’s eyes out as a kid for making fun of his glasses
  • He’s 3rd place on the FBI’s most wanted list
  • Killed his twin in the womb
  • Coached Mike Tyson when he returned to boxing
  • Accidentally killed someone with a ricocheting bullet off a lamppost
  • Snuck into a soda factory to poison the recipe
  • Killed a suicide bomber before he could annihilate a bus full of people. That’s his job after all.
  • Hit Mothman with his car
  • As a kid, he cut off his bully’s genitals and fed him them
  • Butch murdered Phil in public, totally getting away with it because nobody liked Phil
  • Forcefed the host of Fear Factor bugs
  • Electrocuted a public swimming pool to death with a giant toaster
  • Murdered his co-author Lee
  • Has an entire collection of scrotum coin-purses he made out of victims
  • Murdered a FBI profiler
  • Can snake an entire roto-rooter through a person’s digestive tract without killing them

Strength



Speed


Durability


Weaknesses

  • He’s all thumbs, not the best with dexterity
  • Even after her death, Butch isn't capable of becoming independent from his mother's command over him. Even when he’s away from her rotting corpse, the voice of his mother haunts his mind, frequently berating him or urging him to kill people
  • He’s generally levelheaded, but what can really send him into a blind rage is being tricked
  • Besides all things related to human anatomy, Butch isn’t booksmart
  • As inhuman as he acts, Butch is prone to human error as much as the next person
  • He’s allergic to rabbits, getting itchy hives around them
  • Butch struggles with self-loathing
  • He’s afraid of heights
  • Really struggles to understand other peoples’ perspectives. ESPECIALLY when it comes to killing
  • He's a transphobe and misogynist (evil)
  • More than comfortable killing animals (also evil)

Matchup Potential


Butch vs Johnny C. (Chopping Block vs Johnny the Homicidal Maniac)


(thumbnail by Vibe Check)

Vibe Check


If you’re at all familiar with Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, I imagine this matchup may click with you as it did with me. Both black & white comic series follow the darkly comedic exploits of deranged and brutal mass murderers who live average lives while their reigns of terror are  unhampered.


While it may seem unappealing for such a loud and complex killer like Nny to be paired against  a silent murderer, I think that may work in the matchup’s favor. It lends itself to the comedy, as Nny could come up with an entire convoluted narrative that Butch fits into and repeatedly calls back to it throughout the fight, whilst Butch only enables since he only responds with facial expressions. Although Johnny can dominate the script with his delusional tirades, Butch’s character can really shine through his gestures, his physical reactions to Nny’s speeches, and even a pick-me-up moment where his mom’s insults ring through his head, prompting him to put more effort into the fight.


As for the battle itself, it’s bloody chaotic. While Butch ultimately has the greater range of equipment, Nny also has tons of weapons and torture devices he can pull from to match Butch. He’s got plenty of knives, a scythe, firearms, and even dynamite. I’m sure there will likely be plenty of casualties caught in the crossfire of their violent brawl. I can definitely see the fight progress into one of the killers' houses so their stationary weapons can be utilized.


As for who wins, it’s a little tricky. Although Butch has a way better arsenal and is undoubtedly the more experienced and skilled psychopath, it comes down to their immortality. I’m not finished reading JtHM yet so I can’t confidently speak on the details. From what I can gather, his immortality functions similarly in that he can piece himself back together too. Unlike Butch, the extent to his regeneration is unseen, so I’m inclined to say Butch’s is superior. Speed is also a key factor, as I figure Nny’s speed is superior (peak human vs average human). While that could help Nny deal with Butch's wide arsenal, he also has to deal with Hexagvultus, who can act independently from Butch. Even though Nny is already insane, I highly doubt he can counter becoming a human vegetable from hearing the forbidden utterances. I still have to read the Chopping Block spinoffs so there may be better showings of speed, not to mention other Hexagvultus powers. For now, the results of the debate shall be postponed.


Butch vs Jeb (Chopping Block vs Blood Klot)


(thumbnail by Vibe Check)

Vibe Check


Blood Klot is like Chopping Block if Butch was divided into four different serial killers who are all very gay for each other. Out of the four, Butch resembles the zombified slasher Jedediah and the Leatherface-adjacent Butcher the most. Although Butcher is a great fit, I’d like to discuss Jeb as he has more going for him VS-wise.


Whereas Butcher is more tailored to Butch’s Ed Gein-inspired crimes, Jeb pairs better as a murderer who has to deal with relatable inconveniences (as relatable as it can get for serial killers). Thus he can really match the black comedy vibes of Butch in a fight. I’d imagine Jeb can offer a bit of physical comedy like trying to break through a door but underestimates his height and hurts himself. Meanwhile, Butch’s comedy more so relates to how he responds to situations and his methods of bringing the pain.


While his arsenal is way more limited, Jeb expresses consistent wall level feats, can summon giant monsters like a kraken and swamp monster, and is physically stronger and tougher than Butch. Even so, Butch has a far more overwhelming arsenal and can regenerate from any fatal damage he receives.


NEXT TIME ON WCAB… whenever I feel like it

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Butch Slashes Into DEATH BATTLE!

                     Butch, the Diabolical Mass Murderer of Harmony Chopping block was created by Lee Adam Herold and Ryan Hohne, it can be ...