Hades (Kid Icarus)

"Sorry to keep YOU waiting. But now that I'm here, let's get this party started!"

- Hades

"Let me get a closer look of that shiny new toy of yours!"

- Hades mocking the Three Sacred Treasures.

Hades (ハデス Hadesu) is the true main antagonist of Kid Icarus: Uprising and also the overall main antagonist of the Kid Icarus series. Hades is one of the most powerful Nintendo villains behind only Ganon and possibly Giygas.

Appearance
Hades appears as a demonic humanoid deity with purple skin and a red tattoo on his eyes. He has long red, green, and pink-colored hair. He wears very grotesquely designed robes and clothing with asymmetrical shapes and a cape seemingly composed of darkness and fire. He has red lines that run up both his arms and legs. The inside of his body is completely chaotic in design, with even skies, grind rails and surreal structures found commonly throughout.

Personality
At first glance, Hades is shown to be a mischievous, manipulative trickster. When engaging in conversation, his tone is playfully dull, yet brimming with sarcasm and cruelty. He has a sense of showmanship, using a combination of witty remarks and belittling insults when talking to and about others. He also has a bit of a flirtatious side, constantly making unwanted passes and flattering remarks to and about all the female characters. Hades is considerably arrogant, brushing off any matter as no importance.

However, his nonchalant demeanor belies his true dark and destructive personality. At his core, Hades is a merciless psychopath with an utter disregard for life. His lust for killing makes him seem completely unconcerned when his commanders fall in battle, stating that his army is too stupid to have an actual ranking, and has no problem killing off Medusa when she interferes during Hades's final battle against Pit. He also sees souls as nothing more than either as materials to create his monsters or a means of empowering nourishment, indifferent to the fact that his action is upsetting the natural balance of the world due to his selfish greed and hunger.

Despite all his malicious tendencies, he does have a genuine sense of humor and enjoys telling jokes and making puns at even the most odd or inappropriate of times. He also shows genuine respect for Pit as a worthy adversary, holding no grudge against Pit after the latter killed him and destroyed his body, and even complimented his abilities, albeit still throwing a few nasty remarks in his direction.

History
25 years after the defeat of Medusa, Hades resurrects her to distract Pit while gathering him souls of those who died during their conflict to increase his power and army, he also engineers Dark Pit's creation and after Medusa's defeat he personally reveals himself. During the final battle he is also notable for killing Medusa. Pit destroys him after Palutena charges the cannon of the Great Sacred Treasure, ending the Underworld Threat once and for all.

Powers and Abilities
Hades was an extremely powerful entity, easily one of the most powerful characters in the game, second in power only to Dyntos, the god of the forge. Hades is easily the mightiest opponent in the game, being the only character that, in a canon sense, defeated Pit.

Hades was able to easily destroy the Three Sacred Treasures with one blast wave done through a burp, and almost completely destroy the Great Sacred Treasure with one attack.

Given his giant size, Hades was incredibly strong and durable, able to obliterate most of Medusa's body and kill her with a single punch, and survive devastating injuries, like being bisected and beheaded, only to regrow those bodyparts and not even be slowed down. Hades was tremendously fast as well, possibly the fastest character in the game, able to move at near-light speed.

On top of his physical prowess, Hades had tremendous magical and weapon prowess as well, able to easily create power tornadoes in an instant, including a giant one around himself that could destroy anything in a given path by spinning rapidly. He was also able to fire off powerful blasts of energy from different points of his body, like his hands and eyes, that dealt great damage to an opponent if they got hit.

Hades had a suit of armor he called his "Devastation Ensemble", which was covered with various weapons that, just like himself personally, Hades could fire off powerful energy blasts and lasers from. As the god of the Underworld, Hades had full power of control over his realm and anything pertaining to death, despite not being the god of that, able to use the souls sent to his domain after death to revive fallen allies and increase his power and the size of his army.

Unlike Medusa, Hades could reside literally anywhere in the Underworld he wanted, even the darkness itself and didn't need a castle to live in. Like the other gods in the game, Hades could telepathically communicate with the other gods and protect a giant astral hologram of himself when and where he wanted.

Trivia

 * He was named after the Greek god of the underworld.
 * His English voice actor S. Scott Bullock also voiced Barthandelus.
 * His Japanese voice actor Hōchū Ōtsuka also voiced Xigbar.
 * Hades was assumed to be the most powerful of the gods, but in Chapter 24, it was hinted that Lord Dyntos was more powerful because he could create an army that would be stronger than the Underworld Army. This was never actually proven in the chapter though. However, the in-game idol information states that the fact that Dyntos is able to "put Palutena to sleep miles away...is evidence that Dyntos's power exceeds even that of Hades."
 * Hades has appeared in many Greek myths and legends as Poseidon and Zeus's brother. Although Poseidon was in the game, he mentioned nothing about Hades, so there is no way to see if this applies to the game.