User blog:Red Chevalier/Pure Evil Proposal: Skull

Alright, time to propose a villain I've been waiting a very long while to do a submission for. Here's the first of the three Cyborg 009 villains I will be proposing.

What is the work?
Cyborg 009, a landmark manga series written by Shotaro Ishinomori, the creator of numerous other popular superheroes and manga series, including Kamen Rider and Super Sentai.

Cyborg 009 originally ran in the 1960s, and follows a multi-ethnic team of nine cyborgs each with a different superhuman power, led by the titular Cyborg 009, as they do battle against the nefarious Black Ghost organization and other evil-doers looking to start wars and conflict. The manga has had many anime adaptions along with books and movies over the years, but for the purposes of this proposal I will be mainly referring to the manga itself and the 2001 anime adaptation, The Cyborg Soldier, which (loosely) follows the plot of the manga and expands on Skull's role.

Who is the villain?
Skull, (alternatively referred to as Scarl, Skarle, "Scar" in the Tokyopop English translation of the manga, or confusingly enough "Black Ghost" in the English dub of the 2001 anime), the mysterious skull-masked leader of the Black Ghost war profiteering organization and main antagonist of the Cyborg 009. Skull is the one responsible for the creation of the 00 Cyborgs, having abducted them and remodeled them into cyborgs as test subjects for his 00 Cyborg project, planning to sell them on the black market to warring countries. Skull's modus operandi is to escalate wars by selling arms to both sides, and his ultimate goal is to trigger World War III just so Black Ghost can profit from it, not caring about the destruction it would bring.

What does he do?
Skull's modus operandi is to make a profit by selling Black Ghost's destructive weapons to one side of a conflict, thus forcing the other side to buy Black Ghost's weapons as well to match up. This is best shown in the Muamba arc in 2001 anime (changed from Vietnam in the manga, due to it no longer taking place in the 1960s), where Skull delivered Black Ghost tech to a group of rebels fighting against a despotic regime, then sold weapons to the regime to use against the rebels, in an attempt to escalate the war into a global conflict and bring about World War III.

At the start of the series, Skull commences Black Ghost's 00 Cyborg and sends his agents to gather test subjects to be remodeled into cyborg weapons of war. These test subjects are all unwilling and obtained through various forceful means, including kidnapping and extortion. One of the test subjects Black Ghost uses is a one year old, (Ivan Whisky), after convincing his father Gamo to hand him over.

In one instance, Black Ghost set up a Catholic orphanage run by an unwitting priest (who had no knowledge of Black Ghost's plans) and used the orphaned children being cared for there as test subjects. This orphanage is where Black Ghost found Joe Shimamura, whom they selected to be the candidate for Cyborg 009. After having assassins murder the father, Black Ghost framed Joe for it and kidnapped him to be remodeled into a cyborg.

However, one of the scientists working on the 00 Cyborg project, Dr. Gilmore, defects from Black Ghost and escapes with the nine cyborgs. In response to the nine 00 Cyborgs' escape, Skull decides it would be a great opportunity to test out the newest edition to the 00 Cyborg line - Cyborg 0010, by sending him to terminate the rogue cyborgs.

Cyborg 0010 is actually a pair of electrokinetic cyborgs, created from two twin brothers who were abducted by Black Ghost. Skull had them modeled to each represent one half of an electric current, + and -, and as a result be unable to make physical contact with each other in any way or they would be killed. Which is exactly what ends up happening when the 00 Cyborgs trick them into slamming into each other, not that Skull cares. He just decides to send in the next 00 Cyborg test subject, 0011.

Cyborg 0011 was once a family man until Skull had him abducted and his brain removed, placing it in a spider-like body. Under the threat of his family being harmed, Skull sends 0011 to kill the 00 Cyborgs but 0011 finds himself unable to go through with the task. After 0011 has a breakdown over being separated from his family, Skull overrides his free will and forcefully takes control of 0011's body to make him continue pursuing the 00 Cyborgs, leading to his destruction and for him to never see his family again.

Skull is also a rather excessive abuser of his minions. While there are plenty of villains out there who kill their subordinates as punishment for failure, Skull takes a step further by killing his minions even when they perform their orders flawlessly, simply because he has no more use for them. He killed Commander Skarr after he followed his orders and set his base to self destruct, seeing his purpose to be at its end now that Skarr had completed his orders. Of course, he's punished plenty of others for failure as well, and very painfully too, by incineration. In effect, succeeding to carry out Skull's orders will lead to him killing you, but failing to carry out his orders will lead to him killing you painfully. At least Palpatine and Vader spared their men who were successful, Skull kills people just so he won't have to pay them.

Given Skull's attitude towards his own men and test subjects, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that Skull doesn't care much for ordinary people or innocents either. In order to demonstrate to Black Ghost's investors the power of Cyborg 0013 (who was yet another unwilling test subject Black Ghost abducted and brainwashed), Skull has the massive invisible cyborg rampage through Tokyo and kill thousands, all to create a spectacle for an event he is hosting. Skull is also responsible for financing a number of other Black Ghost projects that caused mass destruction and death, including the Mythos Cyborgs of Doctor Gaia and the Demon Statue built by Van Vogt, which is what we'll be getting to next.

The Demon Statue is Black Ghost's ultimate weapon, a giant superweapon shaped like a humanoid bird statue capable of remotely activating all of the weapons Black Ghost has sold to different countries, and essential part of their plan to instigate World War III. In order to construct the statue, Skull's second-in-command Van Vogt invaded the underground kingdom of Yomi, drove out its previous rulers the Zattan, and enslaved its resident Pu'Awak people to work on the statue.

Right around the time the 00 Cyborgs discover what Black Ghost is doing, the Demon Statue reaches completion. Skull's first action is to use the statue to nuke the last of the Zattan after they invade to reclaim Yomi, resulting in the destruction of the underground kingdom and the genocide of the entire Pu'Awak race. Piloting the statue, Skull has it fly out into orbit and uses it to prime all of the Black Ghost missiles sold for launch in order to escalate tensions and distrust between countries to trigger a nuclear World War III.

Heinous Standard
Despite Cyborg 009 being a children's manga, Skull is quite a grisly and ruthless figure. He's responsible for kidnapping, brainwashing, mass murder, unethical experimentation and even child abuse. The only felony he falls short on is rape. As the leader of Black Ghost he's responsible for every crime his subordinates do as well, and nearly all of Black Ghost's atrocities, the deaths they've caused and destruction they've brought about by escalating wars, can be traced back to him.

Mitigating Factors
Skull's origin is unknown and not much is known about even what is true identity is beyond him being a cyborg much like the 00 Cyborgs. Despite this, Skull clearly demonstrates free will in the excessive cruelty he commits and his enjoyment of it.

A possible origin for him within the larger Ishinomori-verse does exist in the 2007 Skull Man anime of all things, where, at the end of the anime, the titular Skull Man is overtaken by his suit and develops an appearance heavily similar to that of Skull. Of course, how canon this is to Cyborg 009 is debatable, since the anime also implies that Skull may be Joe's father.

There's also the fact that Skull *gasp* has a boss - a trio of three disembodied brains residing in the Demon Statue who are the true leaders of Black Ghost and the hidden true main antagonists of the entire Cyborg 009 franchise. Despite the brains being the true leaders of Black Ghost and having complete control of the Demon Statue, it isn't really shown how much influence they directly had over Black Ghost and for the most part it's Skull who handles the day-to-day management of the organization. The brains also claim to be the embodiment of man's evil and propensity for war, and that they will return as long as man continues to exercise violence, though it isn't known if this also applies to Skull and there is no indication that Skull himself is anything other than an entity apart from them, or if he is "made of evil" like they are.

Final Verdict
A pretty definite yes. Skull can get a bit cartoonishly evil, but he's still an incredibly vile and remorseless war profiteer, and remains an OG Pure Evil manga villain.