| 005 | |
|---|---|
|
Full Name |
Geronimo Jr. |
|
Kanji/Kana |
ジェロニモ·ジュニア |
|
Birth Date |
12/25 |
Geronimo Jr. aka 005 and The Iron Man, is a Native American man drafted into Black Ghost due to his trouble in finding employment. Among the cyborgs, he is the most silent, speaking the least amount of lines.
Appearance[]
005 is a very large man and the tallest of the team, standing well above six feet and sporting a highly muscular build. He is dark-skinned, with black hair worn in a flat-topped mohawk. He has what either appear to be tribal scars or war paint markings on his face, and is later depicted with scars and stitches on his body in "Invisible Strings" (with them implied to be from his cybernetic remodeling). Because of his scars, he often wears clothing that covers most of his body.
Initially, his height difference and build were not settled upon, though his muscles would be emphasized and exaggerated throughout the duration of the manga.
Personality[]
005 is soft-spoken and hardly ever speaks or verbally interacts, unless he needs to. In the one-shot story "Blood Spirit", it is shown that he speaks the most to a pet puma named Joseph, more than he would to any teammate or human.
He has great pride in his heritage, often looking into nature to solve some sort of crisis, and had punched a producer for asking him to play a role as a stereotypical image of Native Americans. At heart however, he is a pacifist and dislikes fighting. While he is not shown to directly interact all that much with the other cyborgs, 005 still cares about them and does what he can to protect his teammates.
Abilities and Equipment[]
005 is the strongman of the team, having been granted artificial skin that is able to survive heavy artillery fire, and is able to shoot down a missile with only his fist. His strength is equal to about 1 million horsepower (which was later upgraded to 10 million), allowing him to bend and break through an armored tank with ease.
Because of his strength, he often does not carry the Supergun and uses his fists in battle. 005 mainly fights defensive. especially when with the other cyborgs. Besides combat, he is a skilled carpenter, having made a crib for 001 and being able to work in construction.
By the time of the "Aztec" arc in 1979, it is also shown that he has some esper-like abilities and is able to withstand the influence of a machine that exploits rage and traumatizing memories in the people that it affects.
History[]
Geronimo Junior had lost his home at an uncertain time, and left for work but was left unemployed due to the vast discrimination of Native Americans. When approached by a producer to star in a play as a chief, Jr. punched him, refusing to demean his heritage and play the part of a stereotype for the enjoyment of white people.
He was then approached by agents of Black Ghost on a job offer. With no signs of discrimination, Jr. accepted with nowhere else to go. But he was too late to realize that it was a trick, and that he would be turned into a cyborg.
When 009 was completed and sent to destroy his predecessors, 005 and the others escaped Black Ghost by fighting off their forces. After the escape from Black Ghost, 005 would provide any needed muscle for the team in battle.
Gallery[]
Notes[]
- As shown in "Cyborg 009 a la cult", the name for 005 came down to either being Geronimo or Tamu Tamu. He was also initially drafted as being an Aboriginal Australian man, before Ishinomori opted to design him as a Native American (or "American Indian", as the acceptable term was in Japan at the time).
- Ishinomori was initially inconsistent with the character design, and sometimes depicted him without pupils.
- While without a set age in the manga, his 1979 series age of 31 is often used as a placeholder.
Ambiguity over Tribal Affiliation[]
Owing to ambiguity by Ishinomori himself not specifying the detail throughout the publication of the manga and related materials, Geronimo's tribe has been up for debate for many years.
While his name derives from that of the leader of the Bedonkohoe Apache, and while 005's location of Arizona and the Southwestern US would suggest him being of the Apache tribe, the Ishinomori historian Junichi Fukuda had put forth the idea that he was more accurately of the Mohican tribe, due to his hairstyle. This setting was then imported into the visual development trailer for the 2001 anime.
However, due to the inaccuracy of having a Mohican man named "Geronimo" and not wanting any controversy to come about overseas, his name was truncated to "G-Junior" by the production committee for the actual series, to be on the safe side. While Archaia's 2013 graphic novel does not give out a tribal affiliation, FJ DeSanto and Bradley Cramp shortened his name to "Junior", perhaps due to similar controversy concerns and to simplify his name.
Conflicting with the Mohican deduction is the fact that Mohican people were not based out of the Southwestern US, having settled around the New England territories. Though since Geronimo was stated to be a wanderer, it can also be up for question if Arizona was actually his hometown. It is also a point that although the mohawk hair style is often attributed to the Mohicans, the common form of the style more accurately resembles that of the Pawnee tribe, which had settled in the Midwestern states (such as Oklahoma).