Marx

"I got the sun and moon to fight. I got you to go into space...it was all according to my perfect little plan!"

Marx (also known as Maruku or Mark in Japan) is the final boss of Milky Way Wishes in Kirby Super Star and its remake, Kirby Super Star Ultra. He originally appeared as a small jester, somewhat resembling Mirror Kirby, balancing on a multicolored ball who asks Kirby to help him end a quarrel between the sun and moon. When Kirby listens to his plea and does as he says, he turns up just in time to initiate the final part of his devious plan, and reveals that he manipulated Kirby to gain power. Upon gaining power, Marx becomes a strong bat-like entity with flashing, multicolored "scales" on his recently-acquired wings and endless power. After Kirby defeats Marx, he flies out of control and crashes right into Nova, causing the great machine to blow up. Marx turns up much later in the Kirby Super Star Ultra sub-game The True Arena in a zombified form, though he's shown to be alive and well later.

Kirby Super Star
Marx makes his first appearance in the sub-game Milky Way Wishes in the game Kirby Super Star. When the sun and moon of Pop Star start fighting with each other, a small jester-like being named Marx tells Kirby that the only way to stop the fight between the two is to gather the power of the Dream Springs from nearby planets and use them to summon Nova, a planet-sized, robotic "comet" that can grant wishes. Marx also wishes Kirby good fortune just before starting his hunt for Nova.

After gathering the power from the Dream Fountains and summoning Nova, Kirby goes on to make his wish to save Pop Star. Just then, however, he was knocked away by Marx, who then made his own selfish wish- complete control of Pop Star. When this happened, he transformed into a fearsome bat-like monster and gained new abilities. It turns out that he actually made the sun and moon fight each other, and tricked Kirby into doing his dirty work for him, and this was all part of his plan to conquer Pop Star. Afterward, Nova began looming towards Pop Star, leaving Kirby alone in space. The power Kirby had gathered comes together, however, and creates a starship for him to chase after them with. Nova was suddenly stopped by the sun and moon, giving Kirby the chance to enter Nova. After Kirby destroys its heart, Nova is wounded, infuriating Marx who then attempts to attack Kirby. In spite of Marx's fearsome new powers, Kirby manages to win; sending Marx flying away and into the remains of Nova, seemingly destroying them both.

Kirby Super Star Ultra
Marx's role in the remake, Kirby Super Star Ultra, is essentially the same as the original game, but there is a twist concerning his fate. A clip in The True Arena reveals that, shortly after the event in Milky Way Wishes, he was nearly completely destroyed but used Nova's power once more to transform into the stronger Marx Soul, granting him even more power than ever before (Nova, on the other hand, was later resurrected by Meta Knight in Meta Knightmare Ultra, who in return grants his wish to fight the greatest warrior in the galaxy, Galacta Knight). After a series of battles against Marx Soul and his toughest enemies, Kirby emerges victorious. Upon his defeat once more, Marx Soul lets out a bloodcurdling scream as he slowly splits in half and blows up.

The regular Marx appears in part of the blooper reel in Kirby Super Star Ultra. When he is about to tell Kirby how to stop the Sun and the Moon from fighting, he slips on his ball and lands on the ground. He also appears in the movie when Kirby gets a full 100% in a file, having a front row seat in the audience for Kirby's performance. Strangely, despite his harsh feelings towards him seen in the past sub-games, and the fact that he was defeated thrice (once in "Milky Way Wishes", again in "The Arena", and for the last time in "The True Arena") by him, he cheers for Kirby after his victory dance, appearing in his jester form.

Attacks
Marx's attacks are generally very predictable but very powerful. Marx has five attacks that follow a simple, but very distinct, pattern. He starts out by teleporting himself back and forth around the arena erratically and shoots out four crescent blades immediately after doing so. He then flies up, going off the screen, and drops small seeds that grow into large, thorny vines. After the vines grow and disappear, an electrified shadow follows Kirby around the floor. After a few seconds, Marx emerges from the shadow and flies into the air, but comes back down. He then stops on the side of the screen, glows blue, and shoots a stream of arrows at Kirby. Marx flies off and then reappears soon after and spits a spiked bomb at the ground, which turns into two ice balls that slide across the screen according to Kirby's height level. Finally, Marx glows, then spits out a giant horizontal beam. The pattern starts again. After taking enough damage, his pattern will become more random and unpredictable. He will also split in half, revealing his iconic attack - the black hole. Kirby will suffer very heavy damage if he falls into the black hole. However, this is his slowest and most predictable attack, although it has a considerable range and guarding does not work either. An interesting fact about the battle is that, in the remake, after Marx has taken sufficient damage, the screen will occasionally get a red tint, possibly an effect of him straining his powers to the max in an effort to finish off Kirby.

Appearances

 * Kirby Super Star
 * Kirby Squeak Squad ( cameo  )
 * Kirby Super Star Ultra (remake of Kirby Super Star)
 * Kirby Mass Attack (boss, latest appearance)

Trivia

 * The player earns 300,000 points for defeating Marx in Milky Way Wishes.
 * Marx wears a hat near identical to the hat worn by Mirror Kirby, which also debuted in Kirby Super Star. The two colors on the hat are reversed on Marx's hat and the blue part on Marx's hat is slightly darker. This coincides with the colorful mirror-like panels that stream down Marx's wings, or him splitting in half like Mirror Kirby to perform the Black Hole move.
 * Despite Marx's Japanese name translating closer to "Mark", the Japanese version of The Arena and Kirby Mass Attack renders it Marx.
 * Marx has no upper limbs before Nova transformed him. His initial flying form has two claws on each wing, while Marx Soul has three.
 * Marx's laugh was changed in the remake; it was a warped sound effect in the original, but he was given a demented laughter in the remake. In Kirby Mass Attack, his laugh is similar to the remake, but the actual board design is closer to the original version.
 * Marx, Drawcia, and Zero are the only characters to return after death. The first two do so within the same game and coincidentally cackle audibly when fighting Kirby
 * A remix of the theme that plays during the battle against Marx appears as a track in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
 * Marx, along with other various final bosses, are also shown in Kirby: Squeak Squad in one of the collectible pieces of artwork obtainable from treasure chests.
 * A split second before Marx is powered up by Nova, he looks similar to Marx Soul. This is true even in the original SNES game.
 * Marx, Necrodius, and Drawcia are currently the only final bosses to cackle during battle.
 * Marx's latest appearence in Mass Attack retains all of his original attacks from Super Star.
 * It is unknown how Marx returned to be in Mass Attack, even though he met a gruesome demise in Kirby Super Star Ultra. This would make his latest appearance non-canon.
 * Marx seems to resemble Flandre Scarlet from the Touhou series with the crystal wings and the hat.

Quotes
"Hey!! Hey!! Hey!! Can you make peace between the Sun and Moon?"

- Marx to Kirby

"You'll need to ask the giant comet, Nova for help."

- Marx to Kirby

"It will be difficult Kirby, but you can do it! We are counting on you! Good luck!"

- Marx to Kirby

"Well, I want to control Pop Star!"

- Marx to Nova

"I did it! It all went according to plan!"

- Marx

"Ahahahaa!!! Now I can cause all the mischief I want! See you Later!!!"

- Marx to Kirby

Sprites
マルク