How to describe it? How to describe such a grotesque mockery of natural law?
Sure, at first glance he looked as quite the unassuming fellow: A mild mannered spectacled businessman in a tidy suit. And yet there was something definitely…
uncanny about him. Most people who meet Mr. Howard Dexter Pickman were unable to say what exactly. Something about the apparently inoffensive guy just felt
wrong. His monotone voice, cheery smile and incredibly polite demeanor (never addressing anyone without a Mr., Sir, Miss, Madam, or any other honorific title, even the lowly tugs he occasionally contracted as henchmen) only made his presence more unnerving.
Who was him in reality? Where did he come from? There lied the mystery. The only thing certain was that he had become a respected figure among the super villain community, sometimes leading villain teams himself, but most of the time manipulating events from the shadows. Of course, the truth was actually more sinister than most would have imagined...
The few superheroes and do-gooders who have managed to confront him directly (and the few super villains who were ignorant or stupid enough to challenge him) quickly learned how dangerous he was. It was no ordinary day when some unassuming businessman had produced a giant freakish tentacle-like appendage from the back of his coat to impale you with it.
Suffice to say, Mr. Pickman was not unassuming fellow at all. He was actually part of...
the Other, beings as ancient as creation itself, alien beyond comprehension, their sole existence an insult to natural reason and order, so powerful even some Gods were wary of them, and so horrifying even the most bizarre and abominable life forms on this side of the galaxy would succumb to madness at the tiniest glance of their true appearance. Of course, in order to prevent his multiple accomplices from degenerating into mindless babbling vegetables in his presence, Mr. Pickman had decided to adopt a form that was more confortable for their fragile and limited minds.
Very few were aware of Mr. Pickman’s true nature (some only barely): Visitors from other worlds, champions chosen by the gods themselves, deities and elementals incarnated on the physical realm, and a few individuals versed in magic and the dark arts.
What were his intentions? For some reason this horror incarnated from the cosmic abyss had set his sights on a tiny speck of dust and became interested in its inhabitants. Maybe he got bored with immortal life and decided to play with the hairless monkeys for a while. Maybe he had a more sinister purpose on mind. Nobody knew for sure and it might be better to remain ignorant.
And yet, despite being able to crush any adversary like a fly, Mr. Pickman possessed a very peculiar code of honor: Never using more than a tiny fraction of his total power to battle any opponent, apparently to grant them some sort of "starter advantage". Most of the time he battled in his human form, producing tentacles and appendages from all over his body that he used to attack and defend.
Only against particularly worthy enemies he would go to the next level, using his vast power to send them to an alternate dimension of his own creation (a process that usually involved opening his suitcase and showing the contents to the onlooker). These
hellish realms tended to be twisted mirrors of whatever locale the fight took place in, full of dissonant sounds and with a grotesque landscape tailor made to reflect the worst fears and psychosis of the victim trapped in them. Other than that, the pocket dimension would not provide with any other advantage or disadvantage to the combatants, but it was in this place that Mr. Pickman would assume his “battle form”, vastly more dangerous than his basic human form, horribly offensive to the eyes and mind of the spectator, and yet
only a very pale shadow of his true appearance. Said battle form
still retained a humanoid shape after all (something along
these lines).
In order to escape from the other dimension, those trapped would need to find a breach on the dimensional barrier or manage to deal enough physical damage to Mr. Pickman in order to break his concentration, as only his mind sustains the dark world. For obvious reasons, very few managed to escape, let alone with their sanity intact.
Curiously, even in the heat of battle, Mr. Pickman would always be serene and composed: Always referring in a polite manner to his enemies, never losing his calm even when his plans don’t come to fruition like he expects (humans were unpredictable like that, even to an eldritch horror like himself), and honestly complimenting those who manage to outsmart him in battle or strategy. Of course, any defeat he suffered, rare as it were, was always a tiny drawback in the grand scheme of things, mere delays before he completed his master plan, whatever it was.