Dragons are my favorite creatures; black dragons in particular look the coolest to me. They're fascinating creatures that exist in many cultures yet symbolize different things and have different appearances depending on where you are.
But Zekrom, and the Tao Trio in general, has what is to me is the most interesting concept behind their designs amongst all the legendaries. The games mainly stick to the truth and ideals, but the 3 of them represent something else as well, and I think that Game Freak executed it beautifully. While in English versions of the games Zekrom and Reshiram are the "Deep Black Pokemon" and the "Vast White Pokemon", their Japanese species names more or less translate to the "Black Yin Pokemon" and the "White Yang Pokemon". You've heard of Yin&Yang, or seen the yingyang symbol, right?
It's a beautiful mixing of two halves that form a greater whole, just as Zekrom, Reshiram, and Kyurem were once one, even more powerful, whole (Kyurem, the "empty" shell, represents wuji, the absence of both yin and yang), and individually they represent their respective part very well. The words hot, sun, etc, fit into Reshiram's typing, for example. One thing you'll notice is that female is associated with Yin (Zekrom), and male with Yang (Reshiram), but arguably Zekrom is the more masculine looking of the two while Reshiram is arguably the more feminine looking one, not to mention that soft is with Yin and hard with Yang, despite Reshiram having the soft fur and Zekrom having the hard(?) skin. At first glance it might seem like maybe they weren't paying much attention to the details and borked it, but if you look again at the yingyang symbol you'll see
that there's a little of one in the other. So it actually works out perfectly. Then there's simply the colors themselves. They picked them for a reason. The games, and many conflicts in general, deal with two opposing, black-and-white views (each represented by a dragon), but the reality is that things are rarely ever so simple, and are more shades of gray.....a fusion of the colors black and white, the fusion of the dragons. The subtley (dunno if that's spelled right), the depth, the attention to detail in the overall concept and design of the Tao Trio is beautiful.
Or I'm just fucking insane {XD}
I like how Zekrom is a major part of the story of White and had an active role in the shaping on the region of Unova and it's culture. Most boxart legendaries are kind of just a tool for the villain team. I also liked how while you obtain the Dark Stone/Light Stone earlier in the game, your dragon doesn't awaken until your final showdown with N, making you wonder if you really are the hero and not just a delusional, unworthy fool.
Also that battle theme is the shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit
Competitively speaking, Zekrom is great because it is the best physical Electric attacker in the game with those powerful Bolt Strikes coming off of base 150 Attack. Most Electric types are specially based, but Zekrom doesn't have to worry about special walls like Chansey/Blissey. It also is one of the few Pokemon in Ubers to resist Flying, and absolutely destroys Lugia, Ho-oh, Yveltal, and Primal Kyogre, all major threats in the Ubers metagame.
