Lord Raptor

Lord Raptor, also known as Zabel Zarock, is a character from the Darkstalkers series.
== Charactah Account ==
During his life, Raptor was a successful, if niche, rock star who captivated his audience with his enigmatic voice. Behind the curtains, he was a cultist who incorporated the cultic text into his songs, which influenced the audience.
During his final live "Sacrifice", Raptor took his own life and the lives of 100 fans. This caught the demon lord Ozom's attention, who resurrected Raptor as his servant. However, Raptor planned to overthrow Ozom when he got powerful enough — and Ozom himself knows this, and sends Le Malta to keep an eye on him.
After spending time away from Ozom's castle, Raptor discovers that it has disappeared and he is sucked into Majigen shortly after. Raptor has a crush on Hsien-Ko, as seen in their unique pre-fight animation, and looks at her with Wingding Eyes, while Le Malta has a thing for B.B. Hood.
== Appearance ==
=== Anime ===
* Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge
=== Cartoons ===
* Darkstalkers the Animated Series
=== Comics ===
* Street Fighter VS. Darkstalkers
=== Video Games ===
* Capcom Arcade 2nd Stadium
* Capcom Fighting Collection
* Capcom Fighting Evolution
* Darkstalkers 3
* Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower
* Darkstalkers Resurrection
* Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors
* Lei-Lei's Magical Hammer
* Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds
* Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes
* Namco x Capcom
* NeoGeo Pocket Color Selection Vol.1
* Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge
* Project X Zone
* Project X Zone 2
* SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters 2
* SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS
* SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters' Clash
* SNK vs. Capcom: The Match of the Millennium
* Street Fighter Alpha 2
* Street Fighter X All Capcom
* Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
* Teppen
* Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3
* Vampire Chronicle For Matching Service
* Vampire Hunter 2
* Vampire Savior 2
* Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection
== Trivia ==
* Further regarding Lord Raptor's origins and inspirations, much of his concepts derive greatly from the real world scenes of heavy metal and rock n' roll:
** Being a literal zombie hearkens to the use of corpse paint, which was started in use by early metal and shock rocker Alice Cooper, which then saw its aesthetic spread to the Scandinavian metal scene. He may also be potentially inspired by the British metal band "Iron Maiden", and bears a close resemblance to their mascot character, "Eddie".
** Coming from Australia refers to the band AC/DC, who were also the subject of much fame and controversy in their home country.
** His background of being an occultist heavy metal star was likely based on the American and European/Scandinavian moral panic surrounding heavy metal in the 1980s and early 1990s, as well as the accusations of it being associated with Satanism and debauchery, notably regarding bands such as Mayhem and Burzum. Mayhem grew to be one of Norwegian black metal's most notorious bands after scandals involving not just a satanist based agenda that included "spreading evil, misery, and nihilism" and burning down churches, but to infamous affairs within the band itself, including suicide of one of its members, Dead, and the murder Euronymus by Burzum's leader, Varg Vikernes, himself also associated with church arson incidents.
** His wild and outrageous, as well as audience hazardous live performances may also be in references to concert incidents and bombastic stage performances that were prominent around the late 1980s and early 1990s. The once annual Monsters of Rock international concert festival was infamous for crowd incidents of slam dancing/moshing that resulted in casualties, while Guns N' Roses made infamy in St. Louis, Missouri for cancelling a show which then sparked city wide riots. The aforementioned Mayhem was infamous for tossing out livestock entrails and blood onto audience members, while on a lighter note, shock rock act group GWAR began to include prop blood and bodily fluids, as well as mock executions and sacrificial rituals in their concert acts around the time. Infamously, the late polarizing underground punk rock legend GG Allin was mightily notorious for noxious and extremely obscene acts onstage, and had promised to his audience that his last show would end with him committing suicide on the night of Halloween (which ended up not happening; he instead died of an overdose in 1993).
** The revelation of his incantation based lyrics being removed upon his death is in reference to the urban rumor spread by Christian morality groups that rock and metal musicians allegedly inserted subliminal messages into their records, and when played backwards, would reveal messages such as "Worship Satan" and "Praise the Dark Lord".
** Him sometimes sporting an afro in his Dark Force is likely a homage to black rock and roll artists and musicians who helped shaped rock and roll music and culture, from Jimi Hendrix, who is historically famous as "Rock n' Roll's greatest guitarist", Saul "Slash" Hudson of Guns N' Roses, and even Michael Jackson, who collaborated with Slash and Eddie Van Halen for his songs. Blues music is also considered rock music's foundation and progenitor, and is not without its own world of the sordid and the occult, from artists indulging in drugs and sex and to the legend of the Blues Devil of the Crossroads.
* In Vampire Savior, Lord Raptor's name is misspelled "Rapter" in some parts of the game.
* The creature that accompanies Lord Raptor is named Le Malta, he is his best friend.
* At the beginning of Lord Raptor's Dark Force, he appears wearing a leather jacket and with his hair styled in a mohawk. There is a 1 out of 16 chance that he will appear with an afro instead of a mohawk.
* Lord Raptor's "Midnight Bliss" form is inspired by the anime movie character Naomi Armitage from Armitage III, him holding a gun at Demitri Maximoff is a reference to a scene from the movie.
** Fans commonly know this version of him as "Lady Raptor" and "Zabelle."
* Lord Raptor has the ability to move while crouching.
* Lord Raptor has been voiced by Yuji Ueda in all of his video game appearances thus far, his seiyuu only ever changing in the anime, where he was instead voiced by Koichi Yamadera. Similarly, Raptor is the only character to have the same voice actor, Scott McNeil, in both the American Darkstalkers animated series and the English dub of the Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge OVA.
* Lord Raptor appears to have a crush on Hsien-Ko. This can be seen in Raptor's special intro pose when fighting against Hsien-Ko. Similarly, Raptor also has a special victory quote "Hey sweetheart! I die for you!" further proving this.
** During ES Death Phrase while fighting against her, Lord Raptor can be heard yelling "My Darling!" once flinging towards her. Same can be heard during his intro.
** Within the Vampire Savior manga, it is revealed that Hsien-Ko does have feelings for Lord Raptor but doesn’t want to admit it.
*** Lord Raptor even manages to save Hsien-Ko in the continuity of the manga.
* In the Darkstalkers cartoon, Lord Raptor is a failing musician and actor, despite his belief he is the world's greatest rockstar. Lord Raptor in actuality persistently fails to appeal to audiences and constantly terrorizes his agent Irving to find him "better gigs." He also claims to have been "The Original Sweeney Todd", a performance which received rave reviews, until he admits he wrote said reviews himself.
* Lord Raptor appears in a card of the "Heroes and Heralds" mode in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3.
* Along with Bishamon in both the original Darkstalkers and Night Warriors, Lord Raptor has a unique winpose if he wins the final match of the game, turning into his human form. He retains this winpose in subsequent games like Vampire Savior.
* In the UDON Comics, Lord Raptor was able to use Psycho Power and Soul Power, a power that he himself had learned after reading a book of ancient incarnations that is believed to have been a part of European Culture, that power eventually lead to the Gypies of European Mythology, to Bison, to the rise of Shadaloo, and the awakening of Violent Ken.
* The flag on Lord Raptor's pants and guitar is the Union Jack, the flag of the United Kingdom and part of the Australian flag. While nothing is confirmed about this, it is likely Lord Raptor was originally going to be a British character, which matches the country where heavy metal originates from and would match with his old concept as a dead WWI solider, but since there was already a character with that nationality he was changed to Australian.
* Most of the Darkstalkers are given birthyears historically accurate to what setting they originate from. However Lord Raptor's birthyear being 1889 contradicts him being a former mortal young heavy metal musician who became a zombie later on. In his original concept art he was meant to be a soldier who died in WWI making his birthyear make a lot more sense for that concept but it is possible that Capcom forgot to change it in the finalized version, or perhaps were unable to choose a suitable birthyear coinciding with a significant piece of zombie media on short notice.
== Gallery ==
File:Lord Raptor Render 01.png
File:Lord Raptor Render 02.png
File:Lord Raptor Render 03.png
File:Lord Raptor Render 04.png
File:Lord Raptor Render 05.png
== External Links ==
* Lord Raptor at Darkstalkopedia
Category:Characters
Category:Males
Category:Darkstalkers