Every good action anime series needs a combat system, and in Hirohiko Araki's ongoing battle series JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, that battle system is stands. True enough, the first two arcs dealt with hamon (ripple) and melee combat but starting in Stardust Crusaders, battles are fought and won with stands, physical representations of a person's combat abilities.
Heroes and villains alike use them, and some are humanoid while others look like animals or machines or even weirder items. Dio Brando, who survived the events of Phantom Blood, gathered a battalion of stand users in Stardust Crusaders, but some of them are tougher than others. Now, which five of Dio's stand user minions are the real deal, and which five should have thought twice about challenging Jotaro's gang?
10 Strongest: Vanilla Ice
This list isn't in any particular order, but if it were, Vanilla Ice would get a pretty flattering rank in it, and for good reason. Many stand battles are like boss fights, but even then, Vanilla Ice truly feels like a boss battle in Stardust Crusaders.
He is one of the last stand users the Jotaro gang faces, and among the scariest. His stand, Cream, can devour absolutely anything and send it to the void, and he claimed both Avdol's and Iggy's lives with it. Polnareff was lucky to survive at all, let alone win.
9 Weakest: Oingo
Even the weakest stand users on Dio's team are pretty fearsome; they just aren't as powerful as the top five. They are still a proper challenge for the Jotaro gang... and then there is Oingo. Poor Oingo.
He probably ranks last among all of Dio's stand user minions, since his stand, Khnum, allows him to morph his face into that of anyone else, and that's it. It's not even a full-body transformation, and he has to rely on Boingo's comic-book predictions to get anything done. He gets laughed right off the stage.
8 Strongest: Enya
Don't be fooled by that kind face. Enya is a vicious elderly woman who is fanatically loyal to Dio, and she won't betray him even with her dying breath. Her stand, Justice, is powerful enough to shut down an entire town at once, and it nearly killed Polnareff.
Enya knows all about stands, and Justice can create illusions and control people through any wound (no matter how small) in their bodies. Jotaro could only barely rescue Polnareff and evade Enya's deadly attacks. Her stand is truly one to be feared.
7 Weakest: Mariah
Here again, it's best to not be fooled by that face. This woman is Mariah, and she uses a stand user who would love nothing more than to butcher Jotaro's entire group. Fortunately, she's not nearly as fearsome as Enya and Vanilla Ice.
Her stand, Bast, can morph into an electrical socket, and once a victim touches it, they become magnetic and keep attracting metal objects. But this stand's effects take far too long to become potent once activated, and it's pretty silly that its use requires the victim to touch what looks like an ordinary wall socket.
6 Strongest: N'Doul
This blind man is one of the first stand users to appear in the Egypt arc of Stardust Crusaders, and what an impression he made! His stand is named Geb, and it takes the form of living water that can form into a human arm and operate a far distance from N'Doul himself.
This stand is fast, flexible, and vicious, and its fingers can become hard and sharp. It nearly slaughtered Jotaro's entire group, and worse yet, N'Doul can use sound and other methods to detect exactly where people are. Jotaro had to get really creative to win this battle.
5 Weakest: Gray Fly
This old man was one of the very first hostile stand users Jotaro ever faced during the events of Stardust Crusaders, and he cornered Jotaro's group aboard a plane headed for Egypt. His stand, Tower of Gray, is a fast-moving beetle.
True, this stand's speed and precision are impressive, and it puts up a decent fight aboard that plane. But compared to later stands, Tower of Gray is pretty plain and easy to deal with. Once Star Platinum got used to the beetle's speed, the battle was as good as won.
4 Strongest: Pet Shop
As we see throughout Stardust Crusaders, it's not just people who can use stands, but also intelligent animals, including an orangutan, Iggy the dog, and now Pet Shop the falcon. It guards Dio's mansion, and it uses a stand named Horus.
Iggy dueled this bird, and he was lucky to win. Pet Shop is persistent and merciless, and its ice stand can spear an opponent with icicles, block off their exit, and a whole lot more. If you cross Pet Shop, prepare to pay with your life!
3 Weakest: Devo
Devo has some power in his Devil stand, but it takes a while for him to get anything done with it. He held his own against Polnareff, but he really dragged things out, and he didn't seem to have any quick-kill options.
If he fought even two members of Jotaro's group (let alone the whole gang), he'd be in trouble. His stand lets him convert anger and hate into power, but we've seen stands that can unleash serious power from the very start. Devo's battle strategy takes too long to get off the ground.
2 Strongest: J. Geil
This twisted man is the son of Enya and a vicious stand user, not to mention a despicable person. We'll spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say, we were glad when the good guys put him down for good. He was a terrifying opponent until then, though.
J. Geil is one of the Tarot-based stand users, and his stand, the Hanged Man, can appear in any reflective surface and launch attacks at the speed of light! Even the ultra-quick Silver Chariot was hard-pressed to block those attacks or find cover from this stand.
1 Weakest: Nena
Many of the weakest stand users in the overall JoJo's Bizarre Adventure franchise are those who drag things out or those who need really specific conditions for their stand to function. Nena is the former case.
Meet Nena, a woman who nursed a huge crush on Hol Horse and traveled with him as a companion. Her stand is the Empress, which can attach itself like a living tumor to its host; in this case, Joseph Joestar. But this stand takes too long to get serious in combat, and Joseph defeated it with pretty conventional means. An elite assassin, Nena is not.