Johnny Joestar

Johnny Joestar (ジョ二ー・ジョースター) is a racer in the Steel Ball Run race who serves as one of the two main protagonists of the series, along with Gyro Zeppeli. He is the alternate universe counterpart of Jonathan Joestar, the protagonist of Part 1. He is a paraplegic, and is usually seen wearing a hat with a horseshoe decoration on the front.

At the beginning of the story, Johnny starts out as a supporting character to Gyro. At first it wasn't clear whether Steel Ball Run was meant to be a part of the Jojo series, but when it was officially announced as one in volume 5 (incidentally also the turning point for the entire series as it switched from Weekly Shounen Jump to the seinen magazine Ultra Jump), subtitled as Jojo's Bizarre Adventure Part 7, Johnny started to gain more and more the weight as the main protagonist alongside Gyro, developing a stand power and getting more focus.

Personality
Johnny is aggressive and forceful. However, after being taken off his feet by Gyro's steel ball, he also closely follows Gyro's words. Johnny is stubborn and strong-willed; he refuses to accept Gyro's claims that he stood up from his wheelchair as a reflex, and races despite his disability that makes even mounting on a horse difficult. When the need arises he can be driven by a dark determination, and several characters have mentioned that Johnny has a look in his eyes indicating he is capable of killing if need be. He has been shown several times to possess a "dark will", which takes him to the edge and even once drove him to nearly destroy a Corpse part (had it not been for Gyro, he would have done so).

Early Years
Johnny was born to 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. Mr. Joestar was strict on Johnny, and always seemed to favor his older brother Nicholas. When young Johnny took out his pet mouse Danny to secretly feed it under the table during dinner, his father, upon discovering it, ordered the child to drown the animal himself as punishment. Heartbroken, Johnny couldn't 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, but 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.

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.

First Stage
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. He then decides to enter the race in order to learn more about the steel balls and ultimately find a way to walk again.

Ninth Stage
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 comes 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. After the race, Johnny travels by ship to fulfill Gyro's wish and bring Marco a chance to live. It is revealed in the aftermath that the monarchy is overthrown and Marco is granted amnesty, though he dies of a cold later.

Post Steel Ball Run
It is revealed in a family tree left in the 1987 edition of Norisuke Higashikata's record of the Steel Ball Run race that Johnny had married Norisuke's daughter Rina in 1892 and had a son and daughter with her. The son George starts a family tree that is extremely similiar 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.

Race Statistics
Johnny is never seen completing the ninth and final stage of the race, ending with a total of 295 points.

Trivia

 * In the popular pixel avatar site Gaia online, there is an obtainable item know as Roto's Hat. This item's second pose allows the avatar of the site to wear a hat identical to Johnny's, cleverly named Joey's hat. There is also an item called K.O. Star, one of the poses of which allows you to wear gloves similar to the Roto Hat's second pose. There is a secret pose which allows you to shoot fingernail bullets, as well.
 * Johnny is the only Joestar in the entire series to have naturally blond hair.
 * He and Jolyne are the only two JoJos who didn't defeat the final villain of their respective series. However, Johnny did defeat Valentine, the main antagonist of Steel Ball Run, unlike Jolyne who was sent to a frame of time that was sped up by Pucci.
 * His horse is named for the song/album Slow Dancer, by Boz Scaggs.
 * In the first chapter, his name is written in Japanese as "ジョニー", whereas from the second chapter on, it is written as "ジョニィ". Both have the same pronunciation, however.
 * Interestingly enough, when Johnny and Gyro shared their most important secrets to each other, Johnny had revealed that he had Formicophilia, aka a fetish for a person with bug bites.
 * Johnny's name might be a reference of Chuck Berry's song Johnny B. Goode: an evidence of this could be the fact that in Chapter 30 of Steel Ball Run, Gyro prompts Johnny to run several times by shouting "Go, Johnny, go!" like in the song's chorus. Whether this was intentional or not however, is not known.
 * Johnny's future wife, Rina, bears a name that is a shortened version of Erina, the name of Jonathan Joestar's wife in the original timeline.