Malus Darkblade
"Through hate, all things are possible."
- – Malus Darkblade
"If nothing else, Malus Darkblade, you can be counted upon to react to adversity with as much violence as possible."
- – Tz'arkan, Drinker of Souls, Greater Daemon
"An encouraged person will eventually get his drive from encouragement; he becomes more dependent. A person that never really receives encouragement learns to move out of spite; he becomes more independent."
- – Criss Jami
Malus Darkblade is a right hard tough bastard who simply won't die. Putting them other fantasy characters to shame, while he may be selfish, arrogant, wicked, and basically everything you would expect from a Dark Elf, he is actually portrayed somewhat believably as well in the five novels written of him by Dan 'All hail the great one' Abnett and Mike Lee. He showed moments of comradeship and faith towards his companions, and constantly shows, and is even described as having, genuine "affection" for his giant fuckoff murderlizard, which he names "Spite"; in short, he wasn't made out to be evil for no more reason than because he could be.
He is one of the most popular WF characters then because he has that rarest of qualities; actual character. His refusal to give up and his hard as nails approach at slaying the fuck out of anything that gets in his way has made many fanboys hold a torch for him.
"If you see the Lord of Murder before I do, tell him I'm coming. Tell him that when I get there I'm going to kick his brass teeth straight down his throat."
- – Malus Darkblade
If he wasn't a pansy elf and a dark one at that, he and Gotrek would be firm drinking buddies.
The Comics
Malus comes from a series of comic stories from the days when GW actually cared about making a good story without making it serve a purpose like releasing new models. Malus is the son of a Dark Elf noble, and his soul is stolen by the daemon Tz'arkan when Malus was questing for treasure (Tz'arkan describes himself as a servant of Tzeentch in the comic but, sort of, of Slaanesh in the books; he doesn't typically act particularly Slaaneshi, except when in the presence of a Slaaneshi cult though he does pay homage when seeing a statue of Slaanesh, and is pretty nyehehe JUST AS PLANNED so draw your conclusions), Malus had to find five artifacts in order to free the daemon and himself, only for the daemon to steal his soul when it was freed.
The Books
A series of books were written which greatly expanded upon the story and characters. Malus is still a Dark Elf nobles son, but rather than being the favorite he's the unfavored bastard in a family with more incest than Game of Thrones. He also has five older half-siblings in Bruglir (the first child, a renowned Corsair, in an incestuous relationship with his younger sister Yasmir and won't let anyone else have her), Isilvar (the second child, a skilled merchant, slaver, secret Slaanesh worshiper and in an incestuous relationship with his younger sister Nagaira), Yasmir (the third child, most beautiful woman in Hag Graef, alpha bitch extraordinaire, in an incestuous relationship with her older brother Bruglir though she really sluts it up when Bruglir's away), Nagaira (the fourth child, a Dark Elf Sorceress, pretty thicc which makes her fat by Dark Elf standards, secret Slaanesh worshiper and in an incestuous relationship with Malus and Isilvar) and Urial (the fifth child, born deformed to the mother of the other four who died giving birth to him, was sacrificed to Khaine but was spared due to a sign, became a priest of Khaine since he was too handicapped to be an assassin, has incestuous lust for Yasmir but she despises him). Malus' father is also the second in command of Hag Graef and is named Lurhan. Malus' mother is also revealed, a Sorceress named Eldire who is trying to carry out a prophecy and made a deal with Lurhan to have Malus (she also secretly killed Lurhan's first wife with poison, which is why Urial was born a cripple).
Wandering the chaos wastes as a soulless unstoppable killer, he then found out where the daemon was hiding and went on another quest to reclaim his soul. A Chaos follower knew where Tz'arkan was hiding and tried to stop Malus betraying him by tattooing the map onto his back. Undaunted, Malus flayed the map from the Chaos follower's back and fed him to Spite. Malus found Tz'arkan and reclaimed his soul, but in doing so was cursed to have the daemon trapped back inside of himself again.
End Times
Now he has returned to Naggaroth and what will this strange, legendary dark elf do? Well GW is coyly stopping us answering that question, because they won't move the damn plot along and let Malus kick Malekith's tin ass! Except where he returns to fuck his sister and try to assassinate the Witch King in the End Times. Typical Druchii fashion, that goes as well as expected.
Be careful what you wish for because, unfortunately, he'll never get the chance now. During the final invasion of Ulthuan, Tz'arkan takes over and consumes him so he dies, causing him to be ripped apart from the inside out. No Malus! Don't go, we liked you.....cue fan boys grieving.