Line #17 Headscratchers/TheDarkness


1	* Is the Darkness invincible or not? The comic seems to jump back and forth on that point constantly. In the very first comic the Angelus seems convinced that killing Jackie before his 21st birthday will finish off the Darkness for good, but later it's shown that Jackie's grandmother was gunned down while pregnant with his father, and the Darkness simply turned her immortal easy as that. Then in a later story, Jackie is shot during daylight, and the Darkness can't seem to do a thing to help him except have the Darklings drag him off to a surgeon - fine, except one of the flash-forward stories has a Darkness host killed by daylight and then simply pieced back together fine and dandy in the next panel. Finally, when Jackie actually does get killed and endures a brief stay in hell, the Darkness simply rebuilds his body. So what's the deal? Is each Darkness host simply impossible to keep dead until getting a woman pregnant?
2	** [[MemeticMutation Maybe they should try Magic Missile.]]
3	** The Darkness has yet to be defeated. If it hasn't passed on to a successor yet, it will do everything it can to bring the current holder back to life. The Angelus believes there has to be a limit to this power, and tries to kill its host whenever it can.
4	* In the game, the police ambush Jackie at a church where he has agreed to meet [[TheDragon Eddie Shrote]]. They cut the lights before piling in wearing full SWAT gear. Of course Jackie's powers being fuelled by darkness, they get slaughtered. Until halfway through the fight, where Eddie suddenly calls out "hit the floodlights, he can't do that shit in the light!". So if Eddie knew Jackie's weakness, why'd he cut the lights in the first place? Yes, he might have only figured it out during the fight by watching how Jackie either avoided it, or shot out all light sources. But during the church fight, all the lights have already been cut, so there's no light for Jackie to avoid. Eddie was more likely to have guessed Jackie's weakness during the other few times he see's Jackie in action (such as when Jackie chased him through his own police station, a set-piece where, if the player is smart, he'll shoot out every light he comes across). So what, did Eddie just think it'd be funny to feed some of his few remaining SWAT personnel (Jackie having slaughtered more than half the force at this point) to the EldritchAbomination empowered HitmanWithaHeart?
5	** Schrote sent the few remaining "good cops" in first?
6	*** Combined with the above, he was testing a theory? I'm going to assume that the player, at that point, cut loose with every power they had, and an observer would quickly see that Jackie wasn't just destroying lights for effect, he was actually weakened by the light. Personally, I would switch off Darkness Mode whenever surrounded by too many light sources to avoid draining too much power, it's not too much of a stretch to assume canon!Jackie does the same thing.
7	* If Jackie will die if he impregnates a woman, why doesn't he just try using a condom?
8	** This is brought up right off the bat in the comics, when he finds out he just says he'd use Birth Control, only to be countered that no birth control is 100% effective. Condoms break, the pill fails, and Jackie gets the life sucked out of him.
9	*** There are women out there who have had hysterectomies, and ''that's'' certainly a 100% guarantee that impregnation won't happen. I'm not up on the comics, has this point been brought up at all?
10	*** Couldn't he just keep to anal?
11	** Yes that has been brought up when Jackie was dating one GirlOfTheWeek.
12	** Also at one point the Darkness suggests to him that he should totally go for an orgy-[[KickTheDog he could always rip their wombs out afterwards.]]
13	** In one story arc there was a RunningGag where [[DepravedHomosexual Wenders]] (a former minion of Sonatine's who is aware of Jackie's predicament) keeps offering to "serve" him by suggesting that [[GayOption there's one sex act that has no chance of pregnancy...]]
14	** Why doesn't Jackie just have a vasectomy? Or would the Darkness repair that as if it were an injury?
15	*** Bingo. The Darkness would regard a vasectomy as an injury and "fix" it.
16	*** Not to mention that The Darkness wants to be the one in control of Jackie and not vice-versa. Apart of that is having the option to just go to the next host. They flipped-flopped on wether or not the current Darkness user dies at the moment of conception (as it was initially), at the moment of birth or merely that they lose their powers at the moment of birth (as seen in the lastest issue I've read, which is several years old by this point). In that last example, Jackie's father keeps his Darkness powers up until Jackie is born, at which point he's killed by the people he was attacking just a moment before.
17	** The Darkness sperm will find a way. I mean we aren't talking H.I.V we are talking a curse that can impregnate everyone on the first sexual encounter, what are the odds anal still ends up in demonic pregnancy?
18	** This "rule" is one that kinda bothered me as it seems only to exist to give Jackie something to angst about, the Darkness manifests of the 21st birthday of a male heir, so getting a woman up the duff seems almost counterproductive, because then it has to spend 21 years and 9 months sealed, therefore limiting its full potential, let say the heir has a birthday screw on their 21st bam, 21 years and 9 months of waiting wasted.
19	* During the Total Darkness arc, The Darkness went on and on about how incomprensibly powerful and ancient it is, yet many supernatural beings that Jackie encounters give him snide remarks about how inferior he and his power is.Dracula called it nothing more than shadows and imps, and the personification of darkness, the Magus, called it a party trick. Was The Darkness being self important when it made itself sound like the ultimate force or does Jackie's [[UnskilledButStrong lack of skills]] make others assume he doesn't have that much power? You would think that other Eldritch Abominations could at least sense what's in Jackie before they deem him a minor threat.
20	** It's most likely them just underestimating it due to seeing Jackie as nothing more then a young idiot who doesn't know what he's getting into. Considering The Darkness was around since the very beginning of existence, it's not very likely that it's bluffing when it says it's unimaginably powerful.
21	* Why doesn't the Brotherhood just put flashlights on their guns? It seems like a more efficient and effective way to counter Jackie than having certain members lug them around on their shoulders.
22	** They're a bunch of lunatics who want to contain an EldritchAbomination to use its power to their own benefit, such a mundane solution is something that is off the table to them.
23	** Some does in the game it's just not powerful enough to keep the Darkness at bay.
24	* Why in the game Jackie spent his childhood in an orphanage when he has an aunt?

Context Headscratchers / TheDarkness