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Protagonists

    Cobra 

Cobra

Voiced by: Nachi Nozawa (TV anime, OVAs, Arcade game), Shigeru Matsuzaki (movie), Yasuo Yamada (PC Engine game), Yusaku Yara (Playstation game), Naoya Uchida (Cobra the Animation), Dan Woren (English, movie; Streamline dub), William Dufris (English, movie; Manga dub), Doug Stone (Sega CD game), Michael Bell (English, TV anime)
Dubbed by: Tomas Bolme (Swedish)
A honourable independent space pirate who lays waste to both the Galaxy Patrol and the evil Pirate Guild.
  • Afraid of Needles: The first time the immortal Cobra is seen afraid for his life is when a Dragon Clan henchwoman has him bound and about to be tattooed by dozens of needles. The rest of the arc involves a villain who preys on the actually serious things Cobra is afraid of.
    "NOOOOOOO! Stop! Please stop! T-time out! I don't want a dragon tattoo! Can't you at least make it Marilyn Monroe instead? And besides, I hate those needles! I get hives just looking at 'em!"
  • Age Lift: He is (supposedly) 55 in the manga, and 29 in the anime.
  • Amnesiac Hero: During the "Golden Door" saga, Cobra hits his head and loses his memories when he falls into a city deep inside Planet Galon. He recovers when's he's poisoned, beaten to near death by Garcia and notices a king cobra tattoo on the villain's arm.
  • An Arm and a Leg: His first traumatic experience was the loss of his left arm to the man who would become Crystal Bowie.
  • Arm Cannon: The Psychogun shoots laser beams he can control with his mind. While plenty overpowered, prolonged use of the weapon wears him out.
  • Break Out the Museum Piece: His sidearm is a Colt Python revolver, which is absolutely ancient by the time to series takes place.
  • Cartwright Curse: Nearly every woman he falls in love with gets killed. Some of them by his hand when they turn out to be traitors. The Royal sisters in particular are a sore spot for him long after the first storyline.
  • The Casanova: Very flirty and popular with the opposite sex, and does come off like a quite chivalrous gentleman most of the time.
  • Cheshire Cat Grin: He's almost always with a sly grin on his face.
  • Cool Old Guy: Well, middle-aged more like. Cobra may be in his mid-50s, but he still has a youthful spirit. The "Old Guy" part doesn't apply in the anime, where he's 29 instead.
  • Cool Ship: The Turtle, a flying brick with a shape that evokes a turtle's shell. It can divide into three sections that can then be arranged one behind the other and bend over, roughly like a snake's body. The Turtle's name turns out to be an Ironic Name, as Cobra notes he named it like that because of its speed.
  • Cigar Chomper: Rarely seen without a cigar. Some of them are gadgets in disguise.
  • The Determinator: Cobra always gets back to his feet no matter how injured he is and stops at nothing to get whatever he wants. Even when Evil manages to subjugate his mind by haunting him with the trauma of the first time he nearly got killed and lost his left arm, the satanic creature is still defeated because Cobra's survival instincts are completely unbreakable.
  • Doom Magnet: Cobra gets involved into an endless streak of dangerous incidents, with most people who come across him being killed one way or the other. Most women in particular can't seem to even hold a conversation with Cobra without being killed by some passing villain.
  • The Dreaded: Cobra is feared across the galaxy, but there's plenty of people who'd target him for his bounty and that led to his temporary retirement in the series' backstory.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Cobra rejects the advances of the barely 15 years-old Misty, though he does tease her with a "Shut Up" Kiss and later kisses her again while in disguise to assure her that she'll be safe.
  • Gag Nose: In "Cobra Returns", Jeff remarks on the shape of Cobra's nose. This becomes a Running Gag in the sequel stories, where people keep calling the handsome pirate "big nosed", "droopy eyed" and "loose lipped"...
  • Good Is Not Soft: While he's a good guy and does heroic feats in several stories, he's very ruthless in combat and rarely if ever demonstrates mercy to enemies.
  • Harmless Freezing: Cobra is pushed into a liquid nitrogen pool in the "Merchant of Death" chapter, but breaks Lady free as it happens. She picks him up and dunks him on a conveniently placed fish tank to melt the ice before he dies.
  • Healing Factor: Not to the degree of wounds healing before one's eyes, but his ability to recover from injuries that would otherwise be life-threatening in a matter of hours is one of the reasons why he's survived everything he's been through.
  • Hot Blooded Sideburns: Part of his hairstyle, befitting a hero from the 80s.
  • I Let Gwen Stacy Die: The only time Cobra cries in the whole series is when he learns Dominique was Killed Offscreen. Later on, a Fetus Terrible villain tries to prey on Cobra's repressed fears and regrets by haunting him with a vision of her. In The Psychogun, Cobra is also shown to regret his failure to protect all three Royal sisters even several years later.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice:
    • A random mook manages to stab Cobra in the back, only for Cobra to act like nothing is wrong and taunt the guy before killing him. With that done, Cobra pulls the blade out and nervously admits to himself he did almost get killed there.
    • Gypsy Dog impales Cobra with a spike on a chain while he is affected by a time-freezing bullet that intensifies his pain. Once the effect runs off, Cobra actually forces the chain out of his body but is left too weakened and is dropped into a river, where he's saved by Lady.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While Cobra is very cocky and quite selfish, he genuinely cares about his friends and always strives to do the right thing.
  • Long-Haired Pretty Boy: What he looked like before cutting his hair short and having his face changed by plastic surgery.
  • Lovable Rogue: Cobra is a dangerous thief who regularly finds himself rescuing the helpless from the forces of evil.
  • Made of Iron: Cobra can handle a ton of punishment, to the point he once unflinchingly taunted a guy who managed to impale him from behind.
  • Mr. Fanservice: He's very popular with the ladies for this very reason.
  • My Greatest Failure: Out of all the love interests he lost throughout the series, Cobra despaired the most when Dominique was killed. He went into tears while blaming himself for getting too involved with her and not protecting her enough. In both the Salamander arc and "The Psychogun", he refers to it as the Pirate Guild taking away his dreams.
  • Naked on Arrival: In the anime, he's first introduced being woken up by his Robot Buddy, and while we don't see anything, it becomes pretty clear that he Sleeps in the Nude.
  • Nice Guy: Cobra is shown to be a heroic, caring person despite his cockiness.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: He is modeled after French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: He almost always makes himself out to be a fool in order to catch his enemies off guard.
  • Older Than They Look: According to Cobra's fake tombstone, it says he was born in 2303 and died in 2355, and after faking his death, he went absent for 3 years, which makes Cobra 55 years old, despite easily passing for a man in his 20s. The anime, however, Averts this by aging him down to 29.
  • Pop-Cultured Badass: Calls himself "James Bond", credits his abnormal strength on eating spinach, hints at his allies to misdirect villains by talking about the Cheshire Cat and compares himself and Crystal Bowie to American baseball teams.
  • Red Is Heroic: Cobra's costume used to be light purple in most of the covers and color illustrations from the manga's run, but adaptations have since made it the standard for him to wear red.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
    • Cobra's revenge on Crystal Bowie for his part on Jane's and Catherine's deaths has him go on a one-man rampage against his forces. In contrast, Cobra gets much angrier at Lord Salamander for getting Dominique kiled but knows he must round up a team of mercenaries to help him swiftly assassinate the heavily-guarded villain.
    • In the "Eyes of God" arc, Cobra goes on an one-man assault on Papillon's organization to avenge Yuko's death, but uses hologram clones to confuse her forces.
  • Rocket Punch: A strategy he once used against Crystal Bowie's defenses. The villain is quick to deflect the punch on their next encounters, however, so Cobra has to try other methods. This is also how he defeats Black Sword Zero in the "Hell Crusaders" arc.
  • Set Swords to "Stun": Cobra can control the power of his Psychogun to stun people instead of carving large holes in them, but this is seen just once in the entire series when he needs to subdue a brainwashed Jane. Afterwards, he only shoots to kill.
  • Showy Invincible Hero: Downplayed as Cobra still gets kicked around, uses his wits more than brute strength, and sometimes has to have assistance from Lady but he rarely outright loses a fight.
  • Skewed Priorities: Upon arriving on a Ghost Town riddled with corpses, Cobra's first decision is to hit the showers. Dominique angrily tosses a soap bar on his face for it.
  • Space Pirate: One of the most well-known in Japanese comics.
  • These Hands Have Killed: Evil attempts to guilt Cobra with visions of the people he's killed, causing the pirate to sit down and meditate to avoid losing his soul to him. However, Cobra specifically sees Targrave, Sandra and Iron Head, implying what actually bothers him is being remembered of foes who threatened or killed the Royal Sisters. All the others in the crowd are rendered faceless, as if he's forgotten them all.
  • Vague Age: Cobra is generally implied to be in his thirties during the original series, but every adaptation of the story has different dates on Cobra's fake tombstone that make his supposed age anywhere from his twenties to his fifties.
    • It is mentioned in the "Six Heroes" arc that Cobra lost his arm 15 years previously, still leaving unclear exactly how old he is.
    • In the "Blue Rose" story published after the original series, the 120 years-old Ryuju states she's three times older than Cobra, meaning he's in his fourties by that point.
  • Would Hit a Girl:
    • In The Psychogun, Cobra states he shouldn't kill women out of principle but will do so with no hesitation if threatened by them. Indeed, Cobra's first intentional kill after rediscovering his identity was a female assassin, as if to display from the get-go how ruthless he is. In the "Six Heroes" arc, Gavara chastises Cobra for not immediately shooting her in the back out of a supposed soft spot for women and tells him to not underestimate them. At this point, Cobra had already killed villainesses by the dozen, some even in needlessly cruel ways, and promptly tears a hole into her torso after sneaking on her again.
    • Cobra threatens a female hitwoman in the "Merchant of Death" chapter for information by choking her and saying he hasn't ever hit a woman in his life (nevermind him killing that one female cyborg by punching her in the gut) but would still kill her if she didn't cooperate.
    • In a scene from "Magic Doll", Cobra ignores a henchwoman who isn't directly attacking him and says he only lays his hands on women in bed. In a call back to the encounter with Gavara, the woman mocks Cobra for being "soft" and is immediately crushed by the elevator he drops on her and her Black Dart squad.
    • Emphasized again in the beginning of the "Over The Rainbow" webcomic sequel, where Cobra dissuades a female enemy from shooting him by claiming he doesn't like killing women. When she does it anyway, he kicks back an automated gun that counters and nails the villainess before mockingly remarking he doesn't care if she "kills herself".
  • Why Am I Ticking?: The premise of the "Hell Crusaders" arc is Cobra being hit in the chest by a time bomb bullet from a hitman by said organization and joining them to find a way to disarm it.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: A Running Gag is that Cobra is afraid of all the silly things you can imagine, like bugs, heights, needles and hospitals. He fights through all that anyway, and is even seen skydiving for fun in one story.
  • Wrecked Weapon: The "Eyes of God" arc involves the Psychogun breaking down and Cobra acquiring a copy from Yuko, the daughter of its creator. Cobra actually tries rejecting the Psychogun and retiring so he could marry Yuko, but she is killed by a sniper and he's forced to return to the world of danger again.

    Lady Armaroid 

Lady Armaroid

Voiced by: Yoshiko Sakakibara (TV anime, OVAs, Arcade game, Cobra the Animation), Etsuko Ishikawa (PC Engine game), Toshiko Fujita (Playstation game)
Cobra's right-hand woman, a powerful cyborg who supports his adventures.
  • Action Girl: Whenever Cobra is in trouble, he can count on Lady's fighting and piloting prowess.
  • Big Damn Heroes: At multiple occasions, Lady either saves Cobra's life when he's left helpless by an enemy or simply arrives to pick him up when an adventure leaves him stranded in the middle of nowhere.
  • The Chosen Many: In the Six Heroes arc, Lady is crystalized by a goddess to force Cobra to find a group of chosen heroes who can weaken and defeat a demonic Crystal Bowie. Cobra later realizes that Lady herself is the sixth hero and races against Crystal Bowie to get to her first.
  • Cyborg: Used to be Princess Emeralda, but her brain had to be put in a mechanical body to save her life.
  • Damsel in Distress:
    • The "Merchant of Death" chapter has Lady being held captive by a disguised Crystal Bowie and his goons. Cobra breaks her free when he's pushed into a pool of liquid nitrogen so she can thaw his frozen form in turn.
    • One story has Cobra climbing a mountain that ceases existing to faithless people. Most of the characters involved fall to their doom due to doubts over whether a plane with treasure crashed there or not, except for a man who was determined to find proof that his late father made it to the top of the mountain, the man who planned the plane crash, and Cobra, who knew Lady was its only survivor and was waiting for him to rescue her.
    • The Six Heroes arc has Lady being fused to a crystal by a Goddess as a hostage to force Cobra to gather The Chosen Many and fight Crystal Bowie. She is eventually broken free and helps Cobra by fighting the cyborgfied Ursula.
  • Mysterious Past: In the original series, Lady's shared past with Cobra and the reason she became an "armaroid" are never explored.
  • Only Known by Their Nickname: Lady's real name, "Emeralda Sunborn", and her backstory are only given in the "Time Drive" saga published after the original series.
  • Platonic Life-Partners: Through thick and thin, Lady and Cobra will watch the other's back, and they literally are as thick as thieves. The trope is practically lampshaded in the text game when Hammerbolt Joe kidnaps Lady; Cobra himself calls her his invaluable partner. And in the anime movie, Lady is shown to care for him, offering to dance with him, and more than willing to stay up for long periods of times helping him train with the psychogun. It helps both are badass pirates who know their way through combat.
  • Put on a Bus: In a surprisingly large amount of the series' story arcs, Lady is either just Cobra's glorified taxi driver or is completely absent. In particular, she is blown up in an assassination attempt by Salamander and spends three volumes under repairs, with the summaries on each one claiming she had been "killed" like Dominique. She returns on "The Extradimensional Race" saga with no fanfarre whatsoever.
  • Ret-Gone: "Time Drive" starts with Cobra carrying a vanishing Lady to a mystical woman who travels through time by diving into memories. He learns that she is bound to a teleportation device set to warp her to a location that's been displaced in time by a black hole.
  • Samus Is a Girl: Lady is introduced bursting out of a male butler robot that was looking after an amnesiac Cobra.
  • That Woman Is Dead: When Cobra is unsure that Emeralda will accept becoming a cyborg to survive her injuries, he grabs a book-bird with a record of her life and is disheartened to read that her story had ended there. But then she appears as Lady behind him, and the book receives a new page to acknowledge her new identity.
  • True Blue Femininity: Her body is entirely blue, to contrast with Cobra's red color scheme.
  • Unrobotic Reveal: Many of the side characters believe Lady is a mere robot and she often pretends this is the case, until the "Six Heroes" arc confirms she really was a cyborg the whole time when Ursula tries frying her brain with electromagnetism but just gets punched to death instead.
  • Warrior Prince: She used to be the princess of Sunborn Dukedom, and fought with a sword that manifested from a tattoo on her leg.
  • What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Subverted; Lady isn't entirely mechanical but to hide that she sometimes tells people she doesn't have the capacity to understand human emotions.

Allies

    The Royal Sisters 
  • Action Girl: Jane is a bounty hunter and Dominique is a Friend on the Force that helps Cobra on several occasions. Both are prone to turning into damsels in need of rescue, though, and ultimately die in vain.
  • Back from the Dead: It is implied, but ultimately left ambiguous, that Secret Sanders is actually an amnesiac Dominique Royal, reincarnated somehow. Over the Rainbow was intended to reveal whether Secret is indeed Dominique or not, however it would be permanently left up in the air, however, due to series creator, Buichi Terasawa, tragically passing away before he could be able to finish writing the comic.
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Tarvage implants one of his parasites into Jane and forces her to kill Catherine. In the original manga, she doesn't even survive the process before Cobra can kill Tarvage.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death:
    • In the manga, Catherine is shot in the neck and falls from a huge height into the ground, which is just an awful way for an innocent damsel to die. The brainwashed Jane even kicks her corpse over to get a picture of her butterfly tattoo for further humiliation.
    • Dominique is killed offscreen by unknown means and all her back skin is ripped out and left on display to taunt Cobra, which is a very cruel and undignified end for a recurring heroine like her.
  • Death by Adaptation: Dominique is unambiguously killed by Crystal Bowie in the film adaptation.
  • Dies Differently in Adaptation: Jane is killed in every version of the Royal Sisters arc, but in different circumstances each time.
  • Drop Dead Gorgeous:
    • Catherine is killed while she's in her underwear and is seen sprawled over the ground for a page before being kicked over for a picture of her back tattoo.
    • Cobra fails to save the brainwashed Jane from Targrave's parasites and her tragic scantily clad figure is prominently shown lying over a operation table in a surprisingly dignified manner.
    • Dominique's death scene is the series' Goldfinger moment, but it is completely Played for Horror: she's killed offscreen and her tattooed back is skinned from shoulder to the bottom of her legs. Those grotesque remains are left on display for a distressed Cobra to find.
  • Expy: Word of God confirmed that both Jane and Dominque are based off of both Barbarella and Princess Aurora. They were also modeled after Barbarella's live action actress, Jane Fonda (whom Jane Royal was also named after).
  • Forgotten Fallen Friend:
    • Cobra pretty much forgets about Jane and Catherine after they die, particularly in the manga version, since he barely knew them. Only "The Psychogun" has a nightmare sequence where he has a vision of Crystal Bowie killing the three Royal sisters before him, showing how he still regrets failing them.
    • Strangely, when Cobra confronts the real Salamander in the manga version, avenging Dominique has little to do with anything anymore and he's already flirting with Mirale at the time. Dominique's death is shown to still affect him in a few later stories such as "Black Dragon King", though.
  • Killed Offscreen:
    • In the manga version, Jane is captured by Crystal Bowie and brainwashed by Targrave. She remains brainwashed until she succumbs to Targrave's parasites offscreen before Cobra can kill him.
    • Dominique is kidnapped by Salamander and killed offscreen by a corrupt member of the Galactic Patrol. In the anime she actually had her memories supressed and was made to replace Mirale of the Sid Goddess cult, while the manga implies she wasn't really killed either and became the amnesiac Secret Sanders.
  • Living MacGuffin: Each sister has a tattoo on their back that when combined reveals the location of the Ultimate Weapon.
  • The Mole: Dominique is introduced as an agent infiltrated in Sandra's Snow Gorillas organization.
  • Sacrificial Lamb:
    • Cobra is having a good time retrieving Catherine from Sid Prison when a brainwashed Jane suddenly snipes her in the neck, leading the story on a darker tone than anyone would've expected.
    • Cobra then fails to kill Tarvage before Jane perishes from the effects of the plant parasites and declares war on the Pirate Guild over it. In the anime version, Jane survives this but is killed anyway by Crystal Bowie in a failed revenge attempt, giving even more reason for Cobra to eradicate the villain.
    • Dominique is more of a Sacrificial Lion who is killed offscreen by Lord Salamander in the beginning of one of the biggest sagas in the story just to spite Cobra, leading to the hero setting out to assassinate the Pirate Guild's leader.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: The anime adaptation of the Sid Goddess arc ended on a more positive note than the manga by turning Mirale into an amnesiac Dominique.
  • Stripperiffic: Jane and Dominique wear what amounts to a Chainmail Bikini, as do various other women in the series.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Dominique is one for her twin sister Jane, as they both look identical (though in the movie version Dominique has blue hair while Jane is still a blonde) and both are Action Girls who come to love Cobra, but in both versions Cobra meets Dominique long after Jane's death.
  • Toplessness from the Back: The obvious reason they have MacGuffin tattoos is so Terasawa could draw their bare backs and asses as much as possible.
  • Uncertain Doom: Dominique is said to have been killed and skinned by Dobell and her remains are left for an enraged Cobra to find, but her fate is left with some ambiguity. In the anime, Dominique turns up alive in the end and in the manga Cobra meets a mysterious and identical-looking Galactic Patrol officer named Secret. In one story, Cobra finds Secret has a familiar beauty mark and figures she is an amnesiac Dominique but never learns about how she survived. "Over the Rainbow" was meant to tie that loose end, but Terasawa died before finishing it.
  • Uniformity Exception: Jane and Dominique are perfect twins, with the same hairstyle featuring long, flowing waist-length hair with a prominent bang and muttonchops, and they're both Action Girls skilled with a gun and decent in hand-to-hand combat. Catherine, on the other hand is an innocent, non-action civilian girl who had the misfortune of being captured and kept in the Cido Prison at the beginning of the story, and though her hairstyle differs depending on the version of the story, it is always different compared to that of her sisters, to the point she might not be considered an actual twin to them.

    Sieg 
  • The Good King: He was depowered and imprisoned by Babel for years in secret, during which the Swordian race turned into assassins who hunt other lifeforms for sport. Thankfully, the minions let him duel Babel to the death without interfering and resume being peaceful once the villain is defeated.
  • Living Weapon: As a Swordian, he's a living sword who was once able to control a set of armor to move around but lost this ability from years of torture. As such, he requires Cobra to put the armor on and wield him to fight Babel.

    Bellamy 
  • Action Girl: She reliably helps Cobra defeat Gartan with her spells.
  • Damsel in Distress: She encounters Cobra while on the run from Gartan, but actually helps the hero just as much in the short story she's featured in.
  • Incredible Shrinking Man: She shrinks to remove a balloon seed from Cobra's body, keeping Gartan from exploding the guy.
  • Sympathy for the Devil: She feels bad about leaving Gartan imprisoned within a magic bottle and ponders if they should free him if he promises to reform.

    Lucia Lodock 
  • Given Name Reveal: Cobra only learns her name when she reveals she was a cop the whole time.
  • Playboy Bunny: Wears a bunnygirl costume while working as a casino hostess.
  • Undercover Cop Reveal: Lucia looks like a ditzy damsel for Cobra to save, but was an undercover agent of the Galactic Patrol tricking the pirate into taking Hammerbolt Joe down for her.

    Vega 
  • Bait-and-Switch: Vega keeps talking like he's on the verge of death and that he and Cobra had to steal the Dragon's Crystal to prevent it somehow. In the end, it turns out he was actually about to molt into a winged form and it was their perfect chance to steal the artifact from Rune Museum and escape from it afterwards.
  • Noodle Incident: Owes Cobra his life from some undisclosed incident.
  • Winged Humanoid: He molts into a bat-like form to escape from Rune Museum into a lightning storm with Cobra.

    The Red Saxons' Z-Team 
  • Combat Pragmatist: Cobra gathers information on the past injuries suffered by the members of the First Team and instructs his underdog teammates to aim for those body parts to take them out, knowing his opponents aren't going to go easy on them either.
  • Gentle Giant: The 2.7 meters tall Zack Simmons/Rick Blue quickly drops his menacing attitude when he learns Cobra is what his old friend looks like after a face surgery.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Leo takes a dead ball on purpose at the end of the match against the First Team so Cobra can attempt a walk-off home run against them.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Cobra claims Zack has a Snoopy tattoo by his bellybutton, though it is never actually shown on him.

    Velma R- 78 
  • No-Sell: It is the only robot immune to Zaval-0's control.
  • Reset Button: Once the Zaval-0 is unleashed and starts killing countless people, Velma is forced to reset the events to a version where Cobra just ignores it and the chain restraining Zaval-0 is never broken.
  • Waddling Head: It's a spherical robot with googly eyes and feet. Cobra can't help but buy the thing, and ends up causing an apocalyptical event for his troubles.

    Doug Salavas, Pumpkin and Bud 
  • Big Damn Heroes: Pumpkin is introduced by killing a spider henchwoman who was about to bite Cobra.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: After the failed assassination of Salamander, Doug gets easily assassinated by a hitwoman to show how dangerous the Guild still is. In the anime version, the other two are also uncerimoniously rubbed out by Salamander himself in a matter of seconds!
  • The Nose Knows: Bud can recognize the smells of Cobra, Doug and Pumpkin from a mile away.
  • Refusal of the Call: Bud refuses Cobra's request to help him assassinate Salamander because he had found a girlfriend and friends in a crew of fishermen. Naturally, they are all killed only minutes later, forcing Bud to fight for revenge like Cobra.
  • Shapeshifter: Doug is the last of the Miragians, a race that can transform their bodies at will.
  • Winged Humanoid: Bud is a humanoid bat alien.

    Lady Mirale 

    Natalie, Lomule and Yoko O'Brien 
  • Big Damn Heroes: Lomule arrives right on time to prevent Yoko from using a machine that would implant a bomb on Cobra's neck. Cobra had already broken free on his own, but is thankful to the parasite anyway.
  • Body Surf: Lomule is a wig-like mass of tentacles that sits atop people's heads to control them and feed off their life energy, as it cannot survive a week without a host.
  • The Dragon: Yoko's family line is forced to serve the Black Dragon King as his priestesses. She antagonises Cobra until she decides to trust him with killing the Dragon King.
  • Fate Worse than Death:
    • Yoko succumbs to the Dragon King's Mind Rape ability and begs Cobra to set her on fire before she becomes a soulless undead. Cobra has no choice but to do it.
    • Natalie and Lomule are sent as sacrifices to the Black Dragon King just before they can hide in the castle's tunnels. The two are also caught by the King's illusions and are only found by Cobra at the very end of the scenario, at which point Cobra is also forced to kill the soulless Lomule but manages to retrieve Natalie alive.
  • Forced into Evil: Yoko works for the Dragon King under threat of death as much as her minions.
  • Hot Teacher: Natalie, who naturally is as pretty and scantily clad as any other gal on this page, is introduced as a tennis teacher trying to keep her students from flirting with Cobra. Unfortunately, all of her girls get devoured by human-headed sharks early on the "Black Dragon King" arc.
  • Mercy Kill: Once Lomule takes hold of Natalie, Cobra claims it'd be merciful to kill Natalie in that state. Ironically, at the end of the story Natalie ends up saved from Evil's madness-inducing powers because Lomule was controlling her. At the time Cobra had no ill will for the creature because of how helpful it had been, but begrudingly sets it on fire before escaping with Natalie.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Yoko helps Cobra get to the Dragon King but remains dominated by fear and Cobra is forced to kill her to prevent the Dragon King from devouring her soul.

    Secret Sanders 
  • Ambiguously Related: It is only in one of the sequel stories that Cobra tricks Secret into admitting she has a mole on her nipple like Dominique had and figures they might be one and the same after all. He just never learns what exactly happened to her.
  • Damsel in Distress: Dominique's alive and well!... So here's her getting trapped in a gravity field for a whole day while Cobra deals with some amnesia of his own... And then she's trapped in the magic eye of some villainess who forces Cobra to do her bidding... In the original manga's run, that's all we saw of poor Secret.
  • Girl of the Week: She appears in a few sagas as a love interest who requests help from Cobra, though he likely prefers keeping her at arm's length to avoid what happened to Dominique.
  • Meaningful Name: A lookalike of the supposedly deceased Dominique named "Secret".
  • Unexplained Recovery: She's implied to be an amnesiac Dominique, but Dobbel is sure that he had killed her. "Over the Rainbow" was meant to tie this loose end, but the story was left unfinished because of Terasawa's passing.
  • World's Most Beautiful Woman: In the "Golden Door" arc, the titular door can only be opened by Secret because she has the exact proportions of Queen Shiva, who once was the most beautiful woman in the universe.
    Secret: So, Cobra, how does it feel to be looking at the woman with the best proportions in the universe?
    Cobra: I'll bet Marilyn Monroe's pulling her hair out in heaven!

    Wukong 
  • And I Must Scream: Was petrified while conscious by Ahura Mazda for three years before Lady ended up stuck in his place as a hostage for Cobra to do as the goddess says.
  • Blood Knight: He loves to fight and happily starts a bar brawl when's he's taunted enough times.
  • Just a Kid: Cobra initially refuses to take him for the fight against Crystal Bowie because he's too young. It's when Cobra relents and takes Wukong along that they realize he's one of The Chosen Many.
  • The Lost Lenore: Wukong's girlfriend Lin-Lin is blown up and reduced to a horribly burnt severed head that he puts to rest in a river. After some hesitation, Cobra comes back for the boy and lets him fight for revenge because he also understands what it feels like to lose a loved one.
  • Monkey King Lite: Like his name implies, he's a monkey warrior with a Telescoping Staff.

    Hawk the Phantom Warrior 
  • Become a Real Boy: Hawk's kind are mental projections made by dragons and who disappear when their respective master is killed. Only by experiencing strong enough emotions can they become real humans.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Hawk saves Cobra from Ursula and then his dragon master in a row, which turns him into a real man.
  • Blow You Away: Can conjure hurricanes with his sword.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Hawk becomes a real human when he kills his own dragon master in Cobra's defense, fully expecting to vanish as a consequence.

    Misty the Electrigician 
  • Action Girl: She's a pretty capable fighter with superpowers and is one of The Chosen Many who help Cobra fight Crystal Bowie.
  • Eating the Eye Candy: Misty builds a heated barrel bath for an injured Cobra and starts ogling him while he undresses.
    Cobra: ...You know, you could always turn around if you're embarrassed.
    Misty: *smiles*
  • Intimate Healing: When Cobra nearly dies from freezing, Misty heats herself with electricity and hugs him until he regains consciousness.
  • The Jailbait Wait: Cobra jokes that he might give Misty a chance in four or five years, but instead of Misty reappearing as an adult in later stories, Terasawa made up two more naughty teenagers instead...
  • Lightning Can Do Anything: Her body can control electricity, which is actually a form of life energy that she can shape into animals like dogs and dragons.
  • Ms. Fanservice: She's as barely-dressed and sexualized as any older female character in the series.
  • No-Sell: Her being immune to electricity comes in handy when she gets careless and is pushed into an electric furnace. Crystal Bowie reflecting Misty's lightning does stun her, though.
  • The Not-Love Interest: Misty is the lead heroine for most of the "Six Heroes" arc while Lady is trapped to a rock and she flirts with Cobra a lot, but this 80's pulp manga isn't Auction House or anything and Cobra doesn't reciprocate the Fille Fatale's feelings (though a "Shut Up" Kiss or two is fine apparently).
  • Non-Standard Character Design: She's far more expressive than any other female character in the series, as if to better convey her youthful cheekiness.
  • Precocious Crush: She's barely 15 and crushes hard on Cobra, who's much older than her (likely in his 30s, or 55 if you take his fake tombstone at face value). Cobra goes back and forth between being quite uncomfortable about her advances and teasing her for laughs, such as when a plot point is made out of him giving her a "Shut Up" Kiss while asking her to stay out of trouble.
    "Phew... That kiss was amazing! I just about melted... but if only it didn't taste like cigars..."
  • The Worf Effect: Misty performs very well against Crystal Bowie's minions in the "Six Heroes" arc, but still jobs to major villains like Zola and the skeleton cyborg himself so Cobra can take the spotlight back.
  • Worf Had the Flu: She nearly gets possessed by Zola upon attempting to fight her in an environment with little electricity available.

    Dobson the Ice Fang 

    Ophelia 
The heroine of the "Hell Crusaders" arc, who became a mercenary to try to stop the race war in her home planet.
  • Action Girl: She's a quite competent ally to Cobra throughout the scenario she's featured in.
  • Best Her to Bed Her: Cobra beats Ophelia in a race to the Hell Crusaders' base and asks for a "deep, passionate kiss" as the prize, but only once she is in the mood. A couple months later, after defeating Goppel, the two are intimate enough for Cobra to kiss her.
  • Damsel in Distress: After Ophelia has sex with Cobra, Black Sword Zero barges in and kidnaps her. Cobra is forced into several gimmicky battles until he saves Ophelia, and unlike most of the previous love interests she survives the story just fine.
  • Faking the Dead: Pretends to get poisoned to death during Cobra's plan to deceive Goppel into revealing the password for the bomb bullet he shot into Cobra.
  • Girl of the Week: Ophelia is the final love interest from the original series, with Lady even snarking about it to Cobra and wondering just who put that ruby on Ophelia's head. However, she not even mentioned in the sequel stories, with the love interest role either going back to Secret or moving to other new "Cobra Girls".
  • Stripperiffic: She wears a full skin-tight costume with a Chainmail Bikini on top, but after appearing in a swimsuit while surfing in a sea of sand she doesn't bother with wearing pants.
  • Virgin Power: Inverted. The women of Ophelia's planet grow egg-rubies out of their heads upon having sex for the first time and reincarnate through them on death. Since nobody knows what the rubies are for, a war is fought between several races just over their monetary value.

    Zappa and Sergeant Iron Bull 
  • Not Quite Dead: A heavily injured Zappa shoots the miniship on the bottom of the Turtle with himself inside into the Moon Fourcut, seemingly commiting a suicide attack. This is followed by the also wounded Iron Bull helping Lady and Ophelia hold back the Medusa forces and getting shot up right before the conflict ends. Then both heroes are shown to have survived when Cobra arrives to mourn them.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Iron Bull's subordinates are all killed by Cobra when they ambush him. The sergeant doesn't blame Cobra for defending himself but he does complain about his use of lethal force. He also prevents Cobra from trying to save a damsel from Göppel when they're clearly at a disavantage.

    Zailar 

  • Big Damn Heroes: He saves Secret from cannibals in "Blue Rose" and from the Black Sword Corps in "Over the Rainbow".
  • Cyborg: He's a man roboticized into the form of a flying turtle robot. His former appearance is projected from a hologram on the robot's carapace.
  • My Greatest Failure: He's guilt ridden over having killed a civilian girl in a war and believes the Blue Rose is an artifact that'll let him communicate with her spirit and beg for her forgiveness.
  • Let Them Die Happy: Cobra lets Zailar believe the Blue Rose did exist in the bottom of an ocean made of hallucinogenic drugs, believing the man wouldn't live for long anyway. Zailar is then shown finding a shrine with a hologram of the girl he accidentally killed in a war smiling at him. Subverted, though, in that he appears alive and well in "Over the Rainbow" working for the Galactic Patrol.
  • Uncertain Doom: "Blue Rose" ended with Zailar's fate left unknown. "Over the Rainbow" has his triumphant return as he no-sells the Black Swords' assimilation attempts and rescues Secret, but then he charges back into combat and is not seen again after Secret begs him to survive. Due to Terasawa's passing, the story was left unfinished.

    Xanadu 
  • Action Girl: She gets to competently fight against the Pirate Guild, saves Cobra's life from them and is ultimately the one who gets the Magic Springs activated in time to prevent the planet from being nuked.
  • Animate Inanimate Object: She starts out as one of Mario's life-size puppets and wasn't supposed to be affected by the magic of planet Mahadouma but it happens anyway.
  • Become a Real Boy: The magic of planet Mahadouma gives life to Xanadu and inexplicably turns her into a flesh-and-blood human.
  • Good Thing You Can Heal: She spends some time dismantled and is later badly shot up by some pirate guild mooks, but before turning into a human she can be easily fixed by Mario and feels no pain.

    Lana 
  • Exalted Torturer: She befriends a bunch of living torture devices and sics them on the Pirate Guild's goons.
  • Hot Witch: She's a scantily-clad witch in a pointy hat who flies around in a broom.
  • Precocious Crush: Repeatedly flirts with Cobra despite the huge age gap between them (she's 15 and he's in his early 40s at this point), but the annoyed pirate doesn't indulge her like he did to Misty back in "Six Heroes".

    Dracula III 
  • Dracula: Said to be a descendant of Dracula who traveled from Earth to planet Mahadouma.
  • Our Vampires Are Different: He's a Christian vampire who's immune to crosses and sunlight.
  • Popcultured Badass: Cobra refuses to fight Dracula after realizing the man owns the same kind of guitar as John Lennon and would risk being shot to protect it.

    Dorothy 
From "Over The Rainbow", a country girl who Cobra is tasked with escorting to King Oz. She can feel the presence of a Scarecrow, a Tin Man and a Cowardly Lion who are key in defeating the Witch of the West and her revived Black Sword Corps.
  • Precocious Crush: The third 15 years old blonde with a crush on Cobra in the series, after Misty and Lana.
  • Tag Along Kid: Cobra is asked to protect Dorothy from the Witch of the West. Unlike Wukong, Misty and Lana, she can't even fight to help him.

Antagonists

    Crystal Bowie 

Crystal Bowie

Voiced by: Kiyoshi Kobayashi (TV anime, Arcade game), Goro Mutsumi (movie), Tesshō Genda (PC Engine game), Kōji Totani (Playstation game), Hiroki Tochi (Cobra the Animation)

  • Adaptational Badass: Unlike the TV series, magnum bullets are ineffective towards Bowie in the movie. On top of that, he is now the leader of the space pirate guild instead of Salamander.
  • Adaptation Name Change: He is called Necron in the Manga UK dub.
  • Adapted Out: The anime removes him from the "Merchant of Death" story by turning his Brian disguise into a separate character.
  • Arch-Enemy: Bowie is the only villain who repeatedly survives to face Cobra another day, and is the main antagonist for one of the series' final arcs — which reveals the two were already enemies when Cobra had his original left arm and Bowie still had an organic body.
  • Arm Cannon: His arm claw contains a laser gun capable of grappling to surfaces.
  • Asshole Victim: There are no tears to be shed for a monster like Crystal Bowie when Cobra finally kills him in The Psychogun.
  • Attack Its Weak Point: On the first phase of the final battle against Bowie in Cobra The Arcade, he can only be shot in the head and will reflect Cobra's lasers back at him if hit anywhere else. In the series proper, for some reason the idea that people should be aiming at Bowie's opaque golden head instead of his reflective glass body only comes up exactly once in the "Six Heroes" arc when Cobra does it from behind a waterfall and it's then seen that Bowie actually had to dodge the blast.
  • Bald of Evil: He's a callous hitman for the Pirate Guild and his golden bald dome only enhances his menacing aura.
  • Bad Boss: He gruesomely freezes and shatters a female minion for failing to kill Cobra and revealing their base's location after she was forced to. Once he awakens Ahriman, Bowie's first action under the dark god's influence is slaughtering the trio of helpless alien women who helped him for no reason and he then uses the threat of his crystalization powers to take over the Pirate Guild. On the other hand, he appreciates Ursula's determination to kill Cobra even as she is mortally wounded and forced to become a complete cyborg, providing her the surgery without punishing or berating her for her failures.
  • Beauty Is Bad: His chassis looks like an immaculate statue of the classical ideal male form. He's also a complete psychopath.
  • Breakout Villain: Crystal Bowie originally appeared as the antagonist of the one-shot story that preceded the series. He becomes a recurring villain in the first arc but is defeated by Cobra midway through it, with Sandra and Lord Salamander having more impactful roles afterwards. His second appearance was adapted out of the anime by making his human disguise a separate character and then he only appears much later as the proper Big Bad of the Six Heroes arc. He is still prominently advertised as Cobra's ultimate enemy and the movie adaptation even made him the actual Big Bad of the Royal Sisters arc.
  • Cool Ship: In the Six Heroes arc, Bowie owns a mothership called the Black Sheep. It's named after the sigil of the Guild's elite guard, as its actual looks are that of a giant snail.
  • The Dragon: To Lord Salamander, even though he is the main threat towards Cobra and his associates. In the Six Heroes arc Bowie rises to Big Bad status, but the story continues with other villains after his demise.
  • Evil Brit: He talks in a British accent in the Manga UK dub of the movie and might as well be this trope across the manga in general when factoring in his Shout-Out below.
  • Explosive Overclocking: In The Psychogun, Utopia kicks Bowie off a ledge and into a power generator to save Cobra. The villain then rises overcharged with energy and attacks with massive laser beams... but when Cobra hits Bowie with Utopia's heel laser, his body actually cracks. Cobra then starts blasting him with the Psychogun until he overheats and utterly blows up.
  • Eye Color Change: The color of his eyes seems to switch from green to red depending on the mood.
  • Faux Affably Evil: He usually acts in a well reserved manner when he's not trying to kill Cobra. But even then, Bowie is still a cold-blooded sociopath with no regard for organic life.
  • Genius Bruiser: Of a sort. He's shown to be at least knowledgeable in combat; his movie incarnation made sure Cobra was put into a position where he HAD to stand and fight him, and he's smart enough in the text game to send ships at the Turtle so that Cobra doesn't have any backup on Neon Big Bird. He might have even beaten Cobra then and there, had he not underestimated Lady's badassery.
  • Gold-Colored Superiority: He is made of gold, and is Cobra's strongest enemy.
  • Hate Sink: Lacks any redeemable or sympathetic qualities and is shown to be little more than a despicable, evil robot.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: In the movie version, Bowie can turn his ribs into spears and it is with one of these that Cobra is able to slice him to death.
  • Inconsistent Spelling: His original Japanese name can be transliterated as "Crystal Boy", and some dubs directly used it to call him, even though his correct name is in fact "Crystal Bowie".
  • It Only Works Once: While Crystal Bowie is usually content to lord his superiority over others and show off in a fight, even against people who have beaten him before, it's generally because he's already figured out a counter to whatever his opponent used to beat him last time. This forces Cobra to get creative.
  • It's Personal: He was the first opponent to drive Cobra into a corner and chopped the hero's arm off but then got mortally wounded by him and became a cyborg, leading the two to subconsciously remember and hate each other despite their changed appearances years later. Cobra also holds Bowie in contempt for the deaths of the Royal sisters, even though it is only in the anime version that Bowie personally kills Jane. In The Psychogun, the villain even takes credit for killing all three of them.
  • Killed Off for Real:
    • Bowie was once an organic Horned Humanoid but got revived as a cyborg after being killed by Cobra. He is then twice defeated by impalement during the original manga and is left drifting on space, with it being noted that as long as he's got his head intact he can be repaired. Then in The Psychogun, Cobra manages to outright explode Bowie into a million pieces, killing him off for good.
    • In the movie version, Bowie is vertically sliced from the top of his head to his midsection and his body crumbles while bleeding yellow liquid, leaving no doubt that he's truly dead.
  • Light Is Not Good: He has a golden skeleton and is pure evil.
  • Logical Weakness:
    • In most cases, he is Cobra's. For all Cobra's unnatural strength, Crystal Bowie is tougher still and able to outlast Cobra in a physical standoff, and more to the point, the fact Crystal Bowie's body is made of polarized glass means Cobra's laser beam, the Psychogun, is far less effective against him than most people. This does work against him if Cobra can get a good shot in, however - his body being made from polarized glass means that attacks that do get through put him down for a long time, and if Cobra can aim the Psychogun right, he can have the beam reflect inside Crystal Bowie's body to do irreparable damage or overheat him, though this is understandably tough to pull off in a brawl.
    • On the other end of the coin, while his body is tough, it's still a form of glass. In a setting full of lasers, this gives Crystal Bowie an advantage against most combatants, but high-impact weapons and suitably strong attacks can shatter or pierce him. In the movie, Crystal Bowie was killed by Cobra forcing one of Crystal Bowie's own blades into his body while the blade was lodged into Cobra's Psychogun, before Cobra fired the gun so that the force would tear through Crystal Bowie, shattering part of his body. Some sources also have it to where the blunt power of a magnum can do serious damage to Crystal Bowie, and in the text game, he's eventually beaten by Cobra not removing his fake arm from the Psychogun before firing the weapon so that his actual fist could be propelled at Crystal Bowie at high enough speeds that it would crack Crystal Bowie's body open.
  • No-Sell: His crystal body allows him to redirect any beam weapon he's hit with so that it passes harmlessly through him. Even the Psychogun's. Cobra has gotten around this by making his lasers be reflected inside Crystal Bowie until they cause damage to his body or overheat him.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: He has red eyes. Which is fitting, given his evil nature.
  • Ridiculously Human Robots: He likes wine for starters.
  • Robotic Psychopath: He is an android and one of the most evil characters in the series.
  • Robotic Reveal: The pilot of the series introduces Crystal Bowie as the seemingly normal human owner of a casino until his robotic appearance is revealed. In the series proper he starts out in that fearsome appearance and Hammerbolt Joe takes his place in the revised version of the pilot, but the concept sees use in the "Merchant of Death" arc. Cobra finds Bowie disguised as a human arms dealer named Brian, with his claw as the hint of his true identity. His appearance is revealed once Cobra knocks him into a liquid nitrogen tank, much to the hero's surprise, since he thought Bowie was dead.
  • Rock Beats Laser: Bowie's body is mostly made of polarized glass which renders lasers and other modern weapons useless. He didn't expect Cobra to be packing a gun so old his body wasn't designed to deflect it, let alone for Cobra to use a good old-fashioned Rocket Punch to bypass Bowie's seemingly invincible defenses.
  • Shout-Out: Word of God has stated that his name was named after David Bowie as well as Bowie knife. So it would seem the Crunchyroll version calling him "Crystal Bowie" is in fact correct.
  • Skelebot 9000: He's a golden metallic skeleton encased within a humanoid body of translucent, cristalline "flesh".
  • Smug Snake: He constantly underestimates Cobra which eventually leads to his own downfall.
  • Space Pirate: He's one of the Pirate Guild's strongest enforcers.
  • Unrobotic Reveal: The "Six Heroes" arc reveals Bowie was all along the horned warrior who chopped Cobra's left arm off. He was turned almost completely into a cyborg after Cobra forced him to hit himself with his own axe.
  • Virtue Is Weakness: In the movie, he tells Cobra that he considers things such as generosity to be a weakness.
  • With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: One of the last story arcs sees Bowie becoming the avatar of an ancient evil god, gaining the power to transform things and people into tiny crystals, and rising to the leadership of the Pirate Guild so he can wreak havoc upon the galaxy. Cobra notes that while Bowie was always an asshole, this Demonic Possession is increasingly turning him into am Omnicidal Maniac.
  • Worthy Opponent: After becoming Ahriman's avatar, Bowie is delighted to learn that Cobra has been chosen by the goddess Ahura Mazda to reunite The Chosen Many and defeat him.

    Schultz 
  • Big Bad Wannabe: He desires to obtain the Ultimate Weapon for himself but fails to prevent Cobra from retrieving Catherine and is quickly killed by Crystal Bowie afterwards.
  • Dirty Cop: Schultz's Sid Prison is actually a front for slave trading.
  • Non-Action Big Bad: He lets the two cyborg executioner babes and the hapless minions in the prison do all the dirty jobs to him. He doesn't even fight Cobra directly and is killed by Crystal Bowie instead.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Crystal Bowie is tasked with reporting Schultz's betrayal to their higher ups but proposes a partnership with with him instead. When Cobra makes it out of Sid Prison with Catherine, Schultz and his mooks uselessly pull their laser guns on Bowie to silence him, but are all slain in response.

    Sid Prison's Executioners 
  • An Arm and a Leg: The blonde's right arm is torn off when Cobra just blocks her attack.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Cobra lets the brunette get stuck on a steel grate and ruthlessly kicks a live wire on her that electrocutes her to death, leaving her upper body fully exposed with most of the skin burned off. In Cobra The Arcade, this happens to the blonde instead, and she outright explodes.
  • Dies Differently in Adaptation: In Cobra The Arcade, the brunette is shot to death and the blonde is electrocuted to the point she explodes. In The Space Adventure, both are beaten to death with no electrocution involved.
  • Drop Dead Gorgeous: Depending of the version, the brunette is killed in a way that exposes one of her breasts and the blonde kisses Cobra before dramatically collapsing dead on the floor. Their corpses are found and examined by the security guards later, with the anime focusing on the blonde's lips to foreshadow the intent of her dying kiss as a trap for Cobra.
  • Expy: They're pretty much Bambi and Thumper from Diamonds Are Forever, and the reference is made clear by how Cobra calls himself "James Bond" while killing them.
  • He Knows Too Much: They try to kill Cobra for browsing the list of prisoners meant to be sold as slaves and he kills them to sneak undetected back to his cell.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The blonde is killed by a simple punch to the gut from Cobra, showing how freakishly strong he is. In the anime, the punch more visibly crushes her insides and in the The Space Adventure it outright impales her.
  • Kiss of Death: With her last breath, the blonde kisses Cobra on the neck to leave her lipstick's mark as a warning to Schultz.
  • Named by the Adaptation: According to The Space Adventure, the brunette is named Bomber and the blonde is named Destroyer. Otherwise, no other media in the series has named them.
  • Stripperiffic: The brunette wears a leotard with lots of cleavage and the blonde wears only a sling bikini.
  • Undignified Death: Their deaths are brutal, one-sided and sexualized in all versions, but the anime added further insult to injury by having Cobra react to the blonde's dying kiss by nonchalantly dropping her behind like garbage in slow motion and with a Pastel-Chalked Freeze Frame when she hits the floor.
    "I don't like clingy women."
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: They only appear for two scenes before getting killed by Cobra.
  • The Worf Effect: They are introduced easily killing a group of tough-looking male prisoners, and the brunette doesn't take damage from being stabbed by one of them. Then they beat Cobra up and think they killed him, but he stands up unharmed and effortlessly kills both women.

    Tarvage 
  • Brainwashed and Crazy: Tarvage is a plant monster that force-feeds seeds to women. Those seeds not only grow into mind controlling parasites but also kill them if not removed soon enough. He makes Jane kill her own sister Catherine and brainwashes a large number of innocent cabaret dancers and guards who all die by Cobra's hand while chasing him.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Symbolically rapes women to death by injecting them with seed parasites via french kisses.
  • Drop Dead Gorgeous: The villain brainwashes dozens of female guards and strippers, the latter of which were all topless in the original manga, and sends them after Cobra. The result is a whole trail of half naked female corpses all over the cabaret Cobra had just entered and the sewers below.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: His brainwashed female minions corner Cobra within the tunnels of a sewer and attempt to incinerate him with flamethrowers from multiple sides. Cobra shoots a hole in the ceiling and is blown outside by the hot air's pressure while all the women get sucked into the walls at terminal speeds and are all killed.
  • Inconsistent Spelling: Is it "Tarvage", "Tarbeige" or "Targrave"?
  • Knight of Cerebus: Tarvage is a callous villain with a monstrous appearance and his brainwashing abilities are evocative of rape. He doesn't last long against Cobra, but the tone of the story becomes darker when he causes the deaths of Catherine and Jane.
  • Monster Misogyny: He is the first out of several villains in the series whose whole thing is murdering women, in this case by mouth-raping them with parasite seeds.
  • Orbiting Particle Shield: He's guarded by orbiting shields that reflect all manner of projectiles, which causes Cobra to accidentally blow up the head of one of his own allies when it first happens. The hero only manages to kill Tarvage by sneaking up and executing him at point-blank range.

    Sandra 
  • Adaptational Heroism: Sandra, in the original series, was the Arc Villain of the Ultimate Weapon arc and a greedy woman with delusions of grandeur who would have her own female members killed for the slightest defiance. In the movie, however, she's now one of Cobra's allies and almost none of her villainy from the TV series is shown.
  • Adapted Out: She's excluded from the retelling of the Royal Sisters storyline in The Space Adventure.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In the anime, the Ultimate Weapon turns her into a giantess.
  • Bad Boss: Not only kills her minions for little reason but also betrays them all in her attempt to rule over the galaxy with the Ultimate Weapon.
  • Dark Action Girl: The ruthless leader of an Amazon Brigade. Notable in that she's one of the few antagonists who survives one chapter and is the last one that Cobra faces in his search for the Ultimate Weapon.
  • Dies Differently in Adaptation:
    • In the manga, Cobra uses the Turtle to toss the battle tank she's riding onto the top of a pyramid, causing it to tumble from high and killing her from the body trauma. The anime is similar, but Cobra instead tosses her giant form and after crashing she falls into an underground lake, drowning if she wasn't already dead from the impact on the pyramid. Cobra The Arcade then has the Ultimate Weapon be destroyed in direct combat, killing her in the explosion.
    • In the movie version's very different plot, she attempts to fight Crystal Bowie and dies from being impaled by one of his bone spears. He then slaughters all of her minions and walks over her corpse on his way to confront Cobra.
  • Eye Scream: She's missing her right eye just like the unnamed female assassin who attacked Cobra in the beginning of the series.
  • Morph Weapon: She obtains the Ultimate Weapon, which can copy the form of any weapon its wielder is facing. After Sandra transforms it into a powerful tank, Cobra hurries to kill her before she can turn it into a spaceship.
  • Stripperiffic: She appears in a full costume in the snowy environment the Snow Guerrillas are based on, but changes to a bra and panties in the sand planet Zados. The anime has her only get half-naked when she transforms into a yellow-skinned giantess.

    Babel 
  • Living Weapon: He and his fellow Swordians are living swords who move around by controlling empty suits of armor.
  • Monster of the Week: He's a minor villain who appears for a mini arc towards the end of Royal Sisters saga despite having nothing to do with the conflict involving the Ultimate Weapon.
  • Sensory Overload: He can switch the senses of vision and hearing of his enemies, forcing Cobra to rely on Sieg's help to figure this out until he scores a killing shot by focusing on Babel's "presence".

    Gartan 
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Gartan is left begging for his life while imprisoned in the darkness of a magic bottle. Bellamy actually feels sorry for him, but Cobra couldn't care less.
  • Breath Weapon: Can breathe fire.
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: Bellamy shrinks and removes a balloon seed from Cobra to make Gartan swallow it and promptly blows him up. It only splits him into mini Gartans, though.
  • Jerkass Genie: He's a greedy genie-like giant sorceror who ravages planets for treasure and women.
  • Kick the Dog: Randomly discards and kills his female slaves, even implying he's a cannibal at one point.
  • "Pop!" Goes the Human: Forces everyone to eat "balloon seeds" so he can make them inflate and explode by chanting a long incantation. He casually demonstrates this on one of his female slaves, which is portrayed in a horrifying fashion but without actual gore.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Cobra defeats Gartan by revealing a magic bottle that sucks him up.
  • Squishy Wizard: Averted. He's a gigantic genie who overpowers Cobra's spaceship and has had his head blown off with the Psychogun, which only amused him. Later he has a magic fruit stuck in him that balloons him up until he explodes, but he got better in seconds.
  • Taken for Granite: Left a bunch of petrified women decorating his bedroom for whatever reason. Those women return to normal after his defeat, and immediately start fawning over their savior Cobra.
  • We Can Rule Together: Asks Cobra to be his right hand man, but the hero naturally refuses. Gartan tries to force Cobra to it by making him swallow a balloon seed, but once he asks for Bellamy's execution as a show of loyalty, Cobra defies him yet again.

    Hammerbolt Joe 
  • Ascended Extra: He appears in The Space Adventure as a major villain at the time of the Royal Sisters arc and gets to kill several characters including Jane.
  • Back for the Dead: After being shot into outer space in his debut story, he shows up after the end of the main series in The Psychogun as the starting antagonist but is quickly killed for good by Cobra.
  • Dirty Coward: He lets his rocket arms chase Cobra around while staying as far as possible from him. In The Psychogun, when he sees Cobra is coming from an elevator, Joe takes the other one downstairs to avoid him but Cobra notices which floor the elevator is coming from and manages to shoot him to death as the elevators pass by each other.
  • Rocket Punch: He can shoot his forearms and control them remotely.
  • Suspiciously Similar Substitute: He's a replacement for Crystal Bowie as he was portrayed in the series' pilot, with rocket fists instead of a hookshot claw. The Space Adventure and The Psychogun seem to nod at this by having both characters appear in the same story or having Joe take on a role that belonged to Bowie in the original manga.
  • This Cannot Be!: Talks to Cobra from behind a window of reinforced glass, claiming no projectile can pierce it. Then Cobra just punches a hole into it, much to his shock.
  • Thrown Out the Airlock: Cobra has the gravity control device of Las Vegas spaceship turned off to disable Joe's rocket fists and blows him into outer space.

    Jigoba 
  • Evil Knockoff: His goal is to mass produce the Psychogun to create an invincible army, but his minions fail to challenge Cobra at all due to their inexperience with the weapon.
  • Intangible Man: Jigoba can phase through walls and fuse into people to control them. He actually manages to hurt Cobra a ton by repeatedly sucker punching him and taking over Lady's body, but Cobra focuses his mind and manages to locate and kill Jigoba while he's fused to a wall.
  • Mook Horror Show: He arms his minions with Psychoguns, but they cannot use them properly and are all shot dead while Cobra is just casually lying on the ground and firing mind-controlled lasers.

    Angle 
  • Amazon Brigade: All the security staff helping her in the Rune Museum are female.
  • Animal Mecha: The "watchdogs" of the Rune Museum just happen to be robot dinosaurs.
  • Butt-Monkey: She's actually bad enough at her job that Cobra, who keeps teasing her and making vulgar comments about certain exhibits in the Rune Museum, has to correct her explanations about the history of some of them. Cobra manages to claim the treasure he's after without her noticing anything until he's already gone.
  • Hero Antagonist: She's just an art curator guarding the Rune Museum. Cobra manages to escape with the Dragon's Crystal without harming her or any of her guards.

    Lando and the Red Saxons' First Team 
  • Corrupt Corporate Executive: Lando owns a Blood Sport fortress that counts as an independent nation and is a drug trader on top of that.
  • Driven to Suicide: After being arrested, Lando unleashes a "mermaid" monster on the Galactic Patrol's HQ and shoots himself to death.
  • Energy Absorption: The "Mermaid" monster he sets on the Galactic Patrol's base is a jellyfish thing that absorbs energy and devours all life forms it comes in contact with, becoming bigger and stronger each time. Cobra kills it by overloading it with his Psychogun's unique Psycho Energy. This creature is very likely the inspiration behind the Metroids.
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy: Cobra's goal in the "Rugball" arc is to infiltrate Lando's base and gather proof of his involvement in drug trafficking. He fakes an injury during the match against the First Team and has an awfully easy time getting into the database room because all the guards are busy watching the game. The tension is in how Cobra needs to collect the data immediately to hide it into one of the balls, return into the match before it ends and hit it out of the park so Dominique can get it.
  • Honor Before Reason: Dan Blood is the only honorable player in the Red Saxons' First Team, and ends up losing the decisive match against the Farm Team when he answers Cobra's home run challenge.
  • Kick the Dog: Gerd is introduced as some barbaric villain trying to force a cheerleader named Miranda to go out with him. Upon tampering with an electric shower capsule to fry Cobra to a crisp, he ends up killing the poor woman instead and gloats about it to him afterwards.
  • Post-Climax Confrontation: At the end of the "Rugball" saga, when everything is thought to be said and done, Lando commits suicide while siccing an energy-absorbing monster on the Galactic Patrol, forcing them to cooperate with Cobra to be rid of it.

    Zaval- 0 
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: A war weapon that seeks to eradicate all life in the universe and hijacks every other machine for this purpose.
  • Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: It gathers robots to build a giant form.
  • Enemy to All Living Things: Created to eliminate all life in a targetted planet, but with barely any means to keep it from doing the same everywhere else as well.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Zaval was trapped in another dimension and chained by its arm to Velma R-78. Once the chain is broken, it runs amok and nothing can stop it, so Velma rewinds time to a series of events where Cobra ignores them.
  • Weapon of Mass Destruction: It is a weapon sent to control all the robots of a given planet in order to exterminate all lifeforms, but it seemingly cannot be stopped and would've ended all life in the universe if not for Velma rewinding time.

    Iron Head 
  • Amazon Brigade: The Seawomen cyborgs who kill people with poisoned darts are unique to Iron Head's army. She does also have male mooks, who are just the common Pirate Guild cowboys.
  • Cyborg:
    • Iron Head is a full cyborg with just a flying head that can use replacement bodies.
    • Her Seawomen minions are cyborgs with artificial hair they breathe through to stay underwater. However, Cobra is able to exploit multiple weakness in this such as spreading laughing gas underwater to render a squad of them harmless.
  • Dark Action Girl: Iron Head is a high-ranked member of the Pirate Guild who has her army sink ships with treasure. With sword beams and a deflector shield, she lasts two rounds of fighting against Cobra but is finally killed by a sneak attack.
  • Died Standing Up: The final splash page of volume 6 is of Iron Head still mounted over a Barracuda and holding on to her sword after being shot in the head by Cobra.
  • Drop Dead Gorgeous: One of the female mooks and Eris get this treatment when they're killed by Cobra, particularly Eris in the anime since she in that version she remains only in her bikini from the time she seduces Cobra to when her dumbstruck corpse sinks down the screen. Likewise, the shapely near-Fembot Iron Head is fixated on by the camera on death as she remains upright in a dramatic pose.
  • Guns Are Worthless: Two Seawomen smugly taunt Cobra that he isn't so tough that he can survive bullets to the head and are promptly killed in response. The first is impaled by a cannon's harpoon that deflects her shot and the latter is suffocated when Cobra sets her breathing hair on fire.
  • Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: Iron Head's shield can deflect the Psychogun's lasers. After a little jousting duel, Cobra finally kills her by hiding under the ground in a narrow passage and shooting her through the bottom of the head when she passes over.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: After Cobra kills a seawoman but faints from being poisoned, Eris nurses him back to health just to interrogate him, and in the anime even tries to seduce him to their side. Naturally, Cobra figures what's happening, escapes and kills both Eris and all of Iron Head's army in his quest to save Dominique.
  • Not Quite Dead: Cobra shoots Iron Head in the chest seconds after encountering her, only for her head to start flying and trying to strangle him with her hair.
  • Stripperiffic: Eris undresses to her bikini in her failed seduction of Cobra, who is surprised when she does put on her uniform while escaping from the lighthouse. In the anime, however, she remains in her bikini for the whole chase scene afterwards.

    Lord Salamander 
  • Actually a Doombot: Cobra and his crew assassinated Salamander all too easily at his casino, only to find it was an unknown body double. Even the next Salamander that Cobra encounters is an illusion, with the true form of the villain being a hidden Hitler who is mummified but possesses strong mental powers.
  • Adaptational Badass: In the anime version he uses his mental projections to effortlessly kill Doug, Pumpkin and Bud after their failed attempt to assassinate him.
  • Big Bad: As the overlord of the Pirate Guild, he's the overarching villain for the first seven volumes of the series. Afterwards, only Crystal Bowie rises to such a role much later.
  • Five-Second Foreshadowing: Right after launching 20,547 Sid statues, his minions all reveal themselves as neo nazis by their hailing and saluting...
  • Kick the Dog: Debuts by ordering the assassination of Dominique and Lady after Cobra hinders the Pirate Guild one too many times.
  • No Swastikas: The anime adaptation censors how Salamander and his forces were Nazis and obscures how his true identity is that of Space Hitler.
  • Take Over the World: Seeks to dismantle the galaxy's goverments and take over the universe. To this end, he attempts to take over 12,000 planets at once by launching nearly twice the amount of Kill Sat statues into space.
  • Those Wacky Nazis: He's revealed to have been Adolf Hitler on life support hidden behind a chamber the whole time, thousands of years since World War II. "Lord Salamander" was really a projection of his powerful psycho energy.
  • War for Fun and Profit: Attempts to start a galactical holy war between the Christianity and Elrado religions, the latter of which he has secretly taken over.

    Dobbel 
  • Dirty Cop: Dobell starts as an agent of Salamander infiltrated in the Galactic Patrol, and remains corrupt after they restore his body.
  • Disney Villain Death: In "Blue Rose", the cyborgfied Dobbel is shot out of the sky by Cobra and crashes onto the ground, hallucinating Dominique as he lies dying.
  • Evil Counterpart: It's ironic how the one who got to kill Dominique is Dobell, a crooked cop who looks like a knockoff Cobra with a cannon on his right arm.
  • Kick the Dog: Dobell gets Cobra on the ropes and gloats about having killed and skinned Dominique. Cobra replies by punching through his torso in a rage.
  • No-Sell: His full cyborg form is surrounded by forcefields that let him block the Psychogun and fire back.
  • Offscreen Villainy: He kills Dominique offscreen under Salamander's orders, rips off the skin of her entire back and mockingly leaves it for Cobra to find. Even though Secret is implied to be Dominique, Dobbel's dying thoughts confirm he did kill her back then.
  • We Can Rebuild Him: Cobra killed Dobbel in the original series, but he shows up alive seven years later in "Blue Rose" as a vengeful full cyborg and is killed off for good in the end of that story.

    Lord Salamander's henchmen 
  • Adapted Out: Saboira is merely a disguise of Salamander in the anime version.
  • Butterface: The spider henchwoman has a curvy body and a monstrous face.
  • Dirty Cop: Dobell and the whole staff of Dayve Prison are agents of Salamander.
  • Disney Villain Death: When Salamander activates a Descending Ceiling on the control room for the Sid statues, the center pillar collapses and knocks Rashid from a tall height into the floor.
  • Drop Dead Gorgeous:
    • There's quite a focus on the nude spider-woman's curves and butt when she's killed.
    • The also nude Saboira just falls off into the far distance when Cobra kills her atop a train, but the Cobra - Kokuryo's Legend game adaptation of her appearance does show her sprawled on the ground until she turns gray and cold.
  • Full-Frontal Assault:
    • The spider-woman has a naked insectoid body with Non-Mammal Mammaries, though her nipples only appear semi-defined for one panel when she's killed.
    • Saboira attacks Cobra in the nude while setting her body aflame and shooting fireballs at him.
  • Kick the Dog:
    • Rodez is established as evil by how he's keeping a bunch on drugged female slaves on his mansion.
    • El Skyman is introduced attempting to rape an unconscious woman right before Cobra quickly beats him and steals his mask.
  • Mook Horror Show: After bombing the room Dominique's remains were left in, the Guild's mooks arrive to make sure that Cobra is dead. Cobra corners one minion and declares he'll be, for the first time in his life, very happy to murder every last one of them and kills him. Not even by shooting him, but by painfully hanging him over a fire truck's platform by a hose for the others to see. He then shoots most of the other minions with overpowered laser blasts that either tear their bodies apart (manga) or reduce them to cinders (anime). Cobra acts like he's going to spare the last one to get information about Salamander's plans, but smashes his head into the floor when told that Lady is also a target.
  • Spider People: An unnamed female humanoid spider traps Cobra in her web at Dayve Prison, but is stabbed in the chest from behind by Pumpkin.
  • There Can Be Only One: Cobra and Mirale manage to input an order into the Sid statues that makes them self-aware, resulting in them rejecting and destroying each other. The final one self-destructs when she cannot decide whether to follow Salamander's orders or her own will.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Out of all significant minions during Salamander's arc, El Skyman is beaten half to death and impersonated by Cobra before he does anything.
  • Weapon of Mass Destruction: Thousands of Sid Goddess statues equipped with powerful laser cannons are to be launched to the orbit of every planet.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Sophia disappears from the story after she thinks she killed Cobra and Mirale.
  • Wreathed in Flames: Saboira lures Doug for sex and incinerates him with her heat powers. She uses this ability to deflect the beams from Cobra's Psychogun until he manages to soak her in water from the train's engine room and finally shoots her dead.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The fanatical servants at the command center for launching the Sid statues are perfectly fine with Salamander declaring he would destroy it with all of them inside. As the Descending Ceiling comes, some of them do get scared while others remain in place saluting, much to Cobra's disbelief.

    Evil, the Black Dragon King 
  • Butterface: The preserved corpse of his mother has a voluptuous humanoid body and a monstrous face.
  • Death by Childbirth: His predecessor was a giant female demon who died after giving birth to him.
  • Emotion Eater: He feeds off the fear of people and leaves them in an undead state of eternal torment.
  • Fetus Terrible: He has the appearance of a large demonic infant inside an egg, hidden deep under a lake where the corpse of its mother resides like it's some kind of womb.
  • Mind Rape: Evil drives people to madness with illusions. Against Cobra, he haunts him with visions of the enemies he's killed and of Dominique. The latter spooks Cobra enough for we to learn what his real trauma is: the warrior who first drove him into a corner and managed to claim his left arm.
  • Satan: The ending narration of the Black Dragon King arc remarks that Evil and his kind were what is known as Satan to mankind.
  • This Cannot Be!: He manages to invade Cobra's soul by unlocking the trauma of the warrior who cut his left arm off, but Cobra still has it in him to finally find Evil's position and blast him to death. As the villain dies in shock, the narrator declares he did not count on Cobra's wild instincts preventing him from being consumed by fear.

    The Black Bullet 
  • Ax-Crazy: The Black Bullet goes on a killing spree by destroying all the vehicles she can and nobody could stop her namesake car.
  • I Cannot Self-Terminate: Pamela is unable to stop her split personality's rampage or commit suicide and begs Cobra to stop her. So Cobra somberly shoots her in the head after luring Black Bullet with a hologram of her late sister.
  • Split Personality: Pamela was traumatized when her sister Linda died in a traffic accident and gained an evil split personality who uses an armored car to destroy all other cars.

    "The Golden Door" villains 

Black Bone and Zoros

  • No-Sell: Zoros is covered with bandages that absorb the Psychogun's blasts, but they are torn off by giant mantas and this allows the hero to kill him a while later.
  • Rocket Punch: Zoros has rocket arms just like Hammerbolt Joe's.
  • Villain: Exit, Stage Left: Black Bone destroys the supposed key to the Golden Door and leaves Secret tied to a platform to be eaten by giant mantas. As soon as the villainess leaves Planet Galon, it turns out the key was fake and the mantas were Good All Along. After this, Black Manta is never seen again.

Garcia

  • Combat Pragmatist: Fights with steel embedded in his knuckles and has a dancer inject poison into his opponents via a Kiss of Death.
  • Oh, Crap!: He freaks out when Cobra recovers his memories, seeing the pirate's eyes as those of a true killer.
  • Plot-Irrelevant Villain: The whole thing about Cobra losing his memories, befriending Bonnie and defeating Garcia to avenge her brother is just a detour in the quest to keep Planet Galon from crashing into the Sun. And in The Space Adventure game, they managed to shoehorn this scenario in the "Royal Sisters" arc.

Midra

  • Bald of Evil: A beaufitul and deranged bald woman who attempts to crash the spaceship-planet she lives in into the Sun.
  • Drop Dead Gorgeous: She lies in the bottom of a pit barely dressed in a bikini, impaled on the abdomen and the forehead by huge spikes. Cobra shoots a hole through her face, with the scene framing the curves of her chest just as much as the laser violently bursting through her head.
  • Mind Rape: She tries to defend herself with illusions, but Cobra eventually powers through one of being set on fire and executes her.

    Papillon 
  • Actually a Doombot: Cobra seems to kill Papillon soon after invading her base, but the butterfly mask flies off and exposes the dead woman's open eyes. Balm later tells Cobra that it proves that actually was a body double.
  • Arc Villain: Of the Eyes of God arc.
  • Bald of Evil: A very attractive bald woman who works with arms trafficking and human experimentation. Cobra actually mocks her shaved head after she calls herself a God for acquiring the Eyes of God.
  • Defiant to the End: The body double dies from her wounds while strangling Cobra, while in contrast the actual Papillon is just instantly shot dead in shock while Cobra is on the other side of a portal.
  • Drop Dead Gorgeous: The nearly nude corpses of the body double and the real Papillon are left sprawled next to an indifferent Cobra, face-up and face-down respectively, as if to really give as many angles of the dead villainesses as possible even compared to the countless other examples of this trope in the series.
  • Eyeless Face: She has no eyes and instead sees through a butterfly with an eye pattern on its wings.
  • Hate Sink: Portrayed as one of the most despicable villainesses in the story, with her needless assassination attempts on Cobra that get Yuko killed and the gruesome experimentation involved in the creation of her cyborgs. Cobra doesn't even bother flirting with Papillon before killing her like he usually does with other female villains and mocks her corpse afterwards.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Throughout the "Eyes of God" arc, Papillon and the Balms are all almost nude and gratuitous views of their assets are aplenty. Shonen Jump readers sure had a full plate in the eighties...
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Papillon obsesses over killing Cobra even after getting both Eyes of God, even as her subordinates point out how unnecessary it is and while unaware that Cobra just wants to retire and get married. As a result, Balm accidentally snipes Cobra's lover Yuko instead of him right on his birthday. Cobra swears revenge and soon blasts Papillon dead after storming her base.
  • Orcus on His Throne: She is introduced on a throne with a clamshell-like design and stays out of the action, sending a body double to meet Cobra when he invades her headquarters. She later tries to avoid Cobra while sat upon a flying throne until he mortally blasts her off it.
  • Stripperiffic: Even more than the other female characters with skimpy bikinis, as she wears nothing but pasties on her breasts and panties.
  • Take Over the World: By using a pair of artifacts that let her create portals, Papillion intends to have her cyborg army conquer planets all over the multiverse.
  • We Can Rule Together: She invites Cobra to join her takeover of the universe, but he wants to kill her to avenge Yuko and refuses.

    Papillon's henchmen 
  • Bald of Evil: One of the Balm girls is fully bald and the other mostly so aside from her ponytail. Both are cold-blooded assassins under Papillion's hire.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Cobra ties the bald Balm's rubbery arms to a wire leading body bags to a garbage shredder with uncharacteristic glee and watches as she is slowly dragged to a gruesome death in agony. Notable because nowhere else in the series does Cobra look this sinister while killing somebody. He's even framed in shadow afterwards.
  • Cyborg: Papillon's assassins come in all sorts of roboticized or mutant forms but are all categorized as cyborgs.
  • Full-Frontal Assault: One of the failed cyborgs who attack Cobra is a fully nude woman who appeared to be a corpse in a morgue until she's activated. Cobra turns her into an actual one in the span of a page.
  • Kill It with Fire: The ponytail Balm is incinerated from behind by a bug-like robot for defying Papillon.
  • Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: The ponytail Balm suddenly realizes Papillon had her brother killed after forcing her to become a cyborg for his protection and turns against the villainess. Unfortunately, this is only so Balm can warn Cobra that Papillon is still alive, as Balm is quikly killed afterwards.
  • Rubber Man: The Balms are female cyborgs able to stretch and compress to great extents, to the point one of them encounters Cobra by coming butt-first out of a faucet.
  • Stripperiffic: Like Papillon, the Balms wear nothing but pasties on their breasts and panties.
  • We Can Rebuild Him: Cobra nails Murdock to a cross and later gets him incinerated by a rocket's launch, but the hitman returns as one of the Armor Borg kappa cyborgs and engages in one more battle before getting killed for real.
  • The Worm That Walks: One unnamed assassin is a woman made up of thousands of bugs hard enough to pierce flesh while flying and that can mimick the appearance of other people. Cobra kills her by shooting her out of an airlock into outer space.

    Crystal Bowie's henchmen (Six Heroes arc) 
  • Blood Knight: Ursula lives to fight no matter how roboticized she becomes and promptly pledges her loyalty to Crystal Bowie by crushing the crystalized Rogol under her foot.
  • Bond Villain Stupidity: When Ursula finally notices Cobra was disguised as Domingo, she goes out of her way to unmask the distracted Cobra with a laser shot and display the Psychogun on a table while gloating instead of just killing him. Cobra then flips the table right into her face, catches the Psychogun and mortally shoots her.
  • Dark Action Girl: Ursula and Gavara are the two henchwomen working for Crystal Bowie who had the most screen time in the "Six Heroes" arc. While they were no match for Cobra, at least they put up a fight compared to most of their male counterparts aside from Count Domingo.
  • Didn't See That Coming: Ursula has the upper hand against Lady in their fight but assumes she is a mere android and keeps trying to fry her brain with electromagnetism. Lady then crushes part of Ursula's chest with a punch, leaving the villainess shocked that Lady also was a cyborg all along as she falls into a waterway to never be seen again.
  • Drop Dead Gorgeous:
    • Ursula is blasted onto a pile of debris and is left half-dead with unblinking eyes. She's next seen naked on a surgery table, with her uncensored breasts protuding into one of the page's panels, as Crystal Bowie revives her. Later, Cobra shoots Ursula down with a laser beam to the chest, sending her flying with legs spread apart, her butt prominently framed on the page, before she collapses with her bra almost snapped open. After this her entire body is roboticized, so the author doesn't bother with sexualizing her third and final death.
    • After haughtily mocking Cobra for underestimating women, the scantily-clad Gavara is killed while holding a bent over pose with her butt pointed upwards. Cobra then drops a Bond One-Liner to further undignify her death, saying he'll "watch out for the pretty ones".
  • Failed a Spot Check: When told that Domingo had killed Cobra and set his body on fire, Ursula fails to notice the Psychogun was on the corpse's right arm until it is too late.
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy: The Black Sheep has a single guard in a security room utterly failing to warn his comrades about Cobra's team massacring every last one of them. And because the man's eyes are covered up by googles attached to machinery, he doesn't even notice Hawk casually walking up to him and slicing his head off.
  • Mirror Match: Ursula is mortally wounded so many times that she ends up turned into an Armaroid cyborg identical to Lady. They fight each other while Cobra confronts Crystal Boy, with Lady emerging victorious when she punches Ursula into a waterway.
  • Mook Horror Show:
    • Cobra's team misdirects Crystal Bowie's forces on their way to Ahura Mazda's temple and many of them are slaughtered by a maelstrom of fire created by Hawk. Of the named antagonists, Foss is very uncerimoniously killed as this happens.
    • The assault on the Black Sheep is a particularly effortless eradication of Crystal Bowie's forces by Cobra and his team. Every time the only guard in the prison attempts to alert somebody about the situation he finds the soldiers already dead and then his own head gets chopped off before he knows it.
  • More Deadly Than the Male:
    • Crystal Bowie praises Ursula for being a woman who's willing to sacrifice her humanity in the name of fighting and repeatedly cyborgfies her broken body into action. Although she tries her best, the end result is that she just gets pathetically killed three times in a row.
    • Gavara takes on Cobra himself during the invasion on the Black Sheep and smugly tells him off for underestimating women while trying and failing to kill him. She's put in her place like all the other villainesses seen throughout the previous 15 volumes of the manga by being mortally shot while holding an embarrassing pose and then her body plummets into a pit for good measure.
  • Mugged for Disguise: Domingo is burned to death by being tossed into a fireplace, after losing an arm to Cobra. The hero steals his clothes in a flash and places the Psychogun on the corpse's arm stump, which is enough to fool Ursula and save his captured allies.
  • Stripperiffic: Gavara's outfit leaves little to the imagination, while in contrast Ursula is a very rare example of a female character in the series who wears a proper full costume... which is still very skin-tight to show off her pretty figure.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Rogol defies the god-empowered Crystal Bowie by just shooting him with a laser gun, when it should be widely known that the polarized glass cyborg is essentially immune to energy beams. And that's after Bowie swiftly takes over a dissenter's base and kills him with crystalization powers. As a result, Rogol is also turned into a crystal and is then crushed by Ursula while Foss nervously pledges his loyalty to Bowie alongside her.
  • We Can Rebuild Him: Ursula is brutally blown into a pile of debris and her legs are replaced by Artificial Limbs. Then Cobra tears a hole into her torso with the Psychogun and the spaceship she's in is blown up, leading the Guild to turn her into an Armaroid cyborg like Lady. Both times she is so eager to go back into combat that she doesn't care about losing her entire body.

    Zola the Witch 
  • Body Surf: Zola and the female demons she creates cannot survive for more than twenty minutes without possessing some kind of dedicated shell or a human body.
  • Didn't See That Coming: When a weakened Zola possesses Cobra's body, he sticks himself to a freezing wall so that she would either flee or die with him. She escapes to the right and is easily killed because she didn't know that the Psychogun can bend the trajectory of its lasers.
  • Energy Absorption: She can drain people to a husk and convert that energy into new demons.
  • Full-Frontal Assault: Zola appears as a nude semi-energy being and her demons are also naked aside from some fur on their chest and lower body.
  • No Body Left Behind: Zola and the demons all disintegrate on death.
  • Our Sirens Are Different: Zola's demons are horned and glowing sirens who hypnotize and possess their victims.
  • Turned Against Their Masters: Zola is a living weapon who reduced her creator Dr. Yama to a head on a small robot dog body. She schemes to take over Dobson's body and control his pirate fleet to support Crystal Bowie.

    Fuhrer Goldman 
  • Arc Villain: He is the main antagonist of the "Hell Crusaders" scenario. Goldman is, in fact, specifically portrayed like a typical James Bond villain, with Cobra himself acting even more Bond-like than usual in turn during their interactions.
  • Death by Irony: He blows Black Sword Zero up for ignoring his orders twice, and is shot down by the Door of Gallyas after pointing the fake Moon Lens at it twice despite Cobra's warning.
  • Monster Misogyny: His Evil Plan revolves around kidnapping, torturing and killing women from a planet where all females have rubies growing out of their foreheads and are drawn to die on a hidden mystical graveyard.
  • No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine: Goldman amicably tries to convince Cobra into joining forces with him and when that fails he straps Cobra to a sensory deprivation device for several hours, intending to reforge the pirate into a brainwashed minion.
  • Self-Disposing Villain: He makes it to the gates of the ruby graveyard, but repeatedly attempts to open them with a fake Moon Lens and gets shot down by the gate guardian. And that's after Cobra warns him that it was fake.

    Black Sword Zero 
  • The Assimilator: He can fuse with any machine and changes their appearance to his own in some way. He even manages to force the ancient gates to the ruby graveyard to open with this ability. Cyborgs like Zailar are immune to this, though.
  • Ax-Crazy: He eliminates anyone in his way and takes orders from nobody, so both Goldman and the Witch of the West tamper with his body to force him to do their bidding.
  • Blood Knight: Described as an Armaroid cyborg who only lives to fight. He considers Cobra his Worthy Opponent and tells the Witch of the West he doesn't need a reward if he gets to fight him again.
  • Character Catchphrase: He often alludes to Division by Zero by claiming that nobody can surpass him, except himself.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu: The Witch of the West uses a whole army of Black Swords against the Galaxy Patrol in "Over the Rainbow", but those copies are Cannon Fodder and with enough firepower many of them are destroyed for good.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: The laser-shooting ornamental door to the ruby graveyard has the body of a woman carved into it. Zero casually walks over and fuses himself into the statue to make it split open.
  • The Dragon: He is forced to work for Goldman in "Hell Crusaders" and is forced to serve the Wicked Witch of the West in "Over the Rainbow".
  • Dragon Their Feet: Zero outlasts Goldman in "Hell Crusaders" and gets beaten in a duel against Cobra. He survives and returns as a major antagonist in what was meant to be the final arc in the series, but Terasawa passed away and left it unfinished.
  • Restraining Bolt:
    • Goldman frees Zero but injects a miniature bomb into his bloodstream. He sets it off when Zero defies him, but the cyborg regenerates only a couple minutes later.
    • The Wicked Witch of the West coerces Zero into fighting for her by giving him a replacement heart rigged to shock the man if he defies her.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: Zero is seemingly indestructible but he can be left helpless if his heart is removed. He starts tied up to a cross until Goldman frees him. Later, Cobra defeats Zero by punching his heart off and leaves him frozen in place, but in "Over the Rainbow" the villain is shown still alive and drifting on another cross craft before the Wicked Witch of the West gives him a replacement heart.
  • Unexplained Recovery: In "Hell Crusaders", Zero is left paralyzed in a moon temple before the whole place is warped to parts unknown. In "Over the Rainbow", somebody at some point or another left him tied up to a cross drifting in space.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: In "Over the Rainbow", livemetal beings like Zero crumble to dust when directly exposed to the "rainbow tunnels".

    Hell Crusaders henchmen 
  • Asshole Victim: Göppel is left stranded in the middle of nowhere after the heroes trick him into revealing the password for his bomb bullets, which is actually too merciful a fate for a callous murderer like him.
  • Avenging the Villain: Cobra is unwelcome at the Hell Crusaders HQ from the beginning for having killed a henchman named Wang-Hu on his way there, and by coincidence Madeleine already held a grudge against him for the death of her boyfriend. So a group of villains ambush Cobra and he kills most of them except Madeleine, who keeps hunting him until she ends up killed by one of the Medusa soldiers.
  • Create Your Own Hero: The Hell Crusaders are doomed by the coincidence of Göppel shooting Cobra of all people with one of his timed bomb bullets.
  • Drop Dead Gorgeous:
    • Three pages into "Hell Crusaders" and a nude scorpion-woman is shot in the chest by Cobra, squirts venom from her sting and is reduced to a dead ass on the panel.
    • Madeleine is killed by a monster offscreen and is left posed over the water in a way that emphasizes her chest, with the scene lingering on her corpse as the monster's rider she had apparently killed is revealed to be a Medusa and floats over to steal her body.
    • Rubik's head is suddenly blown out of her body while she's striking a dramatic pose and then her body collapses with her bare buttocks pointed toward the reader. It's the last time such a thing happens in the original series.
  • I Have You Now, My Pretty: Rubik attempts to rape Cobra while she thinks he's been mindbroken by sensory deprivation, but he calmly pushes her back and leaves her tied to a bed.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Madeleine is a curvy villainess barely dressed in a Chainmail Bikini and those multiple pages of her wielding a guitar machinegun with her legs spread wide open are of course very important.
  • Not Quite Dead: Goldman makes Rubik's neck explode for her failure to kill Cobra and puts her severed head on display with all the other women he's killed. Then it turns out Rubik was a Medusa the whole time and she remains alive for the rest of the story.
  • Self-Disposing Villain: Cobra spares Madeleine's life in a rare show of mercy but she attempts to snipe him out of revenge for her allies anyway. Right when she has an unaware Cobra in her aim, she's ambushed and killed by one of the Medusa soldiers.
  • Training from Hell: Applicants for the Hell Crusaders are first divided into groups of three and forced into a fight to the death for a single jetpack used to leave a flying train. Then the winners are forced to drive an elephant head-shaped craft to the Crusaders' HQ while being chased by armed veteran mercenaries.

Others

    The Alien Brigade's survivors 
A group of soldiers attempting to cross a deadly desert after most of their comrades were killed in a war.
  • Adaptational Badass: The anime version replaces a shot of Sheila being attacked by tentacle monsters in the desert to her shooting them down to protect Cobra and the little girl he was escorting.
  • Drop Dead Gorgeous: Cobra snuffing out some hot female villain was hardly special by volume 6 of the manga, so the anime's adaptation of it turns a single panel of the barely-dressed Sheila being killed into 20 seconds of her moaning and convulsing in slow motion as she's turned into swiss cheese by bullet-beetles. She somehow lies with an undamaged face, closed eyes and a peaceful expression, in stark contrast to the painful and violent way she was killed with.
  • Due to the Dead: Cobra leaves each of the Royal Rubies he's stolen next to the corpses of Carbine, Morton, Moorcock and Duck after their deaths. He then leaves one next to Sheila's corpse after killing her, admitting he only made it past the desert thanks to her.
  • Dwindling Party: Sheila's squad is suspected of having a Domellian spy in it, particularly when a second sergeant shows up. Once most of the members are killed by sabotage and traps, The Mole is revealed to be Sheila herself.
  • Foreshadowing: The anime briefly shows the spy running around in heels while killing Morton, while the manga did not feature such a clear silhouette. Both scenes don't make much sense in hindsight because Sheila is clearly shown with the rest of the group at the same time.
  • He Knows Too Much: From the beginning, Sheila threatens Cobra to prevent information leakage. Once confronted over her true identity by Cobra, Sheila attempts to kill him even after getting the briefcase with the remaining Royal Rubies and he executes her for it with her own trap. He would likely have killed her anyway to avenge the soldiers she deceived.
  • Karmic Death: While crossing the swamp in a boat, Sheila clearly attempted to get Cobra killed with the soldiers by asking him to turn on a spotlight despite him posing as a mere helpful civilian. Upon confronting Sheila and confirming she is that petty a murderess, he executes her via the same bullet-beetles trap she used without remorse.
  • Ms. Fanservice: The manga's pages love to frame the skimpy Sheila's butt. The anime also makes her bustier.
  • Multiple Gunshot Death: Sheila lures Carbine and Moorcock, plus Duck in the anime, into shooting blindly in a swamp full of deadly bullet-like beetles that react to light, causing them all to get repeatedly pierced to death as if there were Domellian soldiers nearby. Sheila herself was safe because she wields a needle gun, but once Cobra realizes what happened he tricks her into standing between a set of spotlights and she too is ravaged by the beetles.

    Mt. Mayfly's climbers 
A group of people who attempt to climb a mystical mountain where a spaceship containing a stash of gold has crashed.
  • Butterface: Jerri has a pretty figure with an alien mouse-like head on top.
  • Clap Your Hands If You Believe: Several of them are killed by losing faith in the treasure or doubting the mountain itself, which causes it to somehow instantly disappear beneath their feet and sends them plummeting to their doom. Geronimo survives because he was determined to prove that his late father had made it to the top before dying, while both Sebastian and Cobra were simply certain that Flight 702 had crashed on top of it — Sebastian himself caused the crash, and Lady was sending Cobra a distress signal from it.
  • Dwindling Party: By the end, only Cobra and Geronimo are left alive.
  • Hanging Around: Sebastian appears to commit suicide by hanging after Cobra accuses him of wanting the treasure like everyone else despite his talk of restoring his faith in God. It is later revealed that Sebastian is really a cyborg who staged his own death so he could sneak around to kill both Linda and Leo. Ironically, Cobra kills Sebastian by tearing his iron neck apart with the Psychogun, causing the rest of the body to fall down the mountain.
  • Mercy Kill: Frank fails to even make it to the mountain due to being out of fuel on his jetpack and surrounded by sharks, but as the man cries that he can't even see Mt. Mayfly anymore, he's shot dead by Leo. The hitman claims he wanted to give him a painless death, but Cobra sneers and accuses him of just wanting less people to split the treasure with.
  • Shout-Out Theme Naming: The Crazy Mouse Siblings are named Jerri and Micky.
  • A Sinister Clue: Cobra figures the killer in the group is left-handed from finding a pack of matches left on the ground after Jerri was killed, saying each match was pulled from the left. While Cobra is suspicious of Leo and Sebastian, Linda tries to pit the group against Cobra by pointing out he's a southpaw too.
  • Sinister Minister: Father Sebastian poses as a harmless priest but turns out to be the one who set a bomb on the treasure plane that crashed on Mt. Mayfly to begin with, which is how he's able to climb it to the top with no risk of it disappearing.

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