The Darkness

The Darkness
TheDarkness.jpg
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.


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 significantly 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.