So How Dark is My Writing??

This evening at the Vocamus Book Bash while on stage, I was asked how dark is my writing, and to give an example of an author who would be as dark as mine?  I couldn't answer that because I don't know of any that are as dark as mine writings, especially Desperation.  Of course, when I started writing, I didn't know where it was going to take me.  All I knew is that I was tired of the same old feel good shit that was coming out around 1998, especially the star wars extended universe thanks to the release of the Phantom Menace, which did little to improve my mood.
So from this came a book called Triumph of the Triumvirate, shortened to Triumvirate and now split into Conquest and Book III (working title Liberation).  But that book gave me the outline for what was to come (I still owe y'all a comparison of some early writing to current versions).  I took a protagonist that was rough around the edges, already sitting on the edge of being bad, but reality is, he is more like the pain in the ass Colonel that Generals complain about in the army.  But as the story developed in the early days, a few of my writer friends commented on how much I put my protagonist through, it became apparent that I was onto something.  Of course, when I decided to write Desperation, given what my protagonist was like, how could I beat that badness (at some level, my protagonist is as bad as Darth Vader in Episode IV).  That resulted in what is seen in the first 30 pages of Desperation.  But of course I had to take it a few steps further in pushing that this scene was all done for fun, by the antagonist (want to find out, buy the book), and then one step further to show how much out of reality this antagonist really was.
Now to get back to the question as to what author would be a match for the darkness of my writing?  I cannot think of anyone.  I highly doubt I have cornered the market for being dark, but my impression based on my reading history is that Stephen King might come away raising his eyebrows at some of what Lons and Skardo pulled, just because of the degenerative nature that they get away with.  Although I suspect Neal Stephenson might get a chuckle out of it, given what he wrote for some of the Baroque Cycle with the descriptions of what some of the early scientists did. But William Dabar, a character you have yet to really get to know, is also quite dark and in some ways, just as bad as Skardo.  His past is still quite the mystery for the reader of the Triumvirate Chronicles, but it does say a lot that you have a physician turned assassin who uses his medical knowledge to not only kill, but sometimes enjoys it so much that it becomes a piece of art to him.  Hell there is this one scene... hey wait a minute you have to wait until I release that story.
Epic fails for villains for me include Darth Vader (this is Lucas' fault all the way), Lex Luthor, as despite his intelligence, is always dumb enough to get caught in the end, any of the batman villains, I mean c'mon here, they all started as some good person turned evil, or by some accident.  Skardo was evil from the day he was born.  I just find too many villains are just at the end of the day, a mere shadow of what I have put into my writing.  Now this seems hypocritical, but for those that have read Genesis, Canes may come off as that, but his darkness started in having to fight for so long and realizing what it was going to take to win a war that humans were losing.  Alas, debate all you want, bring it on people.

You know what I am saying...