Joe Shimamura

This is a list of fictional characters appearing in the Cyborg 009 manga by Shotaro Ishinomori and its adaptations.

He is super-humanly strong, resistant to damage, can leap large distances, and can breathe underwater. His most prominent ability is the power to move at a speed so fast that everything else looks like a statue to him, this is triggered by a switch embedded in his teeth. However, he cannot touch any normal creatures such as humans in this state; the high speeds would kill or otherwise cause serious injury to the creature through air friction. During each of the series, he acts as the field leader and first line attack of the 00 Cyborgs.

Joe is originally from Japan, although he is actually half-Japanese who's unknown father was presumably a soldier in the US Army stationed in Japan after World War II. A delinquent youth who was shunned by his peers because he was a Half Breed, he escaped from a juvenile detention facility before being captured by Black Ghost. In the 2001 anime, after his father disappeared and his mother died on the steps at his childbirth, he was an orphan taken in by a Catholic priest from Kanazawa along with their street friends Mary Onodera (perhaps a tribute to Shotaro Ishinomori, his birth name being Shotaro Onodera), Shin'ichi Ibaraki and Masaru Oyamada, then when he turned 18 his mentor was killed by Black Ghost members after they used a group of children that he raised in the church as guinea pigs for the Cyborg project; Joe was wrongfully blamed, then captured by the priest's killers and made into a cyborg. In the 1960 and 1980 film versions, Joe was a famous racer, nicknamed "Hurricane Joe", who gets into a crash and is recovered by Black Ghost (similar to 004's origin). Joe received several body enhancements during the process of being turned into a cyborg.

His father Gamo performed numerous brain enhancement processes on Ivan that allowed his mental capacity to far exceed that of a normal human adult, against the wishes of Ivan's mother Erika (whom he even kills in the manga). Ivan's enhanced brain gives him several psychic powers, such as telepathy, telekinesis, and extra-sensory perception. However, he sometimes falls asleep at inopportune times because he is still a baby and his body can barely handle such powers.

Ivan is a baby originally from Russia, born with a severe illness. His father Gamo was a famous brain surgeon who went mad after searching for a cure. Ivan later fell into the custody of Black Ghost, who dubbed him the first member of the organization's 00-Cyborg program. He was one of the 00 Cyborgs who were frozen until more advanced technology and procedures were developed. While still a pacifier sucking infant, he is talented in scientific analysis and can telepathically converse at an adult level. He acts as the 00 Cyborgs central command and emergency psychokinetic defense.

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