Now that castmate Luis de Amechazurra is onboard here with us, it really makes me want to take a closer look at his character, M. Bison.
General Bison built his empire initially on the sale of weapons and drugs worldwide with a lot of money laundering to cover his tracks, then got involved with the Street Fighter tournaments, amassing even more riches. He didn't stop there, of course.
All the "Big 12" of Street Fighter II are possessed of superpowers which have always been of interest to him; particularly those of Ken and Ryu whose mastery of the Hadou has always made Bison want to somehow extract, harness and pervert those powers to his own evil purposes in his relentless quest for world domination (he's just your garden variety megolomaniac supervillain, isn't he?). All this, as if his terrifying Psycho Power wasn't enough!
A few of the Street Fighters were more easily corruptible than the others and became fellow Boss Characters. Balrog, the former street thug who turned professional boxer, ex-convict and Muy Thai King Sagat and soap opera idol by day/psychotic claw flashing killer by night Vega, all of whom form Lord Bison's formidable team of henchmen. Zangief also worked on the team but was probably not considered intelligent enough to be an actual Boss Character (as if Balrog is, LOL) but, because of the Russian's unmatched sheer brute strength, he not only became Bison's hired muscle and personal bodyguard but Zangief's superpowers were enough to interest him in performing experiments on him and developing Zangief into a fighter who could assume an armored form called Mech Zangief, a prototype for an army of such iron-skinned brutes which he'd planned to unleash upon an unsuspecting world.
Another reason that Zangief did not qualify as a Boss was very likely his moral opposition to the evil Shadowlaw organization. Zangief, however, was not sharp enough to figure out that his master, M. Bison, was, in fact, the head of Shadowlaw and that the base of operations at which Zangief lived and worked with Sagat and the others was actually the very headquarters of Shadowlaw. Poor Zangief.
Over the years we have seen many examples of Zangief's fearlessness; in the face of his many opponents in the ring as well as against any person or group that has ever threatened harm to his Mother Russia (he even saved President Gorbachov from an assassination attempt which earned him yet another scar on his already battle-worn body). Lord Bison, however, just might be the only man on Earth of whom Zangief is truly afraid, which would explain why the fearsome wrestler would tolerate such abuses from Bison over the years as seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT1a225Babsand...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYZmsFevrCk&mode=related&search=We're talking about a ruthless and scary character here! Even today in The Later Years it's obvious that Zangief still has a healthy respect for and fear of his former boss.
I'd love to hear Luis' and everybody's input on M. Bison, truly one of the baddest of bad guys not only in video games but in the world of super villains in general.
