Count Brocken

Count Brocken (sometimes spelled as Blocken) was a villain from the fictional robot story Mazinger Z. He was a cyborg whose head was hewn from his body during a car accident, and he carried it around with him. He sometimes carried it under his arm, but it had the ability to float on its own. This was the "sanified" version of Blocken's origins given in the 1970-anime series.

In the Manga version penned by Go Nagai and fellow Gosaku Ota the charachter's background is quite grimmer: in the comic Blocken was none other than a nazi Waffen-SS officer who suffered fatal wounds during the battles of WW2, at the time Doctor Hell was serving the Third Reich as medical experimenter in the death camps and was given the task of saving Blocken's life. Not being able to restore nervous and vascular connections in the neck he chose to sever them altogether placing the escinded head in a vat of nourishing/regenerative bath, thus creating the decapitated count.

(When Nagai and Ota created the characters in the late 60s WW2 was a relatively recent event).

As the war ended Hell and Blocken parted ways but he returned to head the "Iron Crosses Corps" to aid Hell's plans for world domination via mechanical monsters. The nazi motif in this background justified Blocken's penchant for militaristic attire complete with Sam Browne belt, as well the cross motif and the teutonic helmets worn by his stormtroopers (while Ashura, resulting from a jigsaw combination of ancient mummies, outfitted his Ashura Corps to resemble mycenean warriors)

This version of the story is heavily indebted with H.P. Lovecraft's story of the macabre: "Herbert West, Re-Animator" which features a former officer of WWI 'saved' by West and doomed to carry around his resuscitated albeit severed head in a box under his arm.

History

He was a new lieutenant brought in to oversee the plans of the story's main villain, Dr. Hell, after repeated failures on the part of Hell's other officer, Baron Ashura, to destroy the heroic robot Mazinger Z. Competition between the two villains was fierce, Ashura to regain Hell's favor and Brocken to prove himself the better commander. He was given Gool to attack as well as a loyal army of soldiers, the Iron Crosses. However, Brocken was also unable to gain the advantage over Mazinger Z despite repeated tries. He died in the story's finale when Mazinger Z blew up his airship while attempting to escape.

Relationship with Ashura

Brocken appears as a direct competition to Ashura, demoting him as Hell's main servant and forcing him to work as a team in a number of occasions, mostly with terrible results, to the point of ordering their respective mechanical beasts to fight each other to prevent each other from defeating Mazinger. Nevertheless, it's because of their collaboration that Dr. Hell finally achieves one of his goals: to obtain Super Alloy Z and build a mechanical monster with it, Balmos Q7. His plans are spoiled when Ashura disobeys his orders out of jealousy and leaves Mazinger unwatched, who manages to escape from Fortress Bood and destroys Dr. Hell's monster.

Before his death, Ashura faces a group of Iron Crosses, loyal to Brocken, that had planned to kill him without Brocken's knowledge. When he finds out about this, he rushes to stop them, although Ashura had already taken care of them. However, he doesn't believe his foe wasn't behind the attack and escapes from Dr. Hell's island. Brocken shows a certain degree of respect towards Ashura when he dies in battle.

Mecha

Brocken is appointed as Blogun G3's pilot, but is defeated by Mazinger and humiliated by Ashura, who picks his head from the ground after his robot's explosion and slaps him for having failed. Brocken also manages to take control of Mazinger Z once.

Other Versions

• Brocken was called (for obvious reasons) Count Decapito in Tranzor Z. In the Latin American version, he was named "Conde Decapitado" (Decapitated Count)
• In the Parody OVA, CB Go Nagai World, Brocken is played up comically and extremely perverted. His body at one time was also stolen by Jinmen of the Devilman series.
• Unlike Ashura, Brocken wasn't included in the Mazinkaiser version of the saga.
• Brocken appears in the Mazinger Angels manga, but this time his head is attached to his body.
• Brocken appears yet again in Shin Mazinger Shogeki! Z Hen, as one of Dr. Hell's generals. In the first episode (which is called the Finale to the series), he is killed by Kouji using Mazinger Z's "Big Bang Punch". In episode 5, however, he is introduced into the story, deploying Groizer X-10 to destroy Mazinger Z.