The Darkness (character)

The Darkness
The Darkness. Art by Marc Silvestri
Publication information
Publisher	Image Comics
First appearance	Witchblade #10 (1996)
Created by	David Wohl Marc Silvestri Garth Ennis
In-story information
Alter ego	Jackie Estacado
Team affiliations	Mafia
Abilities	The power of The Darkness, an ancient unholy power that allows him to create virtually anything, including living, sentient beings, out of darkness; skilled fighter and marksman.

The Darkness is a series of American comic books produced by Top Cow Productions. The comic first appeared in 1996 and enjoyed an initial period of relative success during the Top Cow/Image Comics boom of the late 1990s. However, Top Cow was forced to "re-launch" the comic in 2002 after sales began to drop. The Darkness has sold over 1 million copies worldwide.

The series was created by Marc Silvestri, Garth Ennis, and David Wohl. Other noted writers, including Paul Jenkins, have also worked on The Darkness.

The Darkness

The Darkness is one of the two primal forces of the universe. A male entity of dark which represents chaos. The Darkness is engaged in an internal war with his natural, female counterpart, The Angelus. However he and The Angelus created a sexual truce and they became the parents of The Witchblade. The Darkness chooses males as its hosts as it passes on from father to son, leaving the previous user (and taking his life) as his first child is conceived. The Darkness then awakens within the host on his 21st birthday. Darkness hosts can create anything they desire with The Darkness, even sentient beings, but anything they make will crumble to dust in the light. The Darkness is quite deadly allowing the user to manipulate the shadows/dark to call forth darkling minions to do his bidding and even survive gunshots. It can also be used to maul and feed on people. The Darkness does not function except in the dark, but some users can also manipulate this by creating their own shadows/darkness (smoke-grenades, turning off lights in a room, being underground, etc.).

Jackie Estacado

Jackie Estacado is the current wielder of The Darkness, and hitman for the Franchetti Family mob. He is a very violent and sexual man who, until gaining the powers of The Darkness, lived life in the fast lane. Of course, because of the possibility of impregnating a woman causing his own death through The Darkness, Jackie tries to refrain from sex, to his great frustration. Though Jackie lives life on the wrong side of the law and can kill without remorse, he has a set of morals he follows, and always tries to protect those he cares about.

Jackie joined the Mafia at a very early age, after being recruited by a mafia don named Frankie "Kill-the-children-too" Franchetti. He was picked up at the orphanage after Frankie was prompted by a mysterious stranger named Sonatine, who told Frankie that having Jackie around would bring him tremendous power. Jackie came to the mafia life easily, losing his virginity to a female officer, during interrogation, at age 14. He grew up, or more accurately matured, very quickly, and soon enjoyed the life of sex and violence. However, when he turned 21, his dark powers awakened and he learned of his evil inheritance. At first, this power was a blessing, allowing his job as a professional hitman to run more smoothly and work in more novel ways. However, with this power came many enemies.

Early on, Jackie spent much of his time escaping from or fighting the Angelus (who wants to kill him), and Sonatine and his Brotherhood of The Darkness (who wish to capture him and steal his powers). Eventually, Jackie chose to quit the mob, but found it easier said than done. Jackie had turned on his adoptive father, Don Frankie Franchetti, to get a clean slate and exit from his life of crime after a meeting with Batman. (Batman/Darkness crossover) However, after Jackie's "uncle" Frankie kidnapped Jenny, a childhood friend of Jackie's, Frankie killed her and sent a videotape to Jackie in revenge. Jackie could not take this and called out Frenchetti's mob, leading them to an abandoned warehouse covered in gasoline. When the crew arrived to kill Estacado, Jackie threw down his lighter and blew the place, and all its occupants, to bits. (Darkness vol. 1 #40) Over the course of this series, Jackie makes uneasy alliances with Sara Pezzini, the most recent user of The Witchblade.

Jackie spent two days (or what seemed to him like 'a million years') afterward wandering around Hell, searching for Jenny, until Tom Judge came and gave him hope, a gift that allows men to exit Hell. (Universe #3) Jackie's body was then reconstructed by The Darkness. (Darkness vol. 2 #1)

Jackie returned to find the Franchetti mob taken over by Frankie's cousin, Paulie. Paulie was able to discover Jackie's secret as well as a long-lost sister of Jenny's. Using this information, Paulie blackmailed Jackie into doing hits for him. Along the way, Jackie learned how to construct a gun out of The Darkness. Later, Jackie discovered the identity of the hitman following Jenny's sister, killed him, and took his revenge on Paulie as well. This led to Jackie taking control of the Franchetti family. Since taking control of the Franchetti family, Jackie has vastly expanded his mafia, taken on the Triads, and fought the Russian Mafia in Atlantic City.

Being the Don of the Italian Mafia in New York did not last long however. In search for the revenge the new Angelus once again confronts Jackie (Witchblade First Born #1 - 3) and with the help of Patience the Magdalena and Witchblade wielder Danielle, Estacado manages to crush her, losing everything he had gained. He flees to Sierra Muñoz in hope of establishing a new empire there. (Darkness Vol.3 #1)

Jackie Estacado is also the biological father of Hope Pezzini, Sara Pezzini's mystical child. He himself could not explain it properly apart from saying that it had to with 'Darkness wanting to tip the balance'. The Darkness entity itself confirms this to Patience (Witchblade #110) by saying that it used Jackie as raw material to settle the matter with Angelus once and for all. Recently, (Darkness Vol. 3 # 1-2) Jackie has established a drug cartel in Sierra Muñoz with a narcotic made from his own bodily fluids thanks to the help of a demented, but brilliant scientist named Professor Kirchner. With the Darkness, Jackie is able to take control of the small tropical republic, build himself an impenetrable fortress, an army and eventually, even a lover he calls 'Elle'.

Most of these come at a price since the residents of Sierra Muñoz don't take very kindly to him. To express their distaste, they perform various acts of guerrilla warfare and in their struggle for liberation, they have found themselves a sponsor in their struggle- The United States. Jackie went to fight the army head on and using the Darkness he was able to take out the entire fleet. Returning his fortress he is betrayed by Kirchner and loses control of his power with his darklings turning on him. Jackie was left for dead after being shot in the neck and thrown down a waterfall. Upon his capture he made a deal with the local rebels agreeing to rid the island of the drug. In doing so he crossed paths with Elle and she showed Jackie that she is pregnant with his baby.

The child however killed Elle upon birth, grew to full maturity and killed Professor Kirchner. A fight between father and son ended when Jackie left the creature in the upper atmosphere just as dawn was breaking. The creature was then destroyed by the suns rays as it was completely a construct of the Darkness.

After crashing to Earth following this battle, Jackie was 'broken'. He was only able to draw just enough strength to keep himself alive through a number of fights while trying to stay alive. During one such fight, he was knocked out and taken to a being known as The Souvereign, who was a being capable of inhabiting any statue bearing his likeness, who told Jackie he died for an instant after fighting his child. This separated his soul from his body, leaving him in his broken state. In return for a number of assassinations, the Souvereign would reunite Jackie with his soul.

The assassinations Jackie was sent on were meant to return to hell evil souls, who had previously made a deal with The Sovereign to take over human bodies. After one such mission in Africa, Jackie was enticed by a beautiful woman with a red scarf, who motioned for him to follow. As he was about to follow her into a house, he was stopped by a man who claimed to have once wielded the Darkness, but had completely discarded the power without killing him. He warned Jackie of the trap laid hundreds of years earlier, which Jackie ignored.

Inside the building the woman waited, along with a Djinn which was created to kill Darkness wielders. Eventually, Jackie understood that both the woman and the Djinn were cursed themselves, to live only to kill users of the evil power. By strangling the woman, both were released. Outside, Jackie was once more confronted by the old Darkness user, who explained the power was still completely within him, only held back by his own wish to be without the Darkness. Through a series of insults and physical attacks, Jackie once more drew on the full power of the Darkness, claiming to be sick of people who tried to mess with him. Together with the always talkative Darklings, he stated his desire to return home.

Attacking the building where the Sovereign held his base, Jackie found himself caught in a room flooded with artificial sunlight and a score of bodies controlled by the Sovereign. With the help of the Darklings biting the power lines outside, Jackie destroyed all the bodies, leaving only one man behind. Jackie, impressed with the ability of this man to stay calm where all the other mercenaries had panicked, offered him a job.

Jackie quickly brought together a group of people with distinct skills for a single purpose: to destroy each and every statue that might be used by the Sovereign, effectively removing his presence from Earth. During this time, Jackie was called by Sara who suspected him of robbing a number of New York banks. During a meeting in broad daylight Sara warned Jackie to stay away from the city, not wanting to tell her daughter Hope that mommy had killed daddy. Jackie agreed and instructed his new employees that under no circumstance were they to enter the city of New York.Jackie and histeamthen go on a world tour finding and destroying stone bodies that The Sovereign could use as hosts. One of these trips takes him to Fort Knox where a host statue is held.During the raid Jackie discovers that The Sovereign has already taken over the statue as it is radiating light.Jackie is forced to take the Sovereign-possessed statue with them he orders his team to detonate the explosives they had set earlier. Unfortunately for Jackie, he falls from the van and is left helpless as tanks and marines surround him on orders by Major White,who somehow survived the explosion back in Sierra Munoz.

Enemies and Allies

The Angelus

The embodiment of the Light and the opposing force of The Darkness, the Angelus is one of Jackie's mortal enemy. The Angelus retains the memories of all of her previous host's lives and has led many crusades against Jackie in seeking to rid the world of The Darkness.

The powers of the Angelus are similar to the powers of The Darkness as both have the ability to create sentient beings, both commands a host of minions to do their bidding, she has the power of flight, can conjure weapons at will and fire bolts of light and teleport herself and other beings (as she did to the bearer of the Ember Stone).

Like the Darkness the Angelus' power does have its limits too. While the Darkness cannot function at all in the light the Angelus can function in the dark but only for short periods of time as it completely drains her power.

The first modern host was the catatonic wife of Uncle Frankie, Lauren Franchetti. After she is killed the power initially possesses Velocity of Cyberforce but it is immediately driven from her body by Cyberforce. She then finds a new host in Celestine Wright until she herself is killed during the events of Broken Trinity. The current Angelus is the former Witchblade host Danielle Baptiste.

Appolonia Franchetti

The daughter of Don Frankie, and the vengeful child of the catatonic Lauren Franchetti, who watched as her father murdered her mother's lover, which caused her to go into a coma. Responsible for the Angelus' return, and unsuccessfully trying to overthrow the Franchetti family, Appolonia is left in a coma. But she is brought out of this state with a fragment from the Spear of Destiny, the Magdalena's weapon, and branches out into her own side of The Darkness herself. After being banished by The Angelus she mysteriously reappears on the anniversary of her parents' marriage. She is generally happy to see Jackie and is terrified of her mother (as she feels there is nothing remaining of her). Appolonia appears to be in league with The Angelus, setting up Jackie, but in reality betrays The Angelus when she is about to kill Magdalena & Jackie. Appolonia kills her mother with the Spear of Destiny, ending her mother's suffering. Lauren dies with tears of joy and is happy to see both Jackie and her daughter. Appolonia's current whereabouts are unknown.

The Witchblade

Each generation one random woman is chosen to wield The Witch, a mystical, symbiotic artifact of enormous power. This generation's wielder is Sara Pezzini, a New York City detective. Sara teamed up with Jackie first in the Family Ties crossover, and again later to fight the Necrobi. Sara has also hassled Wade Wilson about his Midnight activities during the second run of the comic.

The Magdalena

The Magdalena was first introduced to Top Cow in The Darkness series, and has appeared a few times in the comic during her reign. Descended from Mary Magdalene, the first Magdalena we are introduced to was Sister Mariella, the daughter of Sister Rosalia. Mariella was prematurely sent to battle Jackie, and since she was brought up in a twisted sect of the church, was a wild fanatic who did not know right from wrong. She was left for dead, but recovered, only to battle with the Angelus and again be left for dead. Mariella hasn't been seen since.

Afterwards, Patience, the current Magdalena, is sent out to attack The Darkness, and Jackie mistakes her for Mariella, as does the Angelus. After explaining the situation to him, they end up teaming up against the Angelus, and Patience is possessed by her spirit. Jackie saves her, and the Angelus flees. Patience aided Jackie in defending Sara while she was in labor with their child. The baby is the offspring of the Darkness & Witchblade bearer thus the Angelus saw it as a threat.

Capris Castiglione

Jackie has a twin sister named Capris Castiglione. The two were separated when they were just babies. Worried about Darkness's power and influence on her other child, their mother entrust Capris to Father Brendan. He raised her in an orphanage as if she is his own daughter. Capris' destiny gets twisted when she finds her best friend Blair murdered. She discovered that Blair was used in illegal porno movies. When Father Brendan was dying, he revealed Capris's past and twin brother to her. She meets a Native American by the name of Robert Bearclaw (Ripclaw of Cyberforce) who teaches her how to use the limited Darkness powers that she inherited from her father.

Five years later, full of hatred, Capris sought out the men responsible for her friend's death. She pretended to be stripper named Tiffany and waited for a right moment to kill them. Ripclaw followed her on the revenge trip and offered to resume training her in the use of the Darkness. When she meets her brother, Jackie Estacado, for the first time, she tells him where the Angelus is holding Frankie, and then disappears. When Jackie needed to fight Cherubs, and Ripclaw took him to the spirit world, Capris looked after their earthly bodies and kept Jenny company.

Powers and abilities

Jackie wields the immense incomprehensible powers and abilities of The Darkness, a universal force of chaos and creation. This gives him the incredible power and ability to work an amazing number of effects, from greatly strengthening and increasing his own strength and durability to creating sentient life (commonly in the form of Darklings, small, foul-mouthed imps that do his bidding). Jackie most commonly uses The Darkness to craft a suit of mystical body armor about himself, as well as creating shadowy, fanged tentacles and clawed Darklings to eviscerate his opponents.

The limits of The Darkness's power and ability is unknown, though it does not function at all in strong light, which turns anything it created into dust. Jackie would appear to have some limited prescience, and has, on a few occasions, seen how individuals will die. (The Darkness vol. 2, Issues #1-3)

More recent comics show Jackie as having the power and ability to generate permanent physical objects (such as water, and the drug known as Nightfall) as well as technically creating "life" in the form of his lover, Elle. He is able to create these things through practice, and the guidance of Professor Kirchner. During this time, Jackie becomes a drug lord his powers and abilities evolve to form the goblin like darklings into larger hulking more malevolent forms. The palace in which he lives is also constructed from the Darkness, and changes and reforms to Jackie's will, allowing him to technically shift through space and time and get to the places he wants to go faster.

On top of his mystical abilities, Jackie is a top-notch mafia hitman and is a master marksman (with a preference for dual 9 mm handguns) as well as being a formidable hand-to-hand fighter.

Other users

The Darkness has been around for at least a few millennia, and thus has been used by many men (being passed down from father to son). A lot of these other users can be seen in the mini-series, Tales of The Darkness. In one instance, the powers of The Darkness were siphoned from Jackie by Ian Nottingham. One of the most well known users outside of Jackie has been the pirate Captain Miguel Estacado, who was the main character of Ron Marz's The Darkness: Black Sails. Jackie's twin sister Capris Castiglione is also a user of Darkness, the only known female user to date.

In the one-shot comic Darkness Infinity, present-day Earth is destroyed by an unknown cataclysmic event, and in the distant future, an alien race discovers the remains of the planet, and a space shuttle on the moon, which, according to the shuttle's records, was in orbit of Earth when the planet was destroyed. Apparently, after Earth was destroyed, The Darkness began looking for a new host, and found the crew of the shuttle. It possessed the co-pilot and killed the rest.

The alien newcomers were the first to discover Earth, and therefore the first opportunity The Darkness had to inhabit a new host. They were lured there by a fragmented distress call from the space shuttle. There was an attachment in the transmission, an audio-visual log of the shuttle which told the story of the shuttle crew and their subsequent demise. Near the end of the transmission, the ship's captain realised what the Darkness was and what it was trying to do, and ordered the helmspeople to cut off the transmission. But it was too late. The Darkness had transmitted itself through the distress signal and had possessed the two helmspeople. The captain rerouted the ship's controls to her own command chair and killed the possessed crew members. However, the darklings emerged out of their corpses and surrounded the captain, revealing that they intended to take her as their next host. In a final effort to destroy it in its entirety, the captain activated the ship's self destruct mechanism, sacrificing her ship and crew as well as herself. The ship and crew, and presumably the Darkness, were destroyed while the captain was reincarnated as the bearer of the Angelus.

Other appearances

Jackie has appeared in crossover story lines involving Lara Croft, Sara Pezzini, Jane Vasko, Clark Kent, the xenomorphs, the Predators, Eva - Daughter of Dracula, The Hulk, Bruce Wayne, Ghost Rider, Doctor Strange, and Wolverine.

The first two exist in a shared continuity with The Darkness. Several are non-canonical for the crossover heroes, but several of the other crossover are canonical as the events in this crossover are later referred to and have repercussions in The Darkness comic & Top Cow Universe.

Collections

The series has been collected into a series of trade paperbacks:

• Volume 1 (1996–2001):
  • Coming of Age (176 pages, collects Preview and The Darkness #1-6, 1998, ISBN 1582400326)
  • Ultimate Collection (352 pages, collects The Darkness Volume 1 issues #1-6 and #40, Volume 2 issues #1-6, 2007, ISBN 1582407800)
  • Heart of Darkness (144 pages, collects The Darkness #7-8, 11-14, 2001, ISBN 1582402051)
  • Spear of Destiny (106 pages, collects The Darkness #15-18, 2000, ISBN 1582401470)
  • Original Sin (166 pages, collects The Darkness #15-25, 2005, ISBN 1582404593)
  • Flesh and Blood (464 pages, collects The Darkness #26-39, October 2005, ISBN 1582405387)
  • Compendium (1280 pages, collects The Darkness#1-40, Tales of the Darkness #1-4 and Darkness: Wanted Dead, December 2006, ISBN 158240643X, November 2007, ISBN 1582408017)

• Volume 2 (2002–2005):
  • Resurrection (176 pages, collects The Darkness Volume 1 #40, Volume 2 #1-6, 2004, ISBN 158240349X)
  • Demon Inside (272 pages, collects The Darkness #7-16 and Darkness: Wanted Dead, January 2007, ISBN 1582406464)
  • Depths Of Hell (224 pages, collects The Darkness #17-24, September 2007, ISBN 1582407959)

• The Darkness Vs. Eva - Daughter of Dracula (104 pages, collects The Darkness Vs. Eva issues #1-4, 2008, ISBN 193330585)

• Volume 3 (2008-):
  • Accursed: Volume 1 (160 pages, collects The Darkness Volume 3 #1-6, September 2008, ISBN 1582409587)
  • Accursed: Volume 2 (140 pages, collects The Darkness Volume 3 #7-11, October 2009, ISBN 1607060442)
  • Accursed: Volume 3 (160 pages, collects The Darkness Volume 3 #12-15 (#76-#79 with legacy numbering), June 2010, ISBN 1607061007)

Other media

Film

In December 2004, Dimension Films paid an undisclosed six-figure sum to develop a possible movie based on the comic, planned for release in 2008 but has not been released yet. The comic was pitched as a similar movie to The Crow, which was also produced by Dimension.

According to Newsarama, Top Cow president Matt Hawkins revealed that a live-action film based on the comic is in development. Details on the project were light, with Hawkins only saying that Scott Stuber Productions (The Kingdom, The Break-Up) was attached to produce. [1]

Video game

Main article: The Darkness (video game)

In March 2005, "The Darkness" was licensed by Majesco for a console game to be developed by Starbreeze Studios. 2K Games later obtained the rights to the game, and the first-person shooter was released for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 console systems on June 25, 2007 in the United States and on June 29, 2007 in the EU (Xbox 360 only - PS3 version was released on July 20) .

To promote the video game a five-issue mini-series was released, with each issue chronicling a chapter of the game. In June 2007 it was collected into a trade paperback (ISBN 1582407975). The game is mostly based on the events of the first volume of the Darkness comics, however it does alter some key elements such as having Paulie being the one that adopts Jackie.

During the game, The Darkness holds true to the comics, with the same powers. Though the Darkness becomes extremely resilient, and tries to make you kill people, it is relatively docile toward the beginning of the game. By the time The Darkness realizes you are taking control, it then starts to try to persuade you to stop.

Marc Silvestri noted in an interview that a sequel to the first game is in the works.

References

• The Darkness (1996-2001) at the Grand Comics Database
• The Darkness (1996-2001) at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
• The Darkness (2002-2005) at the Grand Comics Database
• The Darkness (2002-2005) at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original)
• THE PULSE news of Phil Hester ongoing Darkness Series