the principle antagonist of the series, mentioned to be pure evil. the son of dario brando, dio becomes a member of the joestar household with the intent of inheriting it for himself by poisoning george joestar. when this ultimately fails after jonathan catches him in the act, dio uses the stone mask to transform himself into a vampire with aspirations of taking over england then the world. though jonathan stops his scheme by destroying his body, dio's disembodied head claims jonathan's body despite his rival's final attempt to destroy him by sinking the ship they were in. but dio resurfaced a century later after being found by sailors, referring to himself as dio while taking residence in cairo with an army of stand users as his command. he also awakened his own stand "the world", causing those descended from jonathan to acquire their own stands with dio destroyed by jotaro kujo. despite his death, dio remained a presence in the storyline until the events of ‘’stone ocean’’.