Dark Ronin (Astro-Man foe)

Dark Ronin
History: Shinji Mifune was once a great samurai warrior, as skilled in strategy as he was in combat, and was well loved and respected by all who knew him. He always had certain tendencies toward cruelty and pride but in his life he held them in check. His wife was married to Emiko, a woman as brave as he, who loved him with all her heart. Among his greatest friends was Hikaru Hiromatsu, a champion of the stars who came in secret to conquer the Earth, but was impressed by Mifune’s example and chose to renounce the Viran Empire he once served and become a protector of Earth in secret.

But in the face of a seemingly unwinnable battle, Mifune’s lord abandoned him on the battlefield, leaving him to die. When his forces were called back he alone refused to retreat. After killing hundreds of the enemy soldiers, he finally fell.

But Mifune was a man who would let nothing stop him, not even death. He resolved to fight his way out of the land of the dead to return to his wife and take revenge on all those who wronged him. For hundreds of years he fought the soldiers of the Shinigami, the god of the death, and cut a swathe of destruction to his palace. At last he confronted the Shinigami and demanded to be sent back to his home. The Shinigami refused. And so Mifune cut him down, binding the Shinigami into the heart of a mountain so he could not re-form, and took his place as the lord of all the dead. Through his battle all his compassion, all his humanity had been burned away. All that remained was the lust for conquest. And so he sent forth the armies of the dead to conquer the world of the living. Twice he fought the descendents of the more-than-human line of Hiromatsu, who had married his wife after his death, and twice they defeated him at the cost of their lives. Now he has returned to face the latest descendant of the Hiromatsu line: the hero known as Astro-Man.

Powers:
The Dark Ronin has power over the elemental forces of death and decay. He can cause anything to decay and summon up soldiers from the dead to do his bidding. He must create a breach into the world of the dead in order to manifest in our world, which he does through drawing on pre-existing magical phenomena as well as making deals with sorcerers in our world. He is at his most powerful on places where battles were fought in the past.

The Astro-Force, the elemental energy of creation that Astro-Man wields, can counteract the power of the Dark Ronin. But using the Astro-Force in this way drains enormous amounts of power from him. A Viran can also send their entire life energy into the Dark Ronin, driving him off at the cost of their life, which is how Astro-Man’s ancestors defeated him. The source of Dark Ronin’s powers is his sword, which is made of ice, but no one knows how to destroy him.

Sweet, we need a concept sketch of this guy too.

That would be great considering that I can't draw one bit! Another thing that just occurred to me: he'd also be a good villain for a story with Outworlder in it because he could summon up the ancient alien warrior who merged with Michael Degner to fight him. (What's the ghost guy's name, anyway? When I wrote up a possible origin of the Golden Age Outworlder on the GAC forum I called him Aram Zarnath, although that was a deliberately goofy name.) I don't know how he'd still have his powers if the ghost became separate from him--maybe because he's still sending some power into him because he's subconsciously trying to resist the Dark Ronin?

Interesting. My vision would have the Outworlder powerless without the ghost, but anything is possible.

Sorry, I didn't realize you were the guy who wrote the GA origin. I love that piece.

The ghost's original name was (iirc) Zwyrnf. I'll have to double check to be sure. I got it by typing random letters on a typewriter. I think I like the ideas you've come up with better.

"Zwyrnf" certainly doesn't fit the character as he is in my mind, but you do have to love old-fashioned cat-on-the-keyboard sci-fi names. It should certainly be a name for someone or something. Perhaps it could use a few apostrophes, though.

Here's an image I drew of my interpretation of him :

Shyguy128 wrote:

Here's an image I drew of my interpretation of him :

This version of him has not only lost all his humanity, but he's also essentially gotten more insane throughout the years, becoming more disfigured as he continues to sit upon the throne of the land of the dead, becoming easily bored and just killing some of his underlings just for fun. As you can imagine, not a very figure from the man he once was