Despite almost never taking a starring role, Duke Red is, without a doubt, one of Tezuka’s major stars. Whether he’s been cast as a bandit, a pirate, a university professor or a judge, his classy aristocratic style and larger-than-life performances steal any scene he’s in. Although he has a wide range of performance experience, he is usually cast in the role of the refined criminal mastermind, a politician with an ominous air, or a captain of industry with devious intent – and is more often than not surrounded by a gang of henchmen, including Hamegg and Acetylene Lamp, to do his bidding. Duke Red first burst onto the stage with his debut (and namesake) role in Metropolis (1949) as the head of the notorious Red Party. Since then he has gone on to many prominent and memorable roles, notably as Judge Porfiry in Crime and Punishment (1953), “Wild Bill” Hecock in Age of Adventure (1951-53) and Mr. Nikula in Black Jack (1973-83). He also had a less well known, but humourously appropriate appearance as the title character in Cyrano the Hero (1954) – one of his only starring roles. In the "Metropolis" film incarnation of Duke Red, he is a plutocrat who funds both the Ziggurat, a skyscraper-sized machine built to spread the mankind's power across the world, and the Marduk, a vigilante group for suppressing malfunctioning robots. He also commissioned Tima's creation, who resembles his deceased daughter, to act as the core controller to the Ziggurat.
