Magolor

"I'm so, so thankful for all of your help! High five, low five, all that."

- Magolor

Magolor is the alien found on the Lor Starcutter, the Galleon-like starship which crashed during the opening sequence of Kirby's Return to Dream Land. He is understood to be the captain of the ship and serves as a supportive character for most of the game, asking favors out of Kirby and tending to said ship.

Kirby and company decided to help Magolor out by offering to retrieve all the pieces of gears and hull parts that had fallen off the ship during the crash, while he stays behind to tend to what remains of the ship. Throughout the game, Magolor will inform the player when they have unlocked doors in his ship after they have acquired a specific number of Energy Spheres.

Physical Appearance
Magolor is a short alien with no feet and detached hands with white gloves. He is clad in a regal blue suit, complete with a white cape with gold trimmings and a dash of purple, gold-trimmed cog designs, and wears a white scarf with a blue buckle interwoven. His face is black-to-brown with oval, glowing yellow eyes.

He speaks gibberish with a squeaky voice. Kirby and company understand him perfectly well, however. Incidentally he is the only character seen speaking in the game.

Kirby's Return to Dream Land
Magolor appears for the first time in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, and is the driving force behind the events of that game. In the game's opening cutscene, Kirby, Meta Knight, King Dedede, and Bandana Waddle Dee are enjoying the sunshine, when suddenly a wormhole shaped like a star appears in the sky. The Lor Starcutter emerges from the wormhole. It breaks apart, losing its wings, emblem, mast, and oars along with 120 Energy Spheres as it plummets toward the ground. The ship crashes and the gang goes to see the source of the commotion. Inside the ship, Magolor is found unconscious. He wakes up and notices his ship has been severely damaged. Distraught, Magolor stares at his now-broken computer screen. Kirby and the others offer to help him, which makes the alien ecstatic. From thereon in, Magolor remains in the ship's control room overseeing its mainframe.

In exchange for Kirby's help, Magolor offers to take him and his friends to his home planet of Halcandra once he can get his ship working again. After beating Grand Doomer and retrieve the final piece, Magolor fufills his offer and takes Kirby and the crew to Halcandra. When they arrive, they are immediately attacked by the monstrous Landia. The Lor Starcutter makes a crash landing once again, but luckily stays intact this time. Magolor explains Landia's history and is confused as to why it attacked the Starcutter. Kirby and the gang offer to defeat the dragon for him.

After Landia is defeated, the golden crown it was wearing falls to the ground. Magolor suddenly appears, applauding ominously. Magolor grabs the crown from the ground and puts it on his head, simultaneously revealing it to be the Master Crown. The crown gives him great powers and Magolor assumes a new form resembling a jester. Meanwile, the gang is dumbfounded by his unforeseeable deceit. Now with the crown in his possession, he can go on to take control of the entire universe, starting with Pop Star. Kirby and company set out to stop Magolor, now with the help of Landia.

In his new state, Magolor has a gaseous, blood-red body with a purple-blue aura emanating from it, similar to that of Nightmare's. His hands remain detached from his body, but they are each now separated by a pair of magical sun-shaped runes. Magolor's hat grows outward and furls into a jester's hat, obtaining a purple hue with white tips. His scarf now becomes white and is cinched together by purple, silver-buckled belt. The Master Crown sits atop his head, its claws noticeably clasping down on said head and even wiggling from time to time (perhaps evidence that the crown is manipulating Magolor).

After being defeated once, the Master Crown revives (and perhaps possesses) Magolor. Magolor's hat now grows to enormous proportions and becomes even more curved at the ends, now resembling a ram's horns. The Master Crown has sprouted golden tentacles that wrap around Magolor's horns and head. Magolor's red, gaseous body reforms itself to become two large wings outlined in blue that are set behind his hat and a pair of smaller ones located at his base. Magolor has a pair of red eyes and an empty white grin on his face. Magolor periodically shuts and opens his mouth to reveal an eyeball with a red iris (very similar to Dark Matter and, to a lesser extent, Zero and 0²) in place of the vacant grin. Magolor's face is entirely bluish-black, with a droplet of his upper lip dripping over his "grin" to connect with his lower lip, giving him the appearance of slightly melting.

Even with his fiendish new powers, however, Magolor was no match for Kirby and Co.: they succeeded in stopping his galaxy-conquering goals, and shattered the Master Crown in the process. After the crown shatters, Magolor seemingly fades away into nothingness, leaving behind particles similar to those he had created in his first form while teleporting. It is revealed in the subsequent installment of the series that he somehow survived.

Extra Mode
Magolor's story role in EX mode is almost identical to that in normal mode, but after shooting down Kirby and his friends immediately before the final battle, he abruptly decides to tap into more of the Master Crown's power, resulting in a slightly different cutscene which shows Magolor turning into Magolor EX. On the battlefield, however, Magolor's attacks have received a cosmetic update and some now have properties that make them more dangerous.

During Extra Mode, both of Magolor's appearances are much darker and grimmer than they were before. His wisp-like body in his sorcerer form is completely red and a deeper shade around the edges instead of being blue. Magolor's hat is now black with red at the tips and the Master Crown now has a purple jewel in its center. The cloth around his neck is black and the scarf going across his mouth is red. Magolor EX's face now has glowing white skin and his eyes are hot pink instead of yellow (they turn red when Magolor's health is halved). Sometimes while bending his body in both the battle and the cutscene showing his transformation, a hot pink feature (similar to his eyes in color) is visible under his scarf: this is presumably his mouth.

Kirby's Dream Collection: Special Edition
Magolor returns as an opponent in the exclusive challenge stages as a competitive rival of sorts. As Kirby races him, he will summon common enemies and shoot purple fireballs to slow him down, and even attempt to pick up Score Coins. Magolor will also spiral through the air at high speed and use his wizardly powers to phase through breakable walls and obstacles. He will occasionally gloat and laugh at Kirby if he happens to fall behind. The final race, aptly named "Magolor Race EX," features Magolor embracing his darker powers and uses them to race quicker and more strategically.

Since their last encounter, the two appear to be on friendlier terms. The two share a friendly and playful rivalry with each other. The races take place on mechanical gear-filled racecourses that match his personal attire and styling. The races are suspended high above the skies of Dream Land, the final of which during the EX race takes place in the dark and collapsing other dimension.

Aside from that, a commemorate gold 8-bit statuette of Magolor is visible in the museum mode and also appears as one of Stone Kirby's transformations. Magolor also appears in the credits, escorting Kirby across the screen as the credits roll underneath. As the credits finish rolling, Magolor returns to the Lor Starcutter and bids Kirby farewell before flying away.

Attacks
Magolor's main attack during the final battle is teleporting around the field constantly and summoning and launching black orbs in an array of patterns. These orbs can be destroyed, guarded against, or inhaled. Sometimes, he creates puddles of pinkish liquid which eventually become tall spikes. This attack can be guarded and easily avoided by watching which spikes burst first. Magolor can teleport off-screen and launch five blue fire blasts that explode. Occasionally, he can open a void to send out three or more mini Sphere Doomers, which attack by flying in circles.

After losing half his HP, Magolor becomes much more aggressive. He immediately continues the fight by creating a giant version of one of his magic runes in the background and disappears. The hex then turns into a star-shaped black hole shaped in the middle of the stage which can only be avoided by running at full speed. If the player keeps running, the void will disappear; however, if the player is sucked in, they will lose whatever ability they had and will take heavy damage. Notably, not even Stone will not protect the player from the void. Magolor will also put his hands together and launch a powerful beam cannon, however this attack can be avoided by staying out of range. If it hits though, it can hit for as much as half a full bar of HP. The boss will summon and fire much more dark orbs and at a faster pace. Another set of protruding spikes is added to his attack along with faster-moving blue fire blasts. When further weakened, Magolor will protect himself with 5 shields (which create one giant star shield), which must be destroyed using Super Abilities. Magolor will then open 3 portals summoning 3 different enemies. One of which will be a Super Ability enemy. Magolor will then stand off-screen using black orbs against Kirby; however with the Super Ability they can easily be dealt with. After landing two hits with a Super Ability, Magolor will dispel the ability and will repeat the above pattern. The order of the abilities in normal mode are Monster Flame, Flare Beam, and Ultra Sword. After destroying all his shields, Magolor will rush to the center of the screen and attempt to recover a part of the shield: Kirby must now finish Magolor with Ultra sword. Climatically, Magolor will react instantly and try to repel the sword in one last attempt to save himself. Engaged in a deadlock, the player must shake the Wii Remote vigorously in order to have Kirby overpower Magolor. If the remote isn't shaken enough Magolor will win out and will dispel the Ultra Sword. Otherwise, Kirby will deplete the last of Magolor's HP meter and seemingly slay him, the crown-toting traitor exploding so violently it turns the screen white.

Seconds after Magolor finishes exploding, he is revived by the Master crown into his second form: the real final battle against Magolor begins with him dispelling Ultra Sword from Kirby. Magolor will proceed to juggle and throw random enemies at Kirby from which the player can get another ability to fight. For his next attack, Magolor will create several star-shaped voids in different locations, which protrude large spikes after a set amount of time. He retains a few of the attacks that he used in the first fight, like the black orbs, black hole, and the beam cannon, which are still avoided in the same ways (although players should take note that the latter two attacks come out much faster than they did in the first battle). When he first warps into the background, Magolor can use a star-shaped void to warp himself out of sight. From there, he will summon two more voids in the foreground and try to ram the player by flying out of one and into the other. Guarding is ineffective against this attack. Magolor can also create a mass of darkness in the foreground (the shape of which is revealed seconds before via a small box in the background).

At half of his HP, Magolor will begin using "dark" versions of the Super Abilities. He will first summon two large dark swords, portraying the Ultra Sword ability, which he will swing, first from the right side of the screen and then the left, so the player must go to the opposite side to avoid the strikes. He will use his own version of Monster Flame's attack which attack from the left and right side of the screen, usually in the order left, right, and then both. The player can estimate where the attack will be coming from by looking at Magolor's location and his hand-gestures. Finally, Magolor can attack with his own dark version of the Flare Beam. He will hover in the middle of the screen and start gathering energy around himself (during this moment, Magolor is extremely vulnerable to the player's attacks and cannot retaliate for several seconds). After he has charged up enough power, Magolor will start bouncing around the arena as a large orb of shadowy energy, ricocheting in another direction whenever he makes contact with a side of the screen. After he has rolled around for a bit, Magolor will suddenly zoom off into the background and then try to quickly smash into Kirby and his friends, much like the rocket attack used by Metal General. Guarding will not do the player any good against these attacks. Magolor will sometimes shoot his beam cannon through a star-shaped void. Then several voids will appear, with the beam cannon passing through them, so the player must be outside its trajectory. He will continue to use a random assortment of his normal attacks and dark Super Abilities until the last of his HP is depleted and the battle is won.

In the Extra Mode, Magolor's attacks are frequently more potent. As with the first battle, Magolor's first and most common attack will be to create 3 or more spherical projectiles to fire at Kirby: however, these projectiles are now larger and much faster than those fired by his largely blue counterpart, and are now red with a more unstable appearence. Magolor's puddle spike attack now shoots out green, cactus-like spikes (which curiously resemble Zero's weakpoint from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards) and his energy blasts are now orange and significantly larger: furthermore Magolor is now somewhat more conscientious of his aim, often firing them in front of where Kirby is sprinting towards so as to get Kirby caught in the middle of the screen to get hit by a fifth blast. Occasionally, Magolor will summon Sphere Doomers, which are now IceSphere Doomers rather than the normal purple ones, and are considerably larger than they were in the original battle.

Upon half his health being depleted, Magolor will pull out his black hole attack; the black hole itself is now an ominous brown color and will wipe out 75% of Kirby's HP if it manages to suck him in, but it does not pull any harder than its normal mode counterpart does and is still just as easy to avoid. After firing off two sets of the projectiles, Magolor will prepare his laser attack. The laser, now brown with white flecks in it, is slightly larger than the original and deals significantly more damage should Kirby miraculously get hit by it (this attack is just as predictable as in normal mode).

The largest difference to this battle, however, is the Super Ability selection; when Magolor surrounds himself in a near-impenetrable star shield, it will take the combined strengths of the Snow Bowl, Grand Hammer, and Ultra Sword abilities to take the shield down and finish off Magolor's first form, and Magolor himself seems to be much more aware of the need to avoid being hit by the super abilities. When coming to the foreground while Kirby has Snow Bowl, Magolor will use a strong gust of wind to push Kirby away. If Kirby does not hit Magolor fast enough, he will start firing Ice Sphere Doomers at the party; the Sphere Doomers will instantly be killed if hit with Snow Bowl. While Kirby is wielding Grand Hammer, Magolor will teleport off-screen and cause several portals to appear in quick succession on the floor; the first few will hold a projectile which will turn into 6 that all go off in different directions if not destroyed immediately, and Magolor will rise out of the last, largest portal and either launch four projectiles straight above him or try to use his green spike attack. Only Ultra Sword is largely unchanged from its original usage in the final boss, and can be treated identically to when it was used in fighting Magolor outside of EX-mode excluding the slightly increased number of projectiles.

Once again, Magolor will rush to the middle of the screen almost as soon as his star shield is destroyed; to avoid having Magolor recover a piece of the shield, the Kirby wielding Ultra Sword must strike Magolor with said super ability. Much like in normal mode, Magolor will grab the sword just as it is about to hit him: the player must shake the Wii Remote rapidly to bypass Magolor EX's hand and land the final few blows. Magolor explodes shortly after the final hit from Ultra sword, the hexagonal hexes added to the explosion possibly being a subtle yet eerie foreshadowing of Magolor EX's second form.

Personality
No strong evidence of Magolor's true intentions are shown until Kirby and the others reach Halcandra. Magolor is an adept speaker who acts very politely, giving Kirby encouragement whenever the player visits him in the Lor Starcutter. He also appears to be very friendly at first, and tells Kirby that he loves Popstar so much he doesn't want to leave it (interestingly, the latter is true). Once Kirby gets the Master Crown, however, Magolor completely breaks cover and turns into a cruel villain whose only goal is to conquer the universe. Magolor has no remorse using his Lor Starcutter (that Kirby just rebuilt for him) against Kirby and Landia, nor for shooting them down after the Lor is defeated.

Strangely, in Kirby's Dream Collection: Special Edition, Magolor remembers what Kirby did to him but doesn't seem particularly disturbed by it. In fact, he builds Kirby an entire theme park to make up for his evil actions. This gives further credence to the theory that Magolor was corrupted by the power of the Master Crown (although exactly when this occurred is harder to determine): however, it's also possible that Magolor had finally grown remorseful for his actions, which may be evidenced by Magolor Soul's pause description describing him as "a sad shell", suggesting that he no longer wished to fight Kirby.

Etymology
Magolor's name may come from either malign or malignant, referring to his camouflaged evil ways. It may also be derived from masquerade, a verb used to describe a false pretense used to fool others. All three are in accordance with his lies and deceitful behavior. In addition, Magolor's name may very well come form the words magic and mage, which would also be fitting since Magolor EX's pause description refers to him as a "wizard."

Related Quotes
"Magolor deceived Kirby and stole Halcandra’s legendary treasure, the Master Crown! It’s up to Kirby to save the universe."

- VS Magolor

"Magolor stole the Master Crown and the Lor from their sacred resting places on Halcandra. He’s a liar and a wizard… Defeat him!"

- VS Magolor EX

Trivia

 * After 120 Energy Spheres are collected, Magolor explains the details of how he acquired his ship. However, speaking to him a second time will have him tell Kirby that he has heard of him much before their fateful encounter. In the Extra Mode, he goes into more details with both, loosely recalling the events of Milky Way Wishes - and stating that there is someone that he knows in particular who knew Kirby fairly well. This person is theorized to be either Marx, Galacta Knight, or someone else entirely.
 * Similar to how other content from Kirby's Return to Dream Land was carried over from Kirby GCN, Magolor's first form resembles the unused concept design of its final boss. Both have long, sculpted horns, a shadowy face and body, and red clothing.
 * It also appears that this unused final boss concept inspired Magolor Soul's design to some extent, as the two have a very similar color scheme.
 * The Lor Starcutter may very well not be his own ship, as one of his battle quotes (from Magolor EX) implies that he stole it from somewhere. After collecting every Energy Sphere, he will reveal more info on the vessel and claims that he 'excavated' it from the volcano Landia lives in.
 * Magolor Soul has an eye that resembles Dark Matter's eye as well as the large "stomach eye" King Dedede gained when possessed by Dark Matter. This may suggest that Magolor came under the influence of Dark Matter at some point.
 * The level before the fight against Magolor is similar to the inside of Galactic Nova from Kirby Super Star (Ultra), which Kirby went through before fighting Marx in said games.
 * Like Marx before him, Magolor shows up in the front row of the unlockable "Kirby Master" video for 100% completion. He applauds the cast in spite of his defeat.
 * Magolor and Dark Mind are the only final bosses to have more than two forms in one game.
 * In the third phase of the battle with Magolor, when he throws enemies at Kirby, he will always send out an enemy containing the copy ability Kirby used before having to discard it to use the Super Abilities to destroy Magolor's shield.
 * During the third phase, parts of Milky Way Wishes can be heard.
 * It's unknown if Magolor was evil all along and sought the Master Crown for its power, or was simply being manipulated by the artifact itself, as Magolor Soul's pause-screen description describes him as a "sad shell" of the Master Crown's power.
 * It is also unclear whether Magolor was already powerful before he obtained the Master Crown or whether his powers stemmed entirely from it, as Kirby's Dream Collection: Special Edition reveals that even without the crown (which is presumably non-existent at this point, its shards having faded with Another Dimension's demise) Magolor is still capable of spawning normal enemies and even firing large energy projectiles akin to those he fired during the battle against him in Kirby's Return to Dream Land, and Magolor EX's pause description describes him as "a liar and a wizard," implying that he may have already had a significant amount of power before seizing the crown.
 * In Extra Mode, Magolor explains how the Lor Starcutter was built, and says it was the same power that gave rise to "clockwork stars." This hints at a possible connection to Nova.
 * Magolor bears a striking resemblance to the Kirby's Dream Land 3 enemy, Madoo.
 * The battle with Magolor seems to contain references to almost every previous final boss. The Lor segment is a shooter, like Dark Matter and Zero. In his first form, he teleports with a flash and sound similar to Nightmare and Dark Mind. He fires huge lasers and summons black holes like Marx. His final form has his mouth melting down, somewhat like Drawcia Soul. He also summons spikes, like Drawcia, and flies across the screen like Drawcia Soul. His Soul form has a red eye in his mouth, a trait often associated with Dark Matter. Visually, his first form loosely resembles Nightmare, and his Soul form resembles Dark Mind's first form.
 * During the battle against Magolor, a portal to Popstar is visible in the background. It grows larger and larger throughout the fight's multiple segments, eventually dominating the backdrop in the last phase.
 * Magolor is one of two bosses to have decieved Kirby for his own gain (the other is Marx).
 * Interestingly, Magolor has no feet but does have hands, while Marx has no hands but does have feet.