The 2nd image looks more appropriate. I was thinking the same thing for how the brownish sheen matches the back. That stair case isn't supposed to be next to him - it's a whole cleared area (think of the area right passed the two posts). And he can move back and forth, for the way the screen scrolls. The beam he shoots can be altered on the angle slightly too. And there are other attack sprites that go with it (a charge on the mouth area, and the floor hit spark/wave).
Can't say if he is completely finished (AI), but all the graphics are there for him to function properly. Also, I can get the ground to show - it's just not in that pic (the map engine is very powerful, flexible and complex - so I don't understand all the variables involved).
I suspect he's functional, because all the assets are there as well as the map/stage layout for him. Probably taken out in near the end stage of development (why waste memory on it if they aren't going to use it? They could have used that room for other animation).
If I could just figure out how to find/change that end of sublevel marker/variable. I've messed around with other areas, and changed to screens with 'doors' - but they don't function (or show up) either. There's gotta be some sort of 'object' map. The problem is, Konami didn't make ram as one linear layout; it's got chunks in between code, etc. So it's harder to looks for data patterns in memory (ram).
