Eustass Kid returns in One Piece chapter 1115 (but it's not what fans expected)

As one of the Eleven Supernovas of the Worst Generation, Eustass "Captain" Kid is a prominent character in One Piece. In Wano, Kid joined forces with Trafalgar Law in order to get the better of Big Mom. After the end of the fighting, Kid and his crew headed to Elbaf, the homeland of the Giants.

Despite the presence of the Red Hair Pirates, who were revealed to be on friendly terms with the Giants, Kid decided to raid Elbaf. Unfortunately for him, the decision backfired completely. Before Kid could do anything, "Red Hair" Shanks jumped on the former's ship and used his sword, Gryphon, to unleash a powerful Haki-enhanced attack.

In a matter of moments, the Kid Pirates were totally annihilated. Shanks beat Kid and his right-hand man, Killer, with a single blow, while Dorry and Brogy destroyed their ship, the "Victoria Punk." As Kid and the others sank with the boat, fans wondered what would become of them. The Kid Pirates finally reappeared in One Piece chapter 1115, but it was not what readers were expecting.

Disclaimer: This article contains major spoilers from the One Piece manga up to chapter 1115.

One Piece makes a fool of Kid once again as chapter 1115 features his "comeback"

"Eustass Kid" reappears in One Piece chapter 1115

Expand Tweet

As per the first spoilers of One Piece chapter 1115, the broadcast of Vegapunk's final message to the world continues. Just as in the previous installments of the manga, this chapter showed the reaction of some of the countless people intent on listening to Vegapunk's shocking words.

Quite unexpectedly, among those people from all over the world, there were also Kid and his men (in appearance, at least). In fact, the people featured in One Piece chapter 1115 weren't really the Kid Pirates, but a group of impostors cosplaying as them.

To be exact, it was Demaro Black's gang, the same group that tried to impersonate the Straw Hat Pirates when they disappeared from the public eye during the two-year timeskip. Black aimed to use the Straw Hat crew's reputation to recruit some strong fighters at his service, but his wishful attempt resulted in a total failure.

Expand Tweet

To be fair, even though the Fake Straw Hat Pirates looked nothing like the original ones, as their different appearances and body shapes made their disguises absolutely preposterous, many people were fooled. In the end, however, Black and his men were exposed, and most of them ended up captured by the Marines led by Sentomaru.

One Piece chapter 1115 showed Demaro Black and the others imprisoned in the G-4 Marine Base. Cosplayed as the Kid Pirates, Black and his associates were debating about who would be the strongest between the legendary Joy Boy, whom Vegapunk had just mentioned in his message, and their version of "Captain Kid.".

Demaro Black, who had already tried to pose as Monkey D. Luffy, this time attempted to impersonate Eustass Kid. He even replicated Kid's trademark goggles, punkish clothes, and spiky hairstyle. Admittedly, this grotesque callback sounded like a parody of Kid's one-sided and unbalanced rivalry with Luffy.

What did really happen to the Kid Pirates?

The most prominent members of the Kid Pirates (Image via Toei Animation)

After his crushing defeat at the hands of Shanks in One Piece chapter 1079, Eustass Kid was never seen, or even mentioned, in the manga. Admittedly, for Kid and his men, the situation appears hopeless. They all sank underwater with the crushed ship, and most of them were unconscious.

Kid and Killer were defeated by Shanks' attack, while a large majority of the remaining crewmembers were knocked out by the latter's overwhelming Conqueror's Haki. It must be noted that Kid is a Devil Fruit user, and Killer can also be considered as one, given that he was forced to eat a SMILE, i.e. an artificial Zoan Devil Fruit.

In hindsight, Kid's arrogance appears almost comical (Image via Shueisha)

While SMILEs don't necessarily grant their users a Devil Fruit power, they still deprive them of their ability to swim. As such, even if Killer recovered from his injuries, he wouldn't be able to save himself from drowning, let alone Kid.

As it's well known, however, characters in the One Piece series rarely die, no matter how desperate the situation appears. Especially in the case of villains, the author Eiichiro Oda tends to justify that with the concept that, for someone who has been completely defeated, losing his dreams is a fate even worse than death.

While he appears as a gag rival for Luffy, Kid is still a violent individual who has brought death and destruction to many civilian populations. He was the one who instigated the conflict with Shanks and even tried to kill the latter's weak allies in an attempt to take revenge for his previous defeat at the hands of the Red Hair Pirates.

Shanks beating Kid with one single attack (Image via Shueisha)

Shanks is a peaceful and diplomatic man, but it has been made clear that he becomes merciless when someone threatens the lives of his dear ones. Hence, it's possible that, after slaughtering Kid, he didn't care about the latter's fate and left him to die.

Kid's death would objectively emphasize the stakes of One Piece's final saga, highlighting Shanks as a friendly but ruthless, as well as tremendously powerful, individual. Furthermore, Kid's character seems to have served his purpose in the story.

The ship of the Kid Pirates is destroyed (Image via Shueisha)

Kid is not strong enough to really compete with Luffy, whose only true contenders on the pirate side are Shanks and, of course, Marshall D. Teach "Blackbeard." In this sense, getting out of the picture with one last act of recklessness would be the perfect conclusion for Kid's character. He would die just as he lived.

Likewise, however, it's also possible that Shanks was satisfied with beating Kid without killing him. The "Red Hair" seems to appreciate the new generation, so perhaps he just wanted to teach Kid a brutal lesson. While waiting to find out what Kid's fate was, what's certain is that One Piece author Eiichiro Oda once again used his trademark surreal humor to leave fans in disbelief.