Mazinger Series - The Great General of Darkness

The Great General of Darkness was the Supreme Commander for all the Military forces in the Mikene Empire, and acted as the Right hand man, voice, enforcer and trusted confidant of Emperor of the Darkness for well over a millennia.

First introduced by the end of the original Mazinger Z Manga, his been a major antagonist on all the retakes of the franchise (except for Mazinger Angels Save Aila, were General Juuma was the main antagonist in that saga), the Great General of Darkness was drove by his absolute and unconditional loyalty to the Emperor and his single desire for world conquest, and was willing to achieve that goal by any means necessary. For the most part, in all the retellings, the Great General was a gigantic, robust, combat ready and ruthless Commander, more imposing than his subordinates, and evoking respect, loyalty and fear across the ranks, with a strong sense of Military Honor – even the most insubordinate of the Warrior Beast (minus Kelvinius) were absolutely loyal to him, as proven when Galaria, the Psychopathic Warrior Beast, showed respect to the Great General while nearly killing and disobeying General Julicaesar. He would also punished his underlings for his failures, even tho, he at times was the indirect cause of it, as it was with the Bruton Fiasco  Mazinger series Mikene Empire - Bruton He shows no regard for Humans, do to the general God Complex that permeates through the ranks, and at times has gone full Genocidal on Humanity, as in the Kaiser OVA.

As far as it is known, the Great General was always a cyborg, long before the take over and establishment of the current Empire, appearing out of nowhere when he conquered it in the name of the Emperor of Darkness – though in the original Great anime, he is shown to be Human size in the past, rather than gigantic like in the present - and personally captured the Royal Prince of Mikene, then supervise the capture and transformation of the population into the Mikenes Storm Troopers or Warrior Beasts. Originally, Go Nagai wanted to give an Alien Origin to the Emperor and the Generals for the discarded God Mazinger Anime, but the idea was rejected and he was put to work on UFO Robot Grendizer instead – the idea would be left unused for 40 years before he finally incorporated the concept as cannon in the Manga Shin Mazinger Zero and Anime Shin Mazinger Z.

Despite the differences in the retellings of the Mazinger franchise, much of the elements of the Great General stay the same – as once the Empire falls at the hands of stronger enemy or natural disaster it hides underground where it slumbers with a few of the hire ups keeping an eye on the world above while it buys its time to grow stronger, building a series of massive tunnels and grander machines of war to use in the upcoming conquest of the Earth, a process that takes thousands of years. By the time Mazinger Z and the Photon Power lab go to war with Dr. Hell's Underground Empire, the Great General orders Archduke Gorgon to supervise the situation and (unknown to Dr. Hell) keeping him up to all the developments in the conflict while Gorgon “allied” with Hell – whether it was that the General viewed Hell as a worthy Ally or to study an opponent it is never explained, though in the Shin Z Anime, Baron Ashura states before taking its life in a ritual sacrifice that Hell was aware of the Empire's existence and his hope to conquer the world was to established a Single Superpower Empire as a whole front against Mikene when it returned.

Regardless of motives or views of Dr. Hell in any the versions, the goal of conquest stay the same for the character of the General - when Gorgon reports back to the Great General of Dr. Hell's defeat at the hands of the Mazinger Z team, the General reawakens the entire Empire and sends out his Warrior Beasts on a battle wary Z Team, leading to a conflict with Koji and Z, or Tetsuya with Great.

In the original Manga, the Great General is seen making deals with the government along with the Emperor, and when they proved less than useful to deal with Great, he took matters in his own hands and fought against Great, eventually been defeated. He is replaced by the Great Marshall of Hell (Dr. Hell reborn as Mikene Cyborg).

In the original Great Mazinger Anime, he had a heated rivalry with the Intelligence Army led by Prime Minister Argos and Archduke Gorgon (as well, his replacement, Marquis Janus). Quite often, the Great General enjoyed the blunders committed by the Intelligence army, this often led to arguments and fights between him and Argos and the Emperor had to intervene by Electrocute them in order to stop them. Still, an element of respect existed between the two, as both have the goals of the Empire in mind – this was proven when the Great General personally went to fight with Great Mazinger after finally taking responsibility for all the past failures, with Argos expressing his concern, and despite their long standing rivalry provided full support to the Great General's mission. As he achieved victory, for once Argos gave him exalted him in his success and hoped for his safe returned. But, when Juran, Banigon and Danzania finally go down, the General decides to take the fight to Great himself, Janus begged the General to reconsidered, to which the he rebuked do to honor. Inspired by the fire in his eyes, Janus provided protection to the Great General with a barrage of missiles as he charged towards Great Mazinger's last known position. As the two combatants wounded each other, the General knocks Great down, but not before been mortally wounded, in his final words he rejected Janus' assistance and requested that a Warrior songs be played for him so he could withstand the agony in Hell, before falling over Great Mazinger and exploding, however, Great Mazinger still survived. When the Great General finally died in the original anime, Argos, Janus and the rest of the Hierarchy mourned his lose. Even Tetsuya gave him a level of respect in death as a warrior.

Depending on what Universe the story takes place in, the lose of the Great General becomes a massive blow to the empire, even rattling the Emperor himself and without its Strong Ruthless commander, it either leads to a somewhat disorganize military, where many of the hire ups vine for his position, leading to a new replacement in the form of the Great Marshall of Hell or the Empire getting traumatized or destroyed that whatever is left of it (IF ANY) never shows its face again, specially if the General was the supreme authority of the Empire with no Emperor, like in the Mazinkaiser OVA.

Design wise the General remains the same, decorated with a navy style helmet adorn with 3 horns, the top head was always stoic, but capable to emote emotions, the upper part of the face covered by a black mask, with curved stripes on his cheeks, and two sharps fangs (or teeth) coming out of the mouth. He wore a dark blue Roman style armor, with a red/dark cape, with an bronze color armor skirt and boots, the forward end of the boots curving with a pointy tip, his true face was located in the upper body area, and that was that of an old bearded man. Possessing overwhelming strength, his weaponry included Optic Beams and his Sword, capable to cut any object or enemy in his path, in Shin Z, it cut the top of Mount Fuji with one swing. His cape was Laser and Heat proof, in one of the retellings able to deflect Mazinkaiser's Breast of Fire. In Mazinkaiser and in Shin Mazinger Z, he was massively robust than in the original Manga and Anime counterparts, and would be painted in either black , or Black and gray colors schemes, with Bronze yellow in those versions. But the general personality of the Great General still remains the same, and at times, was much more brutal, violent and ruthless with each version.

However, the Great General differed in two versions:

The first was in the short lived MazinSaga manga from 1990 to 1992: where the General was the Gigantic fusion of Baron Ashura, Count Brocken, Viscount Pygman and Archduke Gorgon, thrown into the Pit by God Kaiser Hell after he got tired of failures of his minions. Their bio mechanical remains fused in the fires of the Gates of Hell, becoming the new Great General of Darkness. In it he had a more younger face than the other versions, having been newly born, but retained the bearded face nonetheless. His fate is unknown as the Manga was discontinued in 1992.

The other was in Robot Girls Z, where she was a giant woman, ruthless and cruel, who cared little for the underlings who served the Mycenae Empire Corp, as well the general populous, and decimated the whole city when trying to destroy the heroes and the Photon Power lab, but continuing with the comedic nature of the Robot Girls Z, when Ashura shows up, she removes her cape exposing a zipper. Z-Chan fires her rocket punch, which grabs onto and unfolded a zipper revealing the Giant to be an RC robot piloted by Mycenean-Tan, the CEO of the company, was a tiny yet very arrogant bratty little girl.