Iron-Masked Marauder
| Iron-Masked Marauder ビシャス Vicious | |
 Iron-Masked Marauder | |
| Gender | Male |
|---|---|
| Hometown | Unknown |
| Region | Unknown |
| Member of | Team Rocket |
| Rank | Elite Officer |
| Anime debut | Celebi: Voice of the Forest |
| English voice actor | Dan Green |
| Japanese voice actor | Shirō Sano |
The Iron-Masked Marauder (Japanese: ビシャス Vicious) is an elite officer of Team Rocket, and the main villain of the fourth Pokémon movie, Celebi: Voice of the Forest.
The Iron-Masked Marauder is possibly one of the few characters in the whole history of Pokémon who appears to be purely evil with absolutely no redeeming qualities at all; he is shown to be heartless, cruel, and above all, egocentric. He values his own life above that of others, whether out of cowardice or selfishness, and has no qualms about harming others, be it humans or Pokémon, for the sake of reaching his own goals.
The Iron-Masked Marauder is ambitious and megalomaniacal — although he makes pretense of capturing Celebi to present it to Giovanni, his true intentions are to use its power to overthrow his boss and rule Team Rocket himself.
History
Not much is known about him except that he has quite a reputation within Team Rocket. Jessie, James, and Meowth all recognize him and immediately start kowtowing shamelessly.
Relationships with other members
Not much is known about The Iron-Masked Marauder's connections in Team Rocket aside from his strong hatred of Giovanni and ambitions to usurp his boss's position.
Although he dislikes his boss, the Iron-Masked Marauder sees other Rockets as helpers to his cause, and is quick to ally with Jessie, James and Meowth for the purpose of helping him carry out his plans and spreading the word about his new found power.
Abilities
The Iron-Masked Marauder is skilled at hand-to-hand combat, but does not have the best balance. His primary combat relies on Pokémon that are brainwashed by his Dark Balls (it is not known if his Sneasel and Scizor were victim to this, but his Tyranitar was). The origin and technology behind these Dark Balls is unknown; they may not be Rocket technology because he is the only one seen using them. The only quality known about Dark Balls is that they make the target Pokémon extremely loyal to the user, to the point of forgetting itself and attacking without regard to previous friendships and loyalties.
Future
What happened to the Iron-Masked Marauder after Celebi: Voice of the Forest is unknown. He was captured by a collection of forest Pokémon and berated by Diana's grandmother after losing his iron mask, but nothing more is seen of him afterward.
Pokémon
Escaped
| Debut | Celebi: Voice of the Forest |
|---|---|
| Voice actors | |
| Japanese | Katsuyuki Konishi |
| English | Eric Stuart |
The Iron-Masked Marauder sent his Scizor after Ash and company. It also battled against Ash's Bayleef. Like all of Marauder's Pokémon, Scizor was also caught with a Dark Ball, having its power charged to the highest level. Despite this, Bayleef was able to defeat Scizor with a Razor Leaf-Vine Whip combo. Later, after the Marauder was unmasked, Scizor was seen disappearing into the Ilex Forest along with Sneasel, now being freed.
Scizor's known moves are Double Team and Quick Attack.
| Debut | Celebi: Voice of the Forest |
|---|---|
| Voice actors | |
| Japanese | Yumi Tōma |
| English | Kayzie Rogers |
Marauder first used his Sneasel to unlock the cell of Tyranitar at the Pokémon Hunter's camp. Later he sent it to go after Ash and company. It also battled with Sam's Charmeleon, but got defeated by Charmeleon's Headbutt. Later freed Sneasel was seen disappearing into the Ilex Forest along with Scizor.
Sneasel's only known move is Slash.
Marauder caught this timid Tyranitar at the Pokémon Hunter's camp in order to get himself a new, strong Pokémon, demonstrate the powers of his Dark Ball and force the Hunter to reveal the place where he had seen Celebi. Marauder also sent Tyranitar to battle against Ash and friends, who were carrying Celebi, but they got away as James's Weezing used its SmokeScreen to distract the Marauder, so he wouldn't "steal their Pikachu away", as Team Rocket thought he was doing.
Later Marauder sent his Tyranitar to battle against Suicune. Brock used his Onix to battle Tyranitar, but the powered-up Armor Pokémon was too strong for Brock's Rock Snake Pokémon. Suicune, however, was able to defeat Tyranitar with a powerful BubbleBeam, and Onix used its last powers to slam it to the Lake of Life. Later, after the Marauder was defeated, the freed Tyranitar was seen swimming through the lake and disappearing into the mist, sinking Team Rocket's raft on the way.
Tyranitar's only known move is Hyper Beam.
| Debut | Celebi: Voice of the Forest |
|---|---|
| Voice actors | |
| Japanese | Kazuko Sugiyama |
| English | Kazuko Sugiyama |
- Main article: Celebi (M04)
Marauder searched for this Celebi for a long time, and finally he managed to capture it with his Dark Ball, turning it into a mindless destruction machine. Marauder used Celebi to create a huge monster-like, Celebi-shaped monster out of forest materials. His goal was to destroy Giovanni and rule Team Rocket, eventually achieving conquest of the entire world by using Celebi's powers.
Ash and Sammy, however, managed to get to Celebi and cancel its brainwashing by returning their shared memories back into its mind. This destroyed Celebi's Dark Ball, freeing it and causing the huge "twig-monster", as James called it, to collapse into the lake. After the Celebi from the future and the past had saved this Celebi from dying, the Marauder comes out of the lake, grabs Celebi and attempts to fly away with his rocket pack, but Ash grabbed his feet and had his Pikachu to use Thunderbolt, destroying the rocket pack and freeing Celebi from Marauder's grip.
Artwork
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| Ken Sugimori's design of Iron-Masked Marauder for the anime. |
Voice actors
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Trivia
- According to voice actor Shirō Sano, the Japanese name Vicious comes from Sid Vicious, the late bass player of the English punk rock band, Sex Pistols.
- Due to a mistranslation before the movie's release, it was mistakenly thought for a time that he was the future son of Jessie and James.
- On the Netflix website, their summary of Celebi: Voice of the Forest still mentions this.
- In the film novelization, he is simply referred to as "Iron Mask".
In other languages
| Language | Name | Origin |
|---|---|---|
| Korean | 비셔스 Vicious | Transliteration of his Japanese name. |
| Chinese (Mandarin) | 比夏斯 Bǐxiàsī | Transliteration of his Japanese name. |
| Danish | Jernmasken fra Ban* / Marodøren i jernmasken* | Means "The Iron Mask from Ban" / "The Marauder in the Iron Mask". |
| Finnish | Öinen rautanaama | Means "Nightly Iron Face". |
| Swedish | Järnmaskmarodören | Translation of his English name. |
 Team Rocket
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| Rocket Game Corner • Team Rocket Hideout • Viridian Gym • Team Rocket HQ • Rocket Warehouse | |||||
| Boss | Admins | ||||
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| Giovanni (Masters • Pocket Monsters) |
Archer (Masters) |
Ariana (Masters) |
Petrel (Masters) |
Proton (Masters) | |
| Other members | |||||
| Jessie (Masters) • James (Masters) • Meowth • Team Rocket Grunts (Rocket Siblings) • Scientists (Gideon) Grey (Golden Boys) • Kaede (How I Became a Pokémon Card) | |||||
See also: Pokémon the Series • Adventures • Team GO Rocket • Team Rainbow Rocket
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This movie article is part of Project Anime, a Bulbapedia project that covers all aspects of Pokémon animation. |
