Johnny Joestar/History

Early Years
Johnny "Joe Kid" Joestar was born in a family of former aristocrats in Danville, Kentucky – his father then a wealthy owner of several farms and an acclaimed horse trainer who had won the Triple Crown seven times. He was successful enough for the family to live comfortably in England for several years.

Johnny was five when he first rode a horse. His father, upon seeing Johnny observe the motions of the horse, considered him "a horse riding genius", which Johnny himself would also believe. However, Mr. Joestar was strict towards Johnny and always seemed to favor his older brother Nicholas.

When young Johnny took out his pet mouse Danny and secretly fed it under the table during dinner, his father, upon discovering it, ordered Johnny to drown the animal as punishment. Heartbroken, Johnny was unable to bring himself to do the deed, and followed Nicholas' suggestion to set Danny free into the woods instead.

Years later, Nicholas grew into a promising jockey-to-be, much admired by Johnny. One day, Nicholas' horse stumbled from something on the ground, costing Nicholas his life. Johnny saw a white mouse run from the commotion into the woods – a mouse he believed to be Danny.

Seven years later, it was Johnny who rose to fame as a racing prodigy. He was pampered greatly: people would bring him riches, politicians and royalty would visit him, and rich girls would sleep with him. His father still did not acknowledge him and his feats, possibly because Johnny never managed to beat Diego at racing. In a violent fight between them, Johnny's father uttered that "God had taken the wrong son" before finally throwing Johnny out of the household. Still, this did not deter Johnny, and he would go on to win the Kentucky Derby at a tender age of sixteen.

At one point, while waiting in line for a play, the girl he was with convinced him to cut to the front of the line and bribed the bouncers to throw out the youth in the front of the line - who had been waiting through the night. The youth shot Johnny in the spine, paralyzing him from the waist down and sending him to a hospital where he was physically abused. Having lost all the friends and respect he had earned as a jockey, no one visited him during his stay in the hospital.

Pre-Race
Johnny first appears among the crowd who witness the confrontation between Gyro and a pickpocket who had stolen money from him. Afterward, when Johnny follows and touches the steel ball Gyro had used, which was still spinning, his legs moved enough to allow him to stand. Johnny chases after Gyro, who compliments his upper body strength, but denies that the steel ball can enable him to walk again. However, Johnny is not deterred; he decides to chase down Gyro by entering the race to learn more about the steel balls and starts by trying to ride a horse.

Johnny's initial attempts are unsuccessful, the experienced horse dragging him by the saddle in the dirt, causing his leg to be pierced by a piece of wood, and even trampling him through an entire day's attempt at trying to tame it. Johnny also made sure not to be interrupted in his attempts to tame him, threatening the men who introduced him to the horse that he would set himself on fire and commit suicide if he is forced out of the pen.

Johnny enters the race, Slow Dancer dragging him along the stirrup. However, it becomes evident that Johnny has tamed the horse, as it is seen licking his cheek and obeying Johnny's command to lick him again. Johnny, after taking Gyro's hint to use the spin, rolls back over Slow Dancer's neck and onto the saddle, right as the Steel Ball Run starts.

First Stage
During the first stage, Johnny steadily follows Gyro, determined to impress him during this stage. When Gyro decides to cross a dense forest to take shortcut, he decides to dash in too, clashing with Pocoloco briefly. While Johnny has superior skill, Pocoloco's luck sends him to the second position nonetheless.

Until the final 1,000 meters, Johnny remains unchallenged until Diego comes behind him. Nonetheless, Johnny finishes at the fifth place. Still determined to follow the Neapolitan rider, Johnny impresses Gyro enough for him to give him a second lesson in the Spin. Telling him that the secret resides in the rotation, Gyro gives Johnny a crok to rotate and forms a partnership with him.

Second Stage
At the start of the second stage, Johnny counsels Gyro to follow the advised route linking all the possible wells during the crossing of the desert. However when Gyro decides to cut through 150km of desert, Johnny has no choice but to follow him.

Johnny and Gyro are attacked by one fellow competitor, Mrs. Robinson, who manages to blind and unhorse Johnny, but Gyro manages to save him and defeat Mrs. Robinson.

At night, they are again attacked, this time by the Boom Boom Family, whose magnetic power disable Gyro's Steel Balls and Johnny's pistol. The duo opt to flee, but Benjamin Boom Boom the patriarch lures bounty hunter Mountain Tim toward thinking Johnny has been assassinating his competitors. When Mountain Tim, Johnny and Gyro meet, the magnetic power of Tomb of the Boom immobilizes the three of them. When Benjamin moves to kill Johnny, the later acquire the ability to rotate his fingernails. He shoots the nails, killing Benjamin and crippling L.A. with his newfound power, which Mountain Tim explains as a Stand. Since the true assassins were dealt with, Johnny and Gyro resume their race, but L.A. grimly warns Gyro that he will never finish the race as other people are after his head.

Johnny pushses Gyro to reveal his past as a Neapolitan executioner, whose effort to win the Steel Ball Run are undermined by enemies of his kingdom. One such enemies reveals himself as another Stand user. Oyecomova, a Neapolitan terrorist, battles Gyro and Johnny but both cooperate in order to take him down.

Even as he has to deal with the threat of terroritsts, Johnny discovers that a mummified Left Arm has entered his own body. Another enemy different from the terrorists makes his entry. The Pork Pie Hat Kid, a Stand user at the service of the President of the United States disables Gyro and tries to kill Johnny. During the fight, Johnny witnesses his Stand making his legs move, and realizes how precious those Corpse Parts can be to him. Johnny and Gyro's concerted efforts manage to prevail against the Pork Pie Hat Kid; Gyro though interested in the Corpse Parts, has nothing to do with them.

World of Stars and Stripes
After Johnny finally kills Valentine, he is surprised to see that the Corpse Parts have gone missing again. He pursues the thief, only to discover it is none other than Diego Brando (or rather, a Diego from an alternate world). Johnny is at first surprised by the appearance of Diego's new stand The World, but still manages to discover the nature of its power after a few attacks. This time, however, Diego has the advantage of already knowing Tusk's powers and the super spin technique, predicting Johnny's actions and using his own fangirls as human shields. In his final attack, Diego uses his "5 seconds" to create a pincer move: he fires a gun from the front while The World attacks Johnny's back. Johnny is badly hurt again and falls from his horse, unable to use his new attack.

However, he had accumulated enough spin to make one final attack, sending Tusk Act 4 climbing up Diego's leg. Diego then remembers what Valentine had told him about the Super Spin technique and how to overcome it. Cutting his leg off and throwing it at Johnny, Diego manages to beat the Spin User with his own technique. He then remounts his horse and leaves Johnny to die. Having lost the race, the corpse and now dying as a result of his own attack, Johnny nearly sinks into despair. However, before his life can come to an end, Stephen Steel appears. With Mr. Steel's help (riding his horse to do the spin), Johnny performs Tusk Act 4's infinite spin power on himself to reverse its effects. Johnny is never seen completing the ninth and final stage of the race and ends with a total of 295 points.

Post Steel Ball Run
After the race, Johnny travels by ship to fulfill Gyro's wish and bring Marco a chance to live. On the ship, he meets Norisuke and his daughter Rina and begins a romantic relationship with her. It is revealed in the aftermath that the monarchy is overthrown and Marco is granted amnesty, though he dies of a cold later.

JoJolion: Johnny after Steel Ball Run
According to family tree left in the 1987 edition of Norisuke Higashikata's record of the Steel Ball Run race, Johnny had married Norisuke's daughter Rina Higashikata in 1892 and had a son and daughter with her. The son starts a family tree similar to the tree in the original timeline. It only diverts with Holly Joestar, who had a son with Yoshiteru Kira rather than with Sadao Kujo. According to the old man on Extortion Road, about nine years after the marriage, Rina was stricken with an incurable disease that gave her on-and-off amnesia and origami-like folded skin. Without much choice, Johnny turns to stealing the Corpse from the vault and brings it back to Morioh to cure her. The American government reacts from having the Corpse taken and pursues Johnny, but by taking advantage of a certain privilege and sneaking aboard a ship crossing the Atlantic and Indian oceans, he narrowly evades them into the Pacific.

With the government pursuers still following, Johnny takes the Corpse and hides it at the roots of the Meditation Pine by the coast of Morioh and then fetches Rina and their infant son, George Joestar II, by carriage. Using the Holy Corpse's power to cure disease (more accurately described as a power to remove), the curse is removed from Rina, but is unfortunately forced upon George instead. Having promised not to use the Corpse anymore, but willing to use it again to cure his son, Johnny mounts his horse and places his child atop the case containing the Corpse. After gaining a certain amount of velocity, Johnny activates the Super Spin and uses Tusk Act 4's ability shoot his son. He takes the curse upon himself and is shot in the head by his own stand. After falling to the ground, Johnny's life ends at the age of 29 after a large boulder crushes his skull due to unknown circumstances. However, these details remain a rumor.

His body is discovered the next morning by Rina next to George and the case containing the Corpse. Due to the lack of witnesses, everyone believed Johnny had been murdered and the prime suspect was his wife, Rina Higashikata, who was released later when the incident was classified as an accident. Six months later, a Jizou statue was erected in memory of Johnny Joestar and he was buried in Morioh.