Agents of DIO

The faction has no fixed look, since its membership shifts across generations. In Phantom Blood it is an army of reanimated corpses raised by a newly vampiric Dio, headed by figures such as Wang Chan, Jack the Ripper, Bruford, and Tarkus. By Stardust Crusaders it has become a global roster of Stand users, mercenaries, and true believers, culminating in the elite Egypt 9 Glory Gods stationed around DIO's Cairo mansion.

Later parts show only remnants, until Stone Ocean reframes the group around Enrico Pucci and the inheritors of DIO's ambition.

What binds the agents is DIO himself, his charisma and his appetite for dominion, hidden knowledge, and the annihilation of the Joestars. Some serve for pay, like Hol Horse and Midler; some out of raw devotion, like Vanilla Ice and Pet Shop; others are seduced, coerced, or enslaved outright through vampiric flesh buds, as with Kakyoin and Polnareff.

Even trusted lieutenants such as Enya are kept in line that way, a hedge against anyone exposing his Stand. The through-line is loyalty to a single will rather than any shared code, and that bond outlasts DIO's own death.

Dio's first servant is Wang Chan, who supplies the poison used against his fathers before Dio dons the Stone Mask and turns vampire. The zombie horde he raises is nearly wiped out at Windknight's Lot in 1888, and Wang Chan dies as the ship to America sinks, sealing Dio in a coffin with Jonathan's body. Stray followers linger into Battle Tendency, including a bloodsucking officer slain by Lisa Lisa, while Straizo is tempted into vampirism and Kars is revealed as the mask's creator.

Roughly a century later the coffin is dredged up, and the reborn DIO builds a fresh network with Enya's arrows, secretly naming the priest Enrico Pucci his heir. When the third Joestar group reaches Egypt, DIO fields the Egypt 9 Glory Gods, but the Crusaders dismantle them one by one and Jotaro kills DIO, though Vanilla Ice and his master take half the group down first. Jotaro later burns DIO's diary to bury its plan for good.

In Diamond is Unbreakable, past recruits like Yoshihiro Kira and Mr. Nijimura seed Morioh with Stands via Enya's arrows, with lasting fallout for their sons. By Stone Ocean the last loyalists, Pucci and Johngalli A, hunt Jotaro and his daughter Jolyne to avenge DIO and chase his dream of Heaven. Pucci gathers DIO's sons, guards, and inmates, and although he kills the Joestars and nearly remakes reality, Emporio ends him, scrubbing DIO's influence from the world and reshaping it into a new universe of reborn counterparts.