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Jackie Estacado
Jackie Estacado/The Darkness
Voiced by: Kirk Acevedo (1st game), Brian Bloom (2nd game).
A young mafia hitman who on his 21st birthday became the host of the Darkness.- A Father to His Men: It's hard to deny the respect his men have for him, and he treats them very well in turn.
- Affably Evil: He's a killer, but he can show kindness from time to time and he's got a sense of honor.
- Anti-Hero: Of the Nominal Hero and Affably Evil Unscrupulous Hero variety.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: He's always wearing a dress shirt and slacks, even when killing people.
- Badass Longcoat: Where he keeps a rather impressive array of guns.
- Benevolent Boss: Besides just respecting his men, he also treats them well, giving them all the liquor they can drink, and the ammo they can burn through. Additionally, when one of their own falls, Jackie makes sure that all of their expenses are paid and that the families are taken care of, completely out of pocket, expecting nothing in return. This has created Undying Loyalty from his crew, who all say that Jackie is a better mob boss than his uncle Paulie could ever hope to be.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: A hyper-exaggerated version of the mafia code. Jackie is okay with murdering anyone involved in organized crime by the hundreds, dealing drugs, prostitution, and collateral damage. However, if he kills a civilian he gets really disturbed by it.
- In one comic, it's revealed Jackie's Good Side is of the Neighborhood-Friendly Gangsters type of crook while his evil side is a monster.
- But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Deconstructed. Jackie finds out that one of his random hits was the fiancée of an FBI agent and is horrified.
- Can't Have Sex, Ever: Jackie seems to think this, though this overlooks some obvious possibilities. He's really only forbidden sex which impregnates a woman.
- In a bizarre aversion, he does attempt to solicit a Chinese prostitute to give him oral sex. It's interrupted.
- The Casanova / The Pornomancer: Before he bonded with the Darkness, Jackie was shown to engage in large amounts of anonymous sex with various beautiful women. He lost his virginity to a female police officer when he was only 14 years old! He still gets asked for various trysts from a variety of women throughout the story.
- Contractual Immortality: In-universe, the Darkness refuses to let him stay dead until he has produced a male heir.
- Cursed with Awesome: He views the Darkness as this, even if he takes advantage of the power it gives him.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Jackie wields the power of The Darkness, but he has a strong sense of honor and goes out of his way to protect those close to him.
- The Don: He's the head of his own crime family.
- Drunk on the Dark Side: In the second game Jackie describes using the Darkness as feeling like being the star of an action film, where you kill bad guys and look good while doing it, until you look at the rest of the audiance and realize their terrified because in truth you're the monster in a horror film.
- First-Person Smartass: When Jackie talks to himself, it's often about how dumb anyone would be to try and oppose him.
- Humanoid Abomination: The end result of what happens when an Eldritch Abomination becomes a part of you. Plus there are his powers
- Handsome Lech: Before the comics.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: At least on becoming a full-fledged hero. He'll only ever be an Anti-Hero at best.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Sarah Pezzini thinks he's this, when it's more the fact Jackie has a very strange moral code.
- Hitman with a Heart: Jackie only ever intentionally goes after other mobsters and crooks. He tries to avoid killing innocent people at all costs, and he's shown to treat his crew with a great deal of respect.
- Horrifying Hero: His powers connecting to a deranged Eldritch Abomination and his tendency to leave villains soiling themselves in fear make him terrifying to even the most hardened of corrupt cops and mobsters.
- Morality Chain / Morality Pet: Jenny. Deconstructed with the fact Jackie tries to make Jenny's sister and later, a rebel woman into his Morality Pet. He turns decides against it when he realizes it would only expose them to needless danger and/or corrupt them.
- Sarah Pezzini and their daughter, Hope, in a bizarre way.
- Necessarily Evil: In the game, quite a few of the less-than-pleasant things that Jackie does is to ensure the safety of his allies; Johnny Powell certainly concurs with this belief.
- Never Hurt an Innocent: Jackie only kills other members of the mob, those who are part of the Conspiracy, and anyone who tries to stand in his way. He intentionally leaves innocent people alone.
- Noble Demon: The closest thing to an outright hero in the crime world he lives in.
- Papa Wolf: Mess with Hope, and he will hunt you down and kill you. Mess with one of his crew, and he'll kill you even faster.
- Shrouded in Myth: Other gangsters seem to spread rumors about what Jackie is and how he prefers to work at night. One of common reactions when Jackie unleashes The Darkness on other mafiosos is Oh God, the rumors are true!
- Super Mob Boss: He's a crime lord with horrifying supernatural powers that make him one of the most dangerous characters in his setting.
- Universally Beloved Leader: Jackie is greatly respected by the mafia and most of the citizens of New York.
- Villain Protagonist: Though how much of a "villain" he is can sometimes be debatable, Jackie is ultimately a very dangerous man.
- Younger Than They Look: Despite being 21, he looks a bit older, appearing to be in his mid to late 20s.
The Darkness
The Darkness
Voiced by: Mike Patton
- Ax-Crazy: Has a rather unhealthy and very enthusiastic approach to tearing people apart.
- Arch-Enemy: Of the Angelus, which it fought since the creation and of former Darkness bearer Aram.
- Berserk Button: At least two of them. Jackie attempting to resist it or take control of it enrages it. Mention of 'a light in the darkness' also pisses it off. The 'light' undoubtedly referring to it's nemesis The Angelus.
- Big Bad: Of the Outer Darkness/Inner Darkness arc.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: It seems to truly not understand how humans work physically, psychologically, or emotionally. All it sees humans as is fodder for creating suffering.
- Casting a Shadow: It's right there in its name.
- Chewing the Scenery: In the games, Mike Patton is clearly having fun with the role.
- Cloudcuckoolander: In the game, its dialogue swings from eccentric to downright weird; at one point, it even lurches into Buffy Speak by informing Jackie that it fixed his "broken head ball." However, it sobers very rapidly when it feels like making a point- or when its existence is threatened.
- Clingy MacGuffin: The Big Bad of the Artifacts crossover said that it's almost impossible to separate The Darkness from it's wielder and The Darkness claims that not even death can take away it's host.
- Combat Tentacles: Particularly nasty ones with More Teeth than the Osmond Family and Glowing Eyes of Doom on the ends.
- Eldritch Abomination: To the point that in the second game, he is explicitly referred to as the pre-Creation darkness.
- Entitled Bastard: After all the hell it puts Jackie through, the darkness is surprised and enraged when Jackie tries to fight back and disobey it.
- Even Evil Has Standards; Finds the Angelus' ways of doing things a bit unnerving.
- Evil Sounds Deep: Sweet lord...
- Gambit Roulette: The reason for the Darkness choosing the Estacado bloodline? They hoped, eventually, they would have sex with Darkness-created concubines enough that a child would be produced.
- The Darkness may have just been taunting Jackie.
- God Is Evil: The Darkness may well be as close to God as anything in the setting, along with The Angelus.
- Though the second game mentions God as a separate entity on multiple occasions. For instance, the origin of the universe as explained by Johnny:
Johnny Powell: In the beginning there wasn't shit. Literally! Nothing but void and darkness, and that's how the Darkness liked it. It wasn't until God decreed that: "Turn on the lights!", that things got nasty. - Gravity Master: Can create Black Holes.
- Kill Him Already!: Says this at the end of the first game.The Darkness (in regards to killing Paulie): Take his life so that I can take yours!
- Lovecraftian Superpower: To its host, it gives a massive Healing Factor, darkness-based powers and the ability to impale people with Combat Tentacles. It all comes at a price, though.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: It's snake heads have a LOT of sharp teeth
- Order Versus Chaos: The chaos to The Angelus' order.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Much like Unicron, the Darkness is a primordial God of Chaos who finds the very concept of ordered Creation disgusting.
- The Sociopath: The Darkness is a monster, but it's so damn funny while being a monster that fans love it anyway.
- This Is My Human: The Darkness, to its hosts, in the words of an expert:
Johny Powell: You can't own the Darkness, The Darkness owns you.
Comics and Game
Jenny Romano
- Boom, Headshot!: How poor Jenny meets her end at the hands of Frankie Franchetti and Captain Shrote. Jackie is forced to watch and can do nothing.
- Childhood Sweetheart: Jenny and Jackie have been together since they grew up in an orphanage together.
- Demonic Possession: Inverted, the end of the second game reveals that Jenny has become the new host of the Angelus.
- Perky Goth: Both in style and personality, Jenny is a ray of sunshine in Jackie's life. Also adores the stuffed teddy bear Jackie won for her in a carnival game.
The Brotherhood
- Adaptation Distillation: The Brotherhood in the second game is much more menacing and powerful than the one in the comics.
- Composite Character: There's a similar Evil Army version of the Brotherhood in the comic, it just worships the Angelus. Becomes
Fridge Brilliance when you realize the Brotherhood has tried to use the Angelus in the games as well. - Deader than Dead: The only sane member of the Brotherhood has his soul destroyed by the Angelus for freeing the Darkness after they capture it. Johnny says this is the only time in history it's happened and is a poor reward for saving the world.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: In the game it's implied the Darkness slowly drove them mad when they managed to capture it. The first time.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Pretty much the religion's M.O., either with The Darkness or, in the game at least, The Angelus.
- Put on a Bus: Sonatine and Wenders were the only really notable members of the cult in the comic and they disappear after volume one.
- Religion of Evil
- Xanatos Gambit: The cult in the game attempts to determine whether Jackie is the Darkness' wielder by sending an army of goons to kill him. If he doesn't, he dies, but if he does, they can get it from him.
Paulie Franchetti
Paulie as he appears in the game continuity.
Voiced by Dwight Schultz- 0% Approval Rating: Pretty much everyone hates Paulie, with other mobsters, and members of his family expressing their disapproval at his antics, and are more than willing to help Jackie get Paulie out of the picture. Even his men can be heard talking about how they despise him and the survivors of Jackie's final Roaring Rampage of Revenge, will turn against Paulie (of course this is after they are grievously wounded by his powers), and when Jackie finally kills off Paulie at the end, nobody mourns his loss.
- Adaptational Jerkass: Downplayed, but noticable. In the video game, he's the one who murders Jenny.
- All Take and No Give: Jackie describes Paulie as a "Parasite who bleeds others dry", which couldn't be further from the truth.
- Asshole Victim: Absolutely no one sheds any tears for Paulie when Jackie finally kills him.
- Bad Boss: His Establishing Character Moment is leading Jackie into a suicide mission for questioning how he does his business.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: In the comics, he enjoys feeding live mice to his pet tarantula.
- Bald of Evil: Averted in the comics, since he has a full set of hair. Downplayed in the video game, where he's slightly balding. Played straight on the evil part in both the comics and video game.
- Big Bad: Of the first game.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Though he is also very cowardly, frequently runs away from Jackie knowing he wouldn't stand a chance against him, and often relies on his henchmen to kill Jackie. He's also rather incompetent, since a lot of his villainous deeds, more often than not, end up working against him.
- Bullying a Dragon: Provoking Jackie Estacado, a trained contract killer who commands an Eldritch Abomination, by burning down the orphanage he grew up in and killing his girlfriend Jenny right in front of him (which only happens in the video game) ends up being Paulie’s last two mistakes.
- Composite Character: In the video game, his character is fused with Frankie Franchetti, where he is now the one who adopted and raised Jackie and murdered Jenny.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Compared to the comics, Paulie's fate in the Game is pretty merciful, where he's just shot by Jackie. In the comics, Paulie is skinned alive, and as disturbing as that sounds, it's a fate he had long coming.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Pretty much his MO. He is known for vicious retaliation against the slightest offence against him. The biggest example in the game is him blowing up an orphanage to spite Jackie.
- The Don: Of the Franchetti Crime Family. Not that the rest of the mob is happy with him.
- Entitled Bastard: Paulie is someone who has no loyalty but always expects it in return and pretty much thinks everyone should sit back and take his bullshit. When he attempts to kill Jackie, he gets more pissed off that Jackie retaliated. When the two fight, he alternates between trying and threatening to kill Jackie and begging him to let him live.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: As he puts it when Jackie climbs the lighthouse he holled up in at thr climax of the game.
Who cares about some dead chick when you could have owned the world!
- Evil Is Petty: Where to begin... First he tries to have Jackie killed all because he questioned the way Paulie does business, then he has the orphanage that Jackie grew up in blown up merely to spite Jackie, and finally... he kills Jackie's girlfriend, Jenny to spite him even more. To further highlight Paulie's pettiness, Jimmy the grape mentions to Jackie that Paulie once had someone's toe chopped all over a disagreement over a Baseball Game...
- Evil Uncle: Is referred to as "Uncle Paulie", although he is actually a cousin to one of Jackie's parents.
- Evil Wears Black: He wears a black mobster outfit.
- Fat Bastard: Is on the larger side, and among the biggest scumbag in the series.
- Flaying Alive: How Paulie goes out in the comic.
- Gonk: He is just as repulsive on the outside as he is on the inside.
- Greed: Nicky Barruci describes Paulie as a "Little doberman who doesn't see anything else besides money", which is more or less an accurate description.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: To the point where it's implied he will kill someone just for looking at him the wrong way.
- Hate Sink: There is absolutely nothing even remotely likable or redeemable about Paulie in the slightest, and every aspect of his character and personality is designed to be as loathsome as possible. He is a repulsive, vulgar, spiteful, vindictive, cruel, unrepentant and utterly self-absorbed psychopath who treats his own men like dirt, and murders people over some of the most trivial things imaginable. Everyone in-universe despises him as a result, and he is responsible for most of Jackie's suffering.
- Hot-Blooded: Paulie never stops shouting. He is always angry and it takes very little to get on his bad side.
- Jerkass: To call Paulie this is a massive understatement. Even when he's not killing someone out of spite, he's still verbally abusive and insulting towards everyone around him.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Jackie mentions several times that Paulie actually use to treat him very kindly when he was a kid. However given that this is Paulie we are talking about, he probably only treated young Jackie with kindness as a way of manipulating him. Even if Paulie's kindness was genuine back then, it's all undone by him trying to murder Jackie and later murdering Jenny in cold-blood.
- Karmic Death: In the video game, he murders Jenny by shooting her in the head, only to be gunned down himself by Jackie at the end of the game.
- Kick the Dog: A lot of what he does over the course of the game, like blowing up the orphanage that Jackie grew up in and most notably, killing Jenny in the game.
- It's All About Me: In the game, after he's called a hit on Jackie and tried to kill him with an explosive-rigged closet, he's inexplicably offended when Jackie retaliates by launching attacks on Paulie's various businesses.
- Lack of Empathy: Not only does Paulie show no remorse for blowing up the orphanage and killing Jenny, but when Jackie finally confronts Paulie near the end, he has the nerve to tell Jackie that Jenny was a weakness and that he shouldn't have cared about her. Even when Paulie is injured, begging Jackie for mercy, he doesn't even have the decency to at-least apologize to Jackie for all the crap he's done.
- Miles Gloriosus: Paulie loves to talk big game and pictures himself as an intimidating crime boss, and while in a way he is, he's also secretly a coward when faced with a threat like Jackie and will often rely on his own men to do the dirty work. He even starts to become paranoid and runs off to a remote island so that Jackie won't find him, which he does, unfortunately for Paulie.
- Never My Fault: Another defining characteristic of Paulie is how he frequently blames evryone else for his own actions, especially Jackie.
- Non-Action Big Bad: Because Paulie is not physically fit enough to fight Jackie himself, he has to rely on his own men to do that for him.
- Oh, Crap!: Gets a huge one in the comic when he comes face to face with Jackie's demons, and when he realizes that Jackie timed his revenge attack on his compound to give Paulie only a few minutes of sunlight as a Hope Spot. "Even you can't stop the world from turning."
- Psychopathic Manchild: Lets just say that Paulie is NOT a mature person. He will always respond with violence over the slightest offences or things just not going his way, and has no qualms against hurting or killing others over little disagreements, showing what a vindictive, childish scumbag he is.
- Sad Battle Music: While he's begging for his life in his Zero-Effort Boss. Not necessarily because he's tragic, but because his death is the last one The Darkness needs to take him over. Luckily, the sequel shows Jackie retook control before it could go on a genocidal rampage.
- Sir Swears Alot: He cusses almost as much as he breathes.
- Smug Snake: By and large, his comics incarnation is this; the game version's too grouchy to be even remotely smug.
- The Sociopath: Paulie is a walking talking low-functioning textbook example if there ever was one. He is extraordinarily selfish, cruel, narcissistic, completely lacking in empathy, sees people as nothing but objects to be used and disposed of, murders people without a shred of remorse, and has absolutely no human feelings.
- Spoiled Brat: Yet another defining trait of Paulie is how he expects everything to go his way and will not take no for an answer.
- Stupid Evil: His own downfall is a result of him destroying the orphanage Jackie grew up in, murdering Jenny and treating his own men like dirt. What goes around, comes around indeed.
- Additionally, near the end of the game where Jackie is chasing Paulie up a lighthouse, Paulie seriously thinks it's a smart move to verbally abuse and even taunt Jackie over the death of Jenny, despite knowing full well that Jackie is fully intent on killing Paulie, and needless to say, it goes as well as you'd expect.
- The Unapologetic: He never once apologizes any of the evil things he does.
- Uriah Gambit: At the beginning of the game, he sends Jackie to kill off a foreman at the construction site. It turns out, however, that Paulie was deliberately sending Jackie into a deathtrap by luring him into a room planted with a bomb, all because Jackie questioned Paulie over the way he does business.
- Victim-Blaming: After blowing up the orphanage, he has the nerve to tell Jackie it was all his fault. He does the same thing again after killing Jenny.
- Villain Ball: In Johnny's own words from the second game, killing Jenny was the dumbest thing Franchetti ever did.
- Villains Want Mercy / "Oh, Crap!" Fakeout: When Jackie has him on the ground near the end of the first game, he starts begging with Jackie to spare him, but it is a way to distract him so that he can grab for the nearest gun and kill Jackie while he is in a lighthouse.
- Villainous Underdog: Despite being the Big Bad, he is much weaker than Jackie. While Jackie is possessed by a powerful and demonic entity, Paulie is just a normal human with no supernatural abilities and can easily be torn to shreds by Jackie, if not for the fact that Paulie has an army of fellow mobsters out to kill Jackie.
- Would Hit a Girl: Poor Jenny....
- Would Hurt a Child: Blows up and orphanage, killing some of the children and severally burning and injuring the survivors. Judging by his taunting phone call to Jackie, he has a pretty vicious attitude about it. At another point, one of his mooks can be heard telling the story of how he rigged a school bus to crash because one of the children's parents crossed him.
Captain Edward "Eddie" Shrote
Voiced by James Mathers
- 0% Approval Rating: Despite having a good reputation in the news media, everyone who personally knows Shrote have nothing remotely good to say about him, and it's implied his own police fear him rather than respect him.
- Asshole Victim: He ends up getting caught in an explosion in the church caused by the bomb in the briefcase Jackie delivered. Needless to say, he really had it coming, and zero people miss him.
- Bad Boss: He doesn't treat his own police very well.
- Bald of Evil: In the scene where Paulie kills Jenny, Shrote is seen without his police cap and is shown to be balding.
- Berserk Button: He hates being called Eddie.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: After he has Jackie tied to a chair in the church, he decides to slowly torture Jackie with a drill instead of just killing him straight away, giving Jackie enough time to kill Eddie.
- Bullying a Dragon: He taunts Jackie, a man with supernatural powers, over the death of his girlfriend. Yeah... what a good idea, Eddie.
- Dirty Cop: He's pretty much a mob boss disguised as a police chief.
- Dirty Coward: Rather than fighting Jackie himself, he instead runs away, hides and gets his cops to do the dirty work for him. He tries to hide it by talking big, even though anyone can easily see through it.
- Do Not Call Me "Paul": He hates being called Eddie.
- The Dragon: To Paulie.
- Entitled Bastard: He treats everyone around him like utter crap, yet he complains when someone treats him the same way in return. A good example is when after helping Paulie destroy an orphanage and murder Jenny and then rubbing it all in Jackie's face, he gets super pissed when Jackie steals his briefcase.
- Evil Old Folks: He appears to be around in his 70s, and is an utterly despicable sack of shit.
- Evil Smells Bad: Implied. When Jackie is searching for Eddie in his apartment, he receives help from a character called Abe Hunter, who tells Jackie to "Follow the stink. You can't fuckin' miss it".
- For the Evulz: While Paulie does all the bad things he does out of childish petulance, Eddie takes part in doing evil things simply because he enjoys it.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Not as bad as Paulie's, but it's still there.
- Hate Sink: Like Paulie, Eddie is a vile, loathsome scumbag with zero redeeming qualities.
- Jerkass: He is shown to be nothing more than a heartless and cold-blooded asshole who sees those around him (including his own police force) as tools to be used and disposed of.
- Hypocrite: He always refers to Jackie and his friends as "criminals", even though Shrote is virtually one himself.
- He also complains at Jackie for killing his police force like "they were nothing", and yet Shrote himself could care less about his own police force, and happily helps Paulie with blowing up the orphanage and killing Jenny as though they were nothing.
- Karmic Death: He helps Paulie blow up an orphanage full of kids, only to be caught in an explosion himself.
- Kick the Dog: After helping Paulie murder Jenny, he repeatedly rubs it in Jackie's face. It eventually bites him in the ass.
- Lack of Empathy: He shows no remorse or guilt for any of his deeds.
- Sadist: He gets a kick out of drilling holes in people, taunting others over their deceased loved ones, and overall making other people's lives miserable.
- Lean and Mean: He is very skinny, and has a repulsive personality to boot.
- Miles Gloriosus: Shrote clearly likes to think of himself as a fearsome old man. However when he's up against Jackie, he's a dirty little coward who runs away, hides and gets his men to take care of things for him.
- Obviously Evil: It's easy to tell by looking at his face (especially those sinister-looking eyes) that Eddie is not the type of cop who keeps the peace.
- Sir Swears Alot: He is verbally abuses his own colleagues and often calls them vile insults whenever they even remotely annoy him.
- Slime Ball: He merely became a police chief for the whole purpose of exploiting people, abusing his authority over others and taking part in committing crimes with other gangsters.
- Smug Snake: Part of the reason he taunts Jackie about Jenny's death, apart from doing it just for the sake of being malicious, is also because he thinks he has the upper hand and can easily defeat Jackie, but he is dead, dead wrong..
- The Sociopath: He has a complete lack of regard or empathy for the lives of others, remorseless helps Paulie with blowing up the orphanage and kidnapping Jenny, chose to become a police chief solely to exploit other people, and abuses his good publicity to continue committing crimes.
- Stupid Evil / Villain Ball: Similar to Paulie, Shrote can't resist the urge to do something cruel or heinous, even if it directly bites him in the ass. For starters, he taunts Jackie over Jenny's death, despite knowing full well that Jackie is possessed by a powerful and demonic entity, and rather than simply killing off Jackie when he finally has him tied to a chair, he instead decides to try and slowly torture him with a drill that doesn't even work properly, giving Jackie a chance to outsmart Eddie.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Most of his fellow officers are just as crooked as he is; as much of his irritable grumbling indicates, they're nowhere near as savvy as him.
- That's not to say Eddie is as smart as he thinks himself to be, since his own sadism and arrogance really gets the better of him and eventually bites him in the ass.
- This Is a Drill: His torture device of choice... which breaks down halfway through the torture session.Chinese piece of shit!
- Too Dumb to Live: Taunting someone over the death of their loved one just might not end well for you, Eddie. Especially if that person has demonic powers.
- To the Pain: In the game, explains how he's going to drill holes into the pain centre's of Jackie's brain, before he gets started.
- Torture Technician: In the game, he tortures Jackie for information after capturing him, perforating his face with an electric drill. Apparently, he's done this many times before, and he's had time to make it his specialty. And worst of all, this is his "good" side, according to Jackie.
- Villainous Underdog: A lot like Paulie, Shrote is much less powerful than Jackie, for obvious reasons.
- Villain with Good Publicity: He actually manages to keep a good rap with the media, even though everybody knows he's really a rotten scumbag.
- Would Hit a Girl: After Jenny headbutts Paulie, Eddie punches Jenny in the head.
- Would Hurt a Child: Implied. He never actually hurts any directly in the game, however he did help Paulie blow up the orphanage, despite knowing full well that it was filled with kids, and then remorselessly covered it up.
The Angelus
The Angelus entity is the embodiment of light and is the equal and opposite force of the Darkness.
- Angelic Beauty: Despite the name, she is not an actual angel but her design is evocative of this trope.
- Arch-Enemy: The Darkness which it fought since the creation.
- Big Bad: The most common antagonist faced by Jackie when he is not fighting normal mobsters or people trying to steal or use his powers for their own ends.
- Eldritch Abomination: Literally the Light of Creation.
- Humanoid Abomination: After taking a human host.
- A God Am I: She was worshiped as a sun goddess by the Incans and the Shinto. And she claims God and Jesus are both redundant in her presence.
- God Is Evil: The Angelus may well be as close to God as anything in the setting, along with The Darkness. It claims that both God and Jesus Christ are redundant in its presence.
- Grand Theft Me: The Angelus takes complete control over its host mind and body(e.g. Lauren Franchetti, Celestine Wright, and in game Darkness II Jenny), until its Heel–Face Turn after which its lets its host keep control over their mind and body.
- Heel–Face Turn: After taking Danielle Baptiste as its host The Angelus as been on the side of good.
- Horned Humanoid: All its host have horns on their head as the Angelus.
- Jerkass Gods: She doesn't care about the humans as much as destroying the Darkness, in the game she is mentioned to have burned a brotherhood member so hard his soul turned to ash because he had to free the Darkness from their makeshift prison as it was causing the Brotherhood to go mad with bloodlust.
- Light Is Good: After her Heel–Face Turn.
- Light Is Not Good: Unquestionably a force of light and law. It just so happens that the Angelus is a completely sociopathic entity that believes the world should be run by her light and her laws.
- Light 'em Up: Naturally as the incarnation of light, she has complete control over it.
- Logical Weakness: While the Darkness doesn't have power in the presence of light, the inverse is applicable to Angelus. Jackie defeats her for the first time by luring her to a dark cave, deprived of light which weakened her so much that she rapidly aged in matter of moments.
- Mama Bear: While possessing Lauren Franchetti, she retains the love and affection she had for her daughter.
- Ms. Fanservice: For a primordial force of light that could easily count as an Eldritch Abomination in her own right, her female host turns into this trope when taken over by the Angelus. For instance the old and invalid Lauren Franchetti is rejuvenated into a smoking hot bombshell when she becomes the second host. Even when she wears something that covers her completely, it tends to be extremely form-fitting.
- Order Versus Chaos: The order to The Darkness' chaos.
- Omnicidal Maniac: In at least one alternate future, she managed to destroy Earth. Singlehandedly.
- Psycho Lesbian: It initially seemed to be something within the Angelus itself since the second Angelus hints at creating female sexual partners.
- Stripperific: The Angelus before taking Finch as a host.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Like other recurring villains in the comic she kind of just disappears, with her subplot being carried forward in other Top Cow series.
Butcher Joyce
Voiced by Mike Starr and Phil Idrissi- Adaptation Dye-Job: His beard is red in the comics and black in the games.
- Cleanup Crew: He scrubs up blood and chops up bodies to get rid of the evidence of mob hits. Amusingly, his nickname doesn't come from his work, but from when he "butchered" a test in school.
- In the Blood: His mother, a slaughterhouse worker, is also handy with a bone saw.
- Manly Facial Hair: He's a tough and mature man with an imposing (sometimes bloodstained) beard.
- Neutral No Longer: He spends thirty years refusing to take a side in mob power struggles, but hates Paulie enough to subtly move against him.
Jimmy the Grape
Voiced by Alex Moore and Frank Ashmore- Adaptational Heroism: He's a rival gangster in the comics, but a reliable ally in the game.
- Bearer of Bad News: A lot of his role is telling Jackie about recent moves made against him.
Comics Only
Frankie Franchetti
- Ax-Crazy: To an extraordinary level. He actually attacks Gotham City Police Department in broad daylight. Yes, that Gotham City.
- Big Bad: Arguably, the one who hurt Jackie the most.
- Domestic Abuse: While he didn't necessarily hit his wife, when he caught her cheating on him, he tied her up into a chair and slowly murdered her lover with a blow torch in front of her. The trauma rendered Lauren catatonic for many years.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Frankie is a vicious and brutal mobster, but even he was disturbed by Jackie's father Danny Estacado, who was a sadistic hitman that also had the power of Darkness, infamous for his degenerate and self-destructive ways. Frankie noted he never hired him and he was relieved to hear his death.
- Faux Affably Evil: He is often portrays himself as polite and friendly, but it does nothing to hide what a scumbag he really is.
- Hate Sink: He is a despicable mob-boss and an all-around monster with no redeeming traits.
- Kick the Dog: Killed his wife's lover with a blow torch by slow torture. He also murders Jenny, films her death and sends the tape to Jackie.
- Oh, Crap!: When he realizes Jackie has rigged the warehouse he's in to explode.
- Villainous Incest: At one point, he kisses his daughter in the lips. While she is catatonic no less.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Gives many of these to Jackie Estacado, thus increasing his loyalty.
- Would Hit a Girl: Obviously, to be expected from a psychotic mobster like him. Not to mention he is the one to personally gun down Jenny.
- Would Hurt a Child: One of his nicknames which he actually refers to is Frankie "Kill the children too" Franchetti.
Appolonia Franchetti
- Bratty Half-Pint: Jackie most certainly remember her this way.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Appolonia is unquestionably a ruthless bitch, but she loved her mother and never forgave her dad for breaking her so badly.
- Freudian Excuse: She once saw her father torturing her mother's lover to death, causing her to have a nervous breakdown.
- Harmful to Minors: No child should ever watch a man being blow-torched to death, much less by her own father - although in all fairness, Frankie never intended for see this.
- Kick the Dog: She snaps her own cat's neck just to prove a point how she will get rid of anyone that gets in her way.
- Mafia Princess: Desconstructed. Being the daughter of a particularly vicious mobster like Franchetti is not going to be good for a child's mental health.
- Obfuscating Disability: While she does get genuinely catatonic because of Jackie's actions, she is healed thanks to the Madgalena, but spends a couple of time faking it.
- Right-Hand Cat: Appolonia is introduced carrying a cat of high breed that she raised since she was a kitten. Appolonia promptly kills it in front of Jackie to show she means business.
Capris Castiglione
Jackie's twin sister.
- Action Girl
- Ax-Crazy
- Back for the Dead: Reappears in a later arc as a villain, and is promptly killed off.
- The Dragon: The Darkness' dragon in the Outer Darkness arc.
- Evil Feels Good: How she feels about the Darkness.
- Face–Heel Turn: Already beginning towards the first time she and Jackie met. It's completed by the time she next meets him, having become a psychopath in the service of the Darkness.
- Ms. Fanservice: Oddly, without being Stripperiffic.
- Put on a Bus: Disappears completely after volume 1.
- The Bus Came Back: She returns in a later arc now the Darkness' puppet.
The Magdalena
Descended from Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ, The Magdalena is an assassin born and bred to serve the Vatican in times of duress. Later got her own series.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: She and her sisters in arms are nailed to a cross and left in a church in an attempt to scare the Vatican off of hassling him. It apparently worked as the entire Vatican was Put on a Bus afterwards.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Her and the Sisters Revenant are set up as a decent threat for three issues, and get defeated in one page. In her next appearance the new Magdalena goes up against Angelus and is once again thrashed.
- Enemy Mine: She teams up with Jackie against Angelus in her second arc.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": "Magdalena" is actually her job title.
- The Fundamentalist: Marielle is fanatically devoted to her faith due to being sheltered all her life and constantly spits off Holier Than Thou dogma while fighting.
- Holy Hitman: The Vatican's finest.
- Legacy Character: The Magdalenas in Volume I and II are not the same person.
- Mind Rape: Has the supernatural power to make her victims feel the suffering of those they killed, in an attempt to do this. Unfortunately the people she tries this on are Jackie and Angelus, both of whom are far too sociopathic to care.
- Ms. Fanservice: Even by the standards of the series. Her original arc feels like an excuse for the artist to draw scantily-clad fantasy nuns getting restrained in various different ways, including on the cover art.
- Non-Protagonist Resolver: Magdelena gets possessed by Angelus but proves to be Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth and drives her away. Angelus never appears again in the main series, so Magdelena actually wound up resolving that entire plot line.
- Spin-Off: Was kind of a bit character in The Darkness who was promptly Put on a Bus, but she managed to get a couple limited series to herself and
almost had a movie. - Stripperiffic: Worth a mention since she's supposed to be a Catholic fundamentalist.
- Uncertain Doom: Marielle's last shown having been crucified with the Sisters Revenant. Angelus reveals she survived the ordeal, albeit having been put in a coma for several months.
Sonatine
- Bald of Evil: Basically looks like Lex Luthor with a tattoo.
- Big Bad: Of the first volume of the comics.
- Heel–Face Turn: The last character in the world you'd expect for one.
- Faux Affably Evil: Sonatine is hilarious, in a truly sick sick way.
- Gone Horribly Right: Tries to put the Darkness in Ian Nottingham, ends up putting the Witchblade on him too.
- Grand Theft Me: Wenders. However, retconned away.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Deconstructed. Sonatine has nowhere near Jackie's level of power and often engages in quirky bizarre behavior, then he does something from behind the scenes that ruins people's lives.
- Mind Rape: Sonatine's favorite form of humor.
- Put on a Bus: Disappears completely after the first volume.
Nino Wenders
- Depraved Homosexual: Not so much depraved as kind of pathetic.
- Fate Worse than Death: has his soul bound to Sonatine's body, which has been buried.
- Retconned away with his Grand Theft Me by Sonatine, which was itself retconned away.
- Grand Theft Me: Happens to him. Still, retconned away.
- Incompatible Orientation: How he sees his relationship with Jackie. To say Jackie wouldn't like Wenders even if he was gay is understating things.
Angelus Warriors
- Action Girl: The female Angelus warriors.
- Cool Mask: Some of the Angelus Warriors wear a mask that covers part of their face.
- Light 'em Up
- Mooks: They serve as the Angelus' mooks
- Ms. Fanservice: The female Angelus Warriors. Justified since they also double as concubines for their mistress when outside of battle.
- Stripperific: Most of the Angelus warriors are show a lot of skin.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Some of the Male Angelus warriors.
Elle
- Artificial Human: A woman of flesh and blood created Jackie using the Darkness power to be his companion.
- Back from the Dead: Despite supposedly dying while giving birth to a pure darkness being, she is revealed to have recovered.
- Cute Monster Girl / Humanoid Abomination: She is the same kind of being as the Darklings, i.e. the shadow beings summoned by Jackie, except she is human looking and more attractive.
- Death by Childbirth: Elle becomes pregnant with Jackie's son, a being of pure, concentrated darkness, whose birth tears her apart. Subverted when its revealed she had survived.
- Ms. Fanservice: Justified: Elle serves this role In-Universe because Jackie can't have sex with normal woman without risking impregnating them and himself dying, so he creates a courtesan for himself to curb his flesh desires.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Combine the fact Elle has a consistently childish mindset (an adult-looking Artificial Human won't necessarily act mature) and fact she is a humanoid being created out of primordial darkness with murderous impulses and you have this trope).
The Foreigner/Aman The Witch-King
An ancient wielder of the Darkness that was able to get rid of it through meditation and years of internal struggle.
- Contractual Immortality: In-universe, the Darkness refuses to let him stay dead
- Dark Is Evil: Played straight as the wielder of the Darkness. He's changed after being separated from it and now wants the Darkness destroyed.
- Evil Overlord: Once ruled all of Africa when he was the Darkness wielder.
- Legacy Character: A former Darkness wielder.
- No-Sell: He can negate the Darkness.
- Stealth Mentor: Spends more time mentoring Jackie of the full potential of his powers, than actually combating him whenever they meet.
- Time Abyss: Has lived for ten thousand of years.
The Sovereign
A once mighty Roman Emperor who was killed by a wielder of the Darkness alongside his family, The Sovereign is a human-turned-archdemon wishes to exact vengeance over the Darkness both for the fall of his kingdom and the deaths of himself and his family.
- A Man of Wealth and Taste: He tries to enjoy the fancier things in life despite being an animate statue.
- Archenemy: To Jackie
- Devil's Job Offer: He made a deal with the authorities of Hell in order to obtain a privileged position as a keeper of damned souls and as a lord of a corner of Hell itself
- Narcissist: His narcissism was such that he had multitudes of artists craft stone statues in his image. The Fates bound his soul after death to the many idols made in his image as a means of ironic punishment for his vanity.
- Taken for Granite: He can manifest his soul through many specially carved statues of his himself. Most of them tend to be made of durable stone.
Game Only
Brother Victor
I want the Darkness!
Voiced by William Salyers- Adaptation Distillation: Victor is arguably a much more menacing foe than Sonatine due to the fact he doesn't stop his evil schemes to engage in oddball humor.
- Big Bad: Of The Darkness II.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: To Paulie from the first game. Paulie is a fat Mafia don, who commits needless cruel crimes for pretty much any reason, is cowardly, is pretty down to Earth in a Magic Realism game, his entire personality can be summed up in over the top anger at all times, and ultimately a Zero-Effort Boss. Victor is thin, the leader of a Religion of Evil, seeks and relies on magical artifacts with supernatural ambitions, only uses the mob and underworld as a front for his operations, is pragmatic (if only slightly) and alternates between calm and collected and downright vicious. Both however are still sadistic, and both start out their respective games sending their men on a suicide mission.
- Expy: Of Sonatine.
- Evil Cripple: He's hunchbacked, wears braces on his legs, and walks with the aid of a cane.
- Evil Sorcerer: His knowledge of magical artefacts and supernatural powers put him squarely in this category; doubly so when he manages to capture the Darkness.
- Faux Affably Evil: Brother Victor can swing from insulting to condescendingly polite at the drop of a hat, all the while insisting that he's doing what he does for Jackie's own good; under this exterior, Victor is as sadistic and monstrous as they come.
- Final Boss: He's the final boss character Jackie fights before the endgame.
- Flash Step: His powers allow him to move in this manner, handily overcoming his disabilities in the process.
- Good Scars, Evil Scars: Victor is a deformed hunchback covered in scars.
- Handicapped Badass: Having a leg brace does virtually nothing to stop him from being a competent fighter against Jackie. Could be due to airing Darkness powers.
- Looks Like Orlok: To be more specific, he's described as looking like "Nosferatu on crack" by a prostitute.
- Obviously Evil: The hunchback man with a limp and scars on his face.
- Omnicidal Maniac: The implications of his speeches are that he intends to use the Darkness to bring about the end of the world.
- Hilariously, it's implied by Johnny the Brotherhood's Omnicidal Maniac tendancies come from the Darkness.
- Religion of Evil: He and his brotherhood worships the Darkness. Enough said.
- Smug Snake: As part of his Faux Affably Evil demeanour.
- Villain Teleportation: Aquires this power when he harasses the powers of the Darkness.
Johnny Powell
Voiced by David Hoffman
- Admiring the Abomination: Johnny Powell can be surprisingly... aroused by many of the artifacts you bring him.
- Crazy Homeless People: According to Vinnie, the "new guys" found him living under a bridge in a cardboard box. They didn't (seeing as finding him is a goal of the first mission of the "Vendettas" campaign), but he does say that he lives in such a situation.
- Crazy Sane: Johnny comes off as a complete nut, and he is but he's arguably the most well-informed man on the planet regarding the supernatural.
- Cunning Linguist: Johnny is implied to speak multiple dead languages.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: Implied to be the reason for Johnny's insanity.
- Gibbering Genius: He is a scholar on occult matters. He can also barely keep speak in coherent sentences due to being a neurotic mess whose mind is tainted by exposure to said occult matters.
- Humans Are Morons: Grumbles that this is pretty much the case while explaining "the Fool's Phylactery."
- Large Ham: And how!
- Mr. Exposition: He knows everything there is to know about anything related to The Darkness and is the one to tell Jackie about the Brotherhood and the Angelus. He's also the one to narrate the backstories of the collectible relics.
- Nightmare Fetishist: If he's not terrified out of his life by it, chances are that Johnny will be gushing over a lot of the Darkness relics that are brought to him. The multiplayer campaign features him being alternatively fascinated and horrified by the four character's weaponry, noting the history or the magical power behind it- and frequently asking why anyone would bother using it.
- Only Sane Man: As the only character in the entire game with adequate knowledge as to what might be going on, this is a given- even if he spends most of the game talking to himself. The Asylum levels take this even further, in which he's one of the few patients that can help Jackie escape.
- The Smart Guy: In the second game to Jackie's Five-Man Band.
- Red Right Hand: Johnny's left eye.
Multiplayer Characters
J.P. Dummond
- Badass Bookworm: Intelligent, well-spoken and effortlessly keeps pace with a Master Swordsman, a trained Mossad agent and a drunken homicidal Scotsman.
- Badass in a Nice Suit: While missing a jacket, J.P. is the only one of the crew who wears somewhat formal clothes, consisting of trousers, a shirt and tie and dapper waistcoat.
- Combat Medic: J.P. used to be a respected doctor before turning to Louisiana Voodoo to heal his patients. In combat, his innate talent is Heart Destroy Healer, allowing him to recover more health when he executes an enemy.
- Deadly Doctor: The reason J.P. is a playable character? He attempted to heal patients with Voodoo and it backfired, forcing him to join the Estacado family for protection.
- Magic Staff: His Midnight Stick, which can levitate enemies or just destroy them outright if enough damage is dealt.
- Nice Guy: Compared to his colleagues at least and provided you're on his good side. Whenever he talks to Vinnie or Johnny on the radio he is always polite and seems happy to have found a fellow scholar of the Darkness in Johnny.
- Hollywood Voodoo: Some of his abilities seem to be channelling voodoo imagery. For bonus points, the achivement unlocked after completing a mission with him is called "Voodoo is more than dolls." He is also stated to have turned to a form of Louisiana Voodoo in an attempt to help his patients.
- Witch Doctor
Inugami
- Animal Motifs: Dogs. A lot of his combat chatter has him referring to himself as "The Hound". Taken to extreme however when he actually starts howling like one.
- His name is based on a Dog Yōkai of the same name that's said to grant its blessing and power to those who seek revenge.
- The Atoner: Part of a bloodline of one. His sword Kusanagi was once used in the slaughter of one thousand innocent souls and as such each new bearer of the sword is cursed to feed it one thousand wicked souls to redeem it. The big catch however, is that for each day Kusanagi goes with out feeding, the bearer loses one year of their life.
- Axe-Crazy: A combination of his desire for revenge against the Brotherhood, along with his desire to feed Kusanagi's bloodlust has made him the most unhinged of the multiplayer characters.
- The Berserker: His skill set enforces this by giving him short invincibility bursts when Inugami performs melee executions as well as damage reduction when sprinting.
- Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Some enemies mock him for his sword. He swiftly proves them wrong.Mook: What you're gonna do with that? Slice me open?!Mook: Hey numbnuts! People use guns nowadays!
- Ninja: Dolfo thinks so at least.
- Sword and Gun: He uses his sword in tandem with a firearm on his right hand.
- You Killed My Father: And his mother and his two year old little brother while he was Forced to Watch. As a result he hates the Brotherhood with a passion.
Shoshanna
- Badass Israeli: She's a former MOSSAD agent, it goes without saying.
- Charged Attack: Her Arm of the Night can be charged up to deal extra damage.
- Consummate Professional: By far the most efficient and disciplined of the multiplayer characteres. Hilariously she is so disciplined that she exasperates the more relaxed Mafia Mission Control with Vinnie repeatedly telling her to stop calling him sir. It doesn't take.
- Glass Cannon: With sufficient upgrades to her Gun Channeling power, she has perhaps the best room-clearing capabilities of the multiplayer characters but has very few abilities that increase her survivability compared to other characters.
- Guns Akimbo: Her specialty, particularly since she's the only character who uses a gun for her unique weapon and thus the only character who can do this.
- Gun Kata: Has an ability called exactly this.
- Sawed-Off Shotgun: Her Arm of the Night.
- The Unfettered: Shows shades of this, especially points 3, 4 and 5 on the list.
Jimmy Wilson
- The Alcoholic: According to his character bio, Jimmy is perpetually drunk. His picture during conversations is just him taking a drink from a flask.
- Axe-Crazy: Shows shades of this. Still nowhere as bad as Inugami though.
- The Big Guy: He's the biggest and most brutish of the multiplayer character, complete with a passive damage resistance bonus.
- Blood Knight: He loves a good fight.
- Boomerang Comeback: Any enemies hit when he recalls his axe after throwing it will be knocked towards him.
- The Minion Master: His unique power is to summon Darklings that run at enemies and explode.
- Summon to Hand: He can summon his axe back to his hand after throwing it.
- Troll: When Johnny asks when he got his Dark Axe Jimmy claims that he received it from the Lady of the Lake in a dream. In truth he apparently found it in the woods and liked the balance
- Violent Glaswegian : His character in a nutshell.
