Philippe is a young man from the future, appearing in the last Cyborg 009 arc "The People Drifting Between Space and Time" in the first chapter titled "Mayday".
Appearance[]
Philippe, like other time soldiers, wears a black-and-yellow patterned unitard. He is a slender young man of indeterminate age, who may be in his late teens to early twenties.
He most notably resembles Ishinomori's "Jun" character (of Fantasy World Jun, Blue Zone, Agartha, and other titles), with short light hair with a long fringe covering one eye, and a gentle face.
Personality[]
Philippe is a quiet, mild-mannered young man, who is gentler than his fellow time soldiers and cohorts in the Immigration plan. He attempts to reason with and converse with 003 after he has captured her, and had appeared to her earlier in the arc as an "old man" warning her of a prophecy: "You will be killed by Joe".
Due to the boss of the "Opposition" future group being her 23rd century descendant, he was given the orders to capture 003 particularly for that reason.
Abilities[]
As a time traveler, Philippe has the ability of time-jumping and travels about in a spaceship like the other Future People.
However, this has also given him a side-effect where his body will be drained and he'll temporarily prematurely age, as seen when he first appears with a wrinkled face in the arc, causing him to look more like a middle-aged man.
History[]
After the people from the 23rd century attempted to time-warp back to the beginning of civilization at the end of "Immigration", an accident occurred during their travels. They split into two feuding factions; the "Return Group" (who planned to interfere with history and caused manipulation of space-time) and the "Opposition" (those opposed to the manipulation of space-time).
Philippe was one of the many soldiers who chose the "Return" side, and would travel to present day France to abduct Cyborg 003. He had warned 003 that she would be "killed by Joe (009)", and would take her away to another dimension, trapping her there and watching over her as he attempted to explain the situation.
However, 009 and 007, thanks to the intervention of the Count of Saint-Germain, managed to travel to the dimension that 003 was being held in and freed her, with 009 punching Philippe.
As 009, 003, and 007 attempted to travel back to their time, they fell through a maelstrom and wound up bringing back another 003 with them from a parallel world. 009 was thus tasked with deciding which 003 to shoot with the Time Gun the Count had given him, to send her back to her home dimension. He then remembered that the 003 that was abducted had lost her scarf, and shot the other 003, sending her back. In a way, this proved Philippe's "prophecy".
Philippe's ultimate fate and whereabouts after this are unknown.
Notes[]
- Prior to this arc, the Jun character's design would be used for a background character in the one-shot "At the Zoo". Masato Hayase and Sugar Sato would also re-use Jun/Philippe for Alain in the GOD'S WAR manga adaptation. The design would make further apparitions in the form of Cain in Cyborg 009: The Cyborg Soldier (Cain being a a villainous analogue of The Commander, who also sourced from Jun) and 0018 in the OVA Cyborg 009 vs. Devilman.
- It has been believed that due to the "Mutant Warriors" arc of Cyborg 009: The Cyborg Soldier loosely sourcing elements from both "Space-Time" and "Immigration", that Philippe's name had provided some minimal inspiration for the new character of Phil, who was a creation of Shinsuke Onishi and Naoyuki Konno. Lending to this theory would be that the character of Mii from another chapter in the Space-Time arc had been overhauled and re-purposed as another Mutant Warrior. The premature aging effect that Philippe experienced was also imported to these characters, as the side-effects of their time-jumping.