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 (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 into helping 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 away and crashes into Nova, causing the great machine to blow up. Marx was believed to be destroyed in the crash, but he turns up much later in the Kirby Super Star Ultra sub-game The True Arena in a zombified form.

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.

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 (that might be related to Kirby's species) named Marx tells Kirby that the only way to stop the fight between the two is to gather the power of the Dream Fountains 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 all this power 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 (possibly Mr. Shine & Mr. Bright from Kirby's Adventure) 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 in the process. This, however, is proved wrong in the remake as Marx revives himself by stealing Nova's power, and Nova is later revived by Meta Knight.

Kirby Super Star Ultra
Marx's role in the remake, Kirby Super Star Ultra, is essentially the same as the original game but also adds a few more appearances and an overall bigger role than before. A clip in The True Arena reveals that, shortly after the event in Milky Way Wishes, he was stunned, but soon stole Nova's power once more, bringing him back to life, and causing him to turn into the demonic 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. Kirby triumphs over him again in the end, and upon his defeat once more, Marx Soul lets out a bloodcurdling scream as he slowly splits in half. The two pieces of Marx Soul blow up, signifying his true demise. Even though he appears in the cutscene when kirby gets 100%.

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 little 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 little victory dance appearing in his little Kirby-like 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, latest appearance)

Trivia

 * Marx wears a hat near identical to the hat worn by Mirror Kirby, which also debuted in Kirby Super Star. The only difference being that the two colors on the hat are reversed on Marx's hat and the blue part on Marx's hat is a bit darker. This could also explain the colorful mirror-like panels that stream down Marx's wings, or his Black Hole move where he splits in half, like Mirror Kirby does in one of his attacks.
 * Despite Marx's Japanese name translating directly to "Mark", the Japanese version of The Arena erroneously spells it Marx. This may be where Marx got his English name.
 * Marx Soul's death sequence slightly parallels Tabuu's death from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, since they both teleport around frantically before dying in a violent explosion of their own being.
 * An interesting thing to note is that Marx's laugh was changed for the remake, where as his original laughter was mearly a warped sound effect, he was given very audibly demented laughter in the remake.
 * Despite the fact that Marx had no arms in his original form, his powerful bat-like form sported winged limbs with clawed fingers on them, something that was clearly a creation of his wish for the power to control Pop Star.
 * Marx has two claws on each wing, while Marx Soul has three. This may be an indication that he is more powerful than last time.
 * A remix of the theme that plays during the battle against Marx appears as a track in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
 * The player earns 300,000 points for defeating Marx in Milky Way Wishes.
 * Marx, along with Drawcia, were the only two bosses to cackle while battling with Kirby. They are also the only two bosses that have "soul" forms.

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

- 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