User blog:Red Chevalier/Pure Evil Proposal: Blood Stalk

Even though Blood Stalk has already been approved, I'm proposing him again in the blog format to solidify his candidacy for the category. Plus now that the NEW WORLD: Cross-Z movie it would be good to go over him again with the updated information in that movie.

What is the work?
Kamen Rider Build is the 19th series in the Kamen Rider franchise and takes place in an alternate timeline from the other installments in the franchise. The basic premise of the show is that Japan has been split into three opposing regions by an extraterrestrial artifact called the "Pandora's Box", and now there's a bunch of corrupt governments, mysterious organizations and greedy weapons dealers all vying to obtain it and use its power to take over the world.

Who is the villain?
Blood Stalk / Kamen Rider Evol is the main antagonist of Kamen Rider Build, a mysterious leader of the Faust organization that creates the Smash monsters. After many twists and turns Stalk is revealed to be Evolt, a sadistic alien who, in the ancient past, traveled across the universe destroying planets with sentient life and consuming their energy until the Martian Queen Vernage sacrificed herself to seal him away in the Pandora's Box. However, when a Japan-led expedition to Mars was mounted, Evolt was able to escape by possessing an astronaut named Soichi Isurugi and travel to Earth, where he caused the Skywall Disaster that separated Japan into three warring regions and co-founded the Faust organization to conduct unethical experiments with Nebula Gas, all as part of a secret plan to regain his former abilities and unlock the power to destroy the world.

What does he do?
Before he even arrived on Earth, Evolt attached a piece of his DNA onto a probe sent to Mars. After the probe returned to Earth, this piece of Evolt possessed the womb of Yuri Banjou, a pregnant security guard guarding the probe, and corrupted her child with his DNA. This child would grow up to be Ryuga Banjo / Kamen Rider Cross-Z, one of the Touto Kamen Riders and a future host for Evolt.

After arriving on Earth in the body of Soichi Isurugi, Evolt attempted to activate the Pandora's Box to construct the Pandora Tower needed to cause a distortion to destroy the world, but instead ended up just creating the Skywalls, which separated Japan into three opposing regions (Touto, Hokuto and Seito) all competing to reunite Japan and obtain the unlimited energy of Pandora's Box.

Evolt/"Soichi" later co-founded an organization called Faust with Gentoku Himuro, head of the Touto Institute of Advanced Matter Physics and Takumi Katsuragi, the scientist in charge of research for the Pandora's Box, with Evolt taking the name of his Transteam Gun transformation "Blood Stalk" as his Faust identity. With backing from the private military contractor Namba Heavy Industries, the goal of the Faust organization was ostensibly to conduct covert experiments to bolster the Touto military, when in fact Stalk planned to use it to regain his former power. Stalk also coerced Soichi's young daughter Misora into working for Faust by convincing her it was for a good cause, forcing her to undergo a painful process to purify the Fullbottles of the Pandora's Box for them.

However, Misora eventually discovered the truth about the organization and refused to purify Fullbottles for them any more. Around this time, Katsuragi also turned against Stalk after discovering Stalk's extraterrestrial origins along with his connection to Ryuga and began plotting against him. In response to both of these, Stalk wiped Takumi's memories, killed an innocent man named "Taro Satou" so he could swap their faces, and framed Ryuga for Takumi Katsuragi's death. Evolt then took the mind-wiped Takumi Katsuragi, now with Taro Satou's face on him, and planted him in an alley. Then, as Soichi, Stalk "discovered" him and renamed him "Sento Kiryu", having him become Kamen Rider Build to fight against the Smash monsters in order to be a "hero" to get Misora to begin purifying Fullbottles again. Around this time, Stalk also had Ryuga abducted from jail and brought to a Faust laboratory to be experimented.

After Ryuga escaped from Faust and was rescued by Sento, Stalk and his partner Gentoku Himuro/Night Rogue had Ryuga's frail girlfriend Kasumi kidnapped and forced to undergo the Smash transformation. Despite knowing her frail condition would result in the transformation killing her, Stalk had Rogue turn her into a Smash anyway so her death would drive up Ryuga's hazard level and make Evolt able to possess him.

Faust later gets broken up when Gentoku disbanded it to cover its tracks, but Stalk simply moves its operations and members to Hokuto where they begin working for the Hokuto government, supplying them with the means to create the Smash and Kamen Riders so they can wage war against Touto. However, Stalk and Faust later betray Hokuto to Seito when they invade and begin working directly for them and Namba Industries. However, when Seito's Prime Minister stops going along with Namba's wishes, Stalk kills him and transfers his face onto Namba himself so he can assume the Prime Minister's identity and lead Seito to conquer Touto.

After obtaining back the Evol Driver and becoming Kamen Rider Evol once more, Evolt exits Soichi's body and possesses Ryuga, exploiting Sento's friendship with Ryuga to mess with him. Sento attempts to free Ryuga by overclocking his own Hazard Level, but this only enables Evolt to leave Ryuga's body and possess Sento. Though Evolt claims he could have erased Sento's personality at any point, he decides to keep Sento around so he can force him to watch as he kills all his friends. However, Evolt is later forced from Sento's body by the combined powers of Kamen Riders Cross-Z, Grease and Rogue. Despite this, Evolt uses the energy from their attack to level himself up back to full power, enabling him to become Kamen Rider Evol Black Hole, the form he used to annihilate all life on Mars, again.

Following a convoluted arc where Sento's not quite dead dad who can also become Kamen Rider Build, it is revealed that the reason Evolt stayed on Earth for so long was to complete the Black Pandora Panel, which would enable him to travel between planets without expending a large amount of energy and thus destroy them faster. It's also around this time that Evolt reveals his true goal, to destroy every living thing in the universe, leaving only himself so he can create a "new world".

With a final battle between himself and the Riders inevitable, Evolt invites the Kamen Riders to confront him at the Pandora Tower and challenges them to reach the top of it, destroying a section of Japan every ten minutes they don't make it. He also creates mimics of their former deceased friends from his own DNA to mess with them as they make their way up it.

Once they reach the top, Evolt completes the Black Pandora Panel and uses it to assume his true, Phantom form. Now at full power, Evolt creates a massive black hole above the Earth to consume it, but decides to destroy the Earth slowly so he can enjoy the heroes' despair for longer. This ends up being his undoing, as it buys the Riders time to damage the Evol Trigger and paralyze Evolt, allowing them to use Evolt to power a deus ex machina that would merge their Earth with the main Kamen Rider timeline's Earth and restore all those who had died. After an epic battle in the rift between the two alternate Earths, Evolt is seemingly destroyed and everyone is revived in the new world. THE END

At least until the NEW WORLD: Kamen Rider Cross-Z V-Cinema, where Evolt is revealed to have survived by attaching a piece of himself onto Ryuga before he was destroyed. After forming an alliance with the Riders to stop his even crazier older brother Killbus from destroying everything in existence, Evolt reobtains his Phantom state and leaves Earth for parts unknown, vowing to return once he's back at full power. This is the last we've seen of him, so Evolt basically gets away at the end... which is pretty jarring considering he is one of the most cruel and sadistic Kamen Rider villains.

Heinous Standard
Evolt definitely outshines all of the other antagonists in Build when it comes to heinousness, and is definitely up there with the likes of Takeshi Asakura and Tenjuro Banno for the spot of "most vile Kamen Rider villain". Nearly every villain in Build was being used by Stalk in some way, making him indirectly responsible for all of their actions as well. The only character comparable to Evolt is his older brother Killbus, but Killbus was rather one-note while Evolt's sadism is more fleshed out. There was honestly a lot of crimes Evolt commits that I had to cut out from this submission otherwise we would be here all day.

Mitigating Factors
As mentioned above, in the Cross-Z V-Cinema Evolt temporarily allies with Team Build to stop his older brother Killbus from destroying the entire universe but this was purely for his own survival. When it comes down to it, Evolt and Killbus basically had the same goals and were only at odds with each other because the completion of their goals would have resulted in the destruction of the other. At the end of the movie, Evolt does decide to leave Earth after acquiring his Phantom state, but there's no indication that he's actually changed or is just waiting to come back and destroy the Earth.

Final Verdict
He's Pure Evol. (Okay that pun was lame, I'm sorry).