Joseph Joestar/History
Battle Tendency
Joseph is introduced as Jonathan's grandson living in New York with his grandmother Erina and seems to have naturally inherited the power of the Ripple (波紋) Hamon). When an old family friend Speedwagon is reported dead in Mexico, Joseph takes it upon himself to go check it out. His curiosity is piqued when he is attacked in New York City by Straizo, an old friend-turned-vampire. After being led on a wild chase in which his prepared attacks ultimately prove to be futile, he witnesses Straights' suicide by the Ripple.
When he goes to Mexico, he discovers a secret underground Nazi facility where the Nazis are trying to revive a man who seems to have been trapped in a stone pillar for 2,000 years. Here Joseph meets the Nazi Stroheim. Unfortunately, the Nazis are successful in awakening the man, who is christened "Santana" before he kills most of them. Joseph and Stroheim battle Santana and manage to defeat him, though Stroheim is fatally wounded.
Joseph then heads to Rome, where three more "sleeping pillar men" have been discovered. In Rome, Joseph meets Caesar, a trained Ripple user near his age who is supposed to show Joseph the ropes. At first, they can't do anything but argue - as Caesar blames Jonathan Joestar for causing the death of his grandfather Will A. Zeppeli through his incompetence. They end up being present when three more sleeping pillar men, named Wamuu, Esidisi, and Kars. Unfortunately, even with his American Ripple-Infused Clackers, the untrained Joseph is unable to stand a chance. Luckily, he manages to talk them out of killing him.
Wamuu and Esidisi both end up inserting a "wedding ring" inside Joseph's heart and throat. They explain the rings are internal time bombs set to release poison into his blood if he doesn't defeat them and retrieve the antidote they carry within a month. Joseph realizes that he will have to train or die, and Caesar introduces Joseph to his master Lisa Lisa, who also reveals that the motives of the pillar men are to seize the Red Stone of Asia to become perfect life forms.
Before the month is up, Esidisi finds out that Lisa Lisa has the Red Stone of Asia and comes to take it. Joseph uses his new skills and clever strategy involving his wool hat to defeat Esidisi, thus earning the wrath of Wamuu and Kars (who had previously thought of him more as amusement rather than a threat). Joseph does not notice that Esidisi's brain had latched onto his back and the brain weaves itself intoSuzie Q 's body, mailing the Red Stone to Kars in Switzerland. By using their combined ripples to neutralize eachother Joseph and Caesar force Esidisi out of Suzie Q's body, destroying him.
While pursuing Kars and Wamuu, Joseph is reunited with the supposedly-deceased Stroheim, who has been rebuilt as a powerful cyborg by Nazi science. However, Stroheim's machine body is quickly cut in half by Kars' "Light Mode." In Switzerland, the group discovers the location of the remaining two pillar men. Knowing the remaining pillar men's vulnerability to sunlight, everyone is eager to face them during the day, sans Joseph. Caesar, unable accept this, gets into a conflict with Joseph and heads to battle Wamuu alone, coming remarkably close to defeating him if not for his own vengeance. Caesar is, however, able to rip off the latter's lip piercing, containing the antidote to Joseph's poison ring. Before dying from his wounds and being crushed by a stone slab, Caesar uses his final ripple to make a bubble out of his blood containing the antidote ring. Wamuu sees this but, respecting Caesar as a valiant warrior, allows the bubble to float to Joseph. Joseph and Lisa Lisa arrive too late and Joseph finds the bubble but vows not to drink the antidote until he has personally beaten Wamuu. Joseph then defeats Wamuu in a deadly chariot race-battle in Skeleton Heel Stone arena and the final showdown against Kars begins. However, Kars proves to be less honorable than Wamuu and breaks his promise to fight her one-on-one and sacrifices one of his weaker vampires in order to defeat her. Angered by Kars's
Joseph and company frantically try to devise strategies to defeat Cars and Joseph manages to crash Kars into a volcano with a plane. However, Cars is able to cover himself in an armor of bubbles to protect himself from the molten lava. Right when all hope appears lost, Joseph defends himself from Kars' enhanced Ripple with the Red Stone of Asia, which causes the volcano to erupt and throw Joseph into the sea and Kars into space.
Weeks later, a funeral is held for the presumably-dead Joseph, but Joseph himself crashes the event and reveals that after he fell back down from the sky, he ended up in Italy where he was helped by some local fisherman and nursed back to health by Suzie Q and marries her. Joseph then returned to America to find his friends.
Stardust Crusaders (1987-88)
Joseph's daughter Holly calls him to Japan to help her son Jotaro, who had landed himself in a holding cell and refused to leave - claiming to be possessed by an evil spirit. Joseph soon realizes that Jotaro's "evil spirit" is actually a Stand and, in conjunction with Mohammed Abdul, both get him to leave the cell and explains things to him.
Despite not having an offensive stand, however, he does help the group defeat stand users with his intelligence, like Nena (who frames him for murder in India), Mariah and the D'arby brothers. He also discover there's a spy among them. He later falls victim to Steely Dan's Lovers and needs to be saved by the group.
The Genesis of Universe
(The information in Italic below derives from a Light Novel not written by Araki. As such, it may or may not be considered canon.)
Joseph appears in the Genesis of Universe novel in both chapters, where he is kept captive in Satanic Coupler with Avdol, but when he is rescued by the rest of the group Joseph helps defeat the locomotive stand. He throws his mettalic hand in Satanic Coupler's way, stopping it on its tracks. He also saves Jotaro from The Scribe Ani, damaging his stand Ptah.
He also deciphers the cryptic message Kakyoin leaves in regards to Dio's power. Joseph is temporarily killed, but revived by a blood transfusion from Dio's (ie. Jonathan's) body. He then plays a joke on Jotaro, claiming to be Dio possessing Joseph's body which nearly causes Jotaro to attack him. Luckily Joseph is spared a beating by claiming it was a joke.
Diamond is Unbreakable (1999)
Jotaro travels to Morioh upon discovering that Joseph has an illegitimate son there named Josuke. Joseph ultimately also ends up traveling to Morioh to help localize Akira Otoishi, though he has aged, can no longer walk without a cane, wears spectacles, is hard of hearing, and isn't nearly as athletic as he used to be. He seems to have lost the use of his Hamon abilities, though this may be due to his age causing him to be incapable of sustaining the required breathing techniques for it. He is still able to use Hermit Purple, however. Joseph serves a supporting role as a result, and isn't involved in the majority of battles in this part.
At one point, he discovers an "invisible baby" which turns out to be the stand user of Achtung Baby. When the baby's carriage becomes invisible as well and rolls down a hill to land in a pool, Josuke panics about not being able to locate the baby in the water. Joseph, however, cuts himself to stain the water with his blood, thus allowing Josuke to find the baby. He says he did it because he wanted to make Josuke proud. By the end, Joseph adopts the baby and named her Shizuka - this, however, leads to further conflict with his wife Suzie, who believes the baby to be another "secret child."
