Charlie Nash

"Until every sin and atrocity is punished by justice, my duty will not be complete!"

—Charlie (Street Fighter Alpha 3)

"If you stand in my way...I will kill you.
(私の邪魔をするのなら…消えてもらう。, Watashi no jama o suru nonara...kiete morau.^?)"

—Nash (Street Fighter V)

Charlie Nash (チャーリー・ナッシュ, Chārī Nasshu^?) is a video game character from the Street Fighter series, first appearing in Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams, having originally been referenced by name in Street Fighter II: The World Warrior. He is a former Captain of the United States Air Force and friend of Guile, long thought to be dead before being brought back to life as a puppet for the Secret Society.

Biography

Creation

Charlie was created as the victim whose death Guile was avenging during the Street Fighter II series. What was most interesting was that this character did not have a face, only a name when being mentioned in 1991. In fact even the developers at Capcom didn't know what Charlie looked like originally. In some unused art of Super Street Fighter II by Bengus the only photo that Guile had of his friend wearing the same green tank-top, however his face isn't visible due to the photo being partially burnt. Making him the original gaming unknown soldier.

Players were questioning if Charlie was a friend or family member who was murdered in the line of duty. Guile would hoist his dog tags in the air in some victory animations. The myth behind Charlie grew as the endings in the Street Fighter II were changed and new details were added. In the English-scripted ending, Guile accuses M. Bison of the murder of his dear friend Charlie in Cambodia; this plot element was added to give Guile's backstory more character development. Since The World Warrior, Guile would threaten M. Bison; but in Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Guile would visit the grave of his friend. Guile is a visually unique character, with his military look and tall haircut, but he became interesting thanks to his ending. He attacked M. Bison after his defeat, grabbing him by the collar. It was a palpable rage when he brought up the names of Charlie and Cambodia. Audiences didn't know quite what happened but it sounded like a serious incident occurred several years ago. When Charlie Nash was killed, Guile was less muscular, considered by M. Bison as a runt, Only Guile's wife and daughter were able to talk him out of killing M. Bison. Some of the endings in the game were silly (such as Blanka, Zangief, and Dhalsim), but most were played out like a dramatic movie, Guile's ending was no exception. He had abandoned his family in the pursuit of revenge and was reunited once his vendetta was completed.

When Charlie debut in Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams in 1995, much like how Guile's hairstyle was inspired by both Jean-Pierre Polnareff and Rudolf von Stroheim, Nash's was inspired by Polnareff's teammate, Noriaki Kakyoin.

Of course many Capcom fans with a keen-eye have pointed out that the official design of Charlie bares a striking resemblance to Dave the scientist. He was one of the alien henchmen characters from Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness. He served under Princess Devilotte de Deathsatan IX, an over-the-top lolita-dressed alien bent on universal domination. It is noticeable that the same hair and glasses on both characters. Dave debuted a few months before Charlie, it's entirely possible that the artists liked the look of the character and incorporated some of his visual cues on Charlie as well.

Name

The name "Charlie" was bestowed upon the character by Capcom USA after its failure to recognize that he was already named "Nash" in the original Japanese Street Fighter II ending. This was due to the name being written in hiragana as なっしゅ (Nasshu) in the game's limited text style; as a non-Japanese name, Nash should have instead been rendered with katakana as ナッシュ.

In the comic adaptation of Street Fighter by UDON as well as The Legend of Chun-Li film, Charlie's Japanese name was repurposed into his surname. This was eventually canonized by Capcom with Street Fighter IV, where his full name of "Charlie Nash" is written on the dog tags shown in Guile's intro. This name is now used in all languages.

In all versions of Street Fighter V, Charlie Nash is primarily referred to by surname, though he is occasionally spoken to on a first name basis in the English and Japanese version of his character story.

Appearance

Due to Charlie's integral role as a character in Guile's backstory, many Street Fighter adaptations produced prior to the release of Street Fighter Alpha featured various depictions of Charlie.

Charlie wears green cargo pants with boots of the same color and a bright orange flak vest. He has glasses, which he takes off before a fight, and his short and choppy blond hair is an exaggerated hairstyle consisting of a large forelock. The glasses are not necessary for him to see, and appear to be purely cosmetic. He has his classic outfit as an alternate costume in Street Fighter V.

In Cannon Spike, Charlie's flak vest is yellow, he has a black sleeveless undershirt within his jacket, his cargo pants are dark green and he wears a different shades of green combat boots.

Charlie retains a similar outfit for his return in Street Fighter V; however, his body appears to have been patched back together, as it is covered in grotesque staples, and patches of his skin are discolored, implying he has had numerous skin grafts since his mission in Street Fighter Alpha 3, or rather, since his death in Street Fighter Alpha 2. His hair is now platinum blonde and his right forearm and hand, right shoulder, and the front-right portion of his skull including his eye, are crudely replaced and stapled up with transplanted dark-skinned body parts. These are implied to come from Eleven, one of the Illuminati's failed mimicry experiments. Another curious feature includes the green gem embedded in his forehead, which is similar to the ones implanted in Gill's and Urien's foreheads which it was casted upon by Kolin to keep himself alive. His flak vest and cargo pants are brown while his combat boots are light green. The upper outlines and the collar of his flak vest is golden yellow.

Charlie's premium outfit resembles his original concept art, which was referred to as "assassin".

In his Halloween DLC costume, Nash retains his pants and boots from his primary outfit but gains a long collared vest. His skin tone becomes lighter, making his appearance similar to that of Frankenstein's Monster. He can choose to fight with or without the vest.

Personality

Charlie is a calm and confident fighter - sometimes to a fault - with a strong sense of justice. Charlie has a crime-fighting attitude akin to his friend Guile, though more out of righteousness rather than revenge; even so, he sometimes acts reckless. While normally he acts in a professional manner, he lets his emotions get the better of him at times. In his Alpha artwork Charlie is shown relaxing while drinking scotch and reading a book which is very different from Guile’s behavior.

In Street Fighter V, Charlie's personality is seen to have taken a drastic turn for initially unknown reasons. Instead of the calm, cool, and sarcastic paragon of justice from the Alpha series, Charlie is now cold, sadistic, vengeful, misanthropic and driven by an obsessive need to kill M. Bison. Consumed with this obsession, Charlie is ruthless to friends and enemies alike, three examples (shown in win-quotes) are threatening the life of Chun-Li, telling Alex to not fight him if the former is not prepared for death and having nothing to say to Guile about his revival. He is also far less forgiving and takes on a more nihilistic tone, judging Cammy as being just as guilty as M. Bison due to formerly being his slave, whereas during their encounter in Alpha 3, he considered her an innocent victim of Shadaloo's cruelty. Charlie considers Birdie's existence as useless, calling him an "idiotic pig" and questioning why he is even alive, even though Birdie is no longer a member of Shadaloo at the time of Street Fighter V.

Despite his ruthless personality, however, he still has his calmer side from before, his encounter with Ryu and remembering Chun-Li, Guile and Cammy being two examples. This is also more apparent in A Shadow Falls after he fails to kill Bison. When Rashid mentions his missing friend, Charlie is shocked by his words, having retained his conscience and realizing that his friends need him. This restores his calmer side, which is finally shown after he is rescued by Guile, the two work together to restrain the Psycho Power-consumed Abel, and the former gives him back his dog tag to rekindle their friendship.

It may be thought that the reason for his obvious personality change in Street Fighter V comes from his resurrection, making him akin to a revenant zombie. This is hinted at by the "Paradoxical Avenger" title in his biography card in official SFV social media material. However, information in both the character story and A Shadow Falls may tell a different story: that he'd reached this heated state of mind entirely on his own as a result of everything else that had happened.

Going by his character story, he had rushed to engage M. Bison at the waterfall despite not being medically cleared for duty. After said fight resulted in his betrayal, mutilating fall, certain death, and resurfacing with his new body, he soon discovered that the military had long written him off as dead. Furthermore, as teased by the CGI opening intro and character story, and ultimately confirmed by the full cinematic story, he was actually physically dead and his resurrected body would not last very long. Rather than zombie-like tunnel vision, it's very likely that his ruthless single-target personality came naturally: his hatred for M. Bison was already boiling over to the point he was losing his cool even before being betrayed by his own men, said hatred was most likely exacerbated as well as mixed in with paranoia following his betrayal, and the knowledge that his resurrected body was living on borrowed time left him in a rush to complete his mission and kill Bison as soon as possible at the expense of all other priorities. The paranoia and hatred was somehow soothed however by the presence of his friends that he once tried to shove off and threatened.

Of special note, however, is that his special win quotes are less threatening to more recent characters than the original cast, perhaps reflecting his eventual calming down in the series.

Character Relationships

M. Bison

Charlie has a strong hatred of Shadaloo and M. Bison, and wishes to end the evil organization and its ruler once and for all. This was only exacerbated when Bison engineered Charlie's death, as both Guile and the revived Charlie would swear vengeance over it. In Street Fighter V, several of Charlie's win quotes state that his sole purpose is now exacting revenge upon Bison, which is confirmed in A Shadow Falls as being the reason the Illuminati brought him back. That said, he was unsuccessful in his attempts to defeat Bison until launching a final assault at Shadaloo's Four Kings Lair, absorbing as much as Bison's powers as he could before his body combusted. While Bison was still alive and apparently unscathed from the blast, his Psycho Power was noticeably weaker than before, allowing Ryu to defeat him. Tragically, Bison resurfaces once more in Street Fighter 6, but in an amnesiac state, making Charlie's efforts futile for the second time.

Guile

Charlie is Guile's superior officer and close friend. Charlie is also the one who taught Guile his current fighting style. He also greatly values Guile; in order to save him and Chun-Li, he sacrificed his own life in a vain effort to end Bison. Despite his warped mental state in Street Fighter V, it is implied that he still sees Guile as a close friend. However, based on both their win quotes against each other, Charlie's change seems to mar their friendship, as Charlie states that he has nothing more to say to him about his revival. This also shows in the game's cinematic story mode, in which Helen instructs him to take a special chess piece from Guile to help him stop Shadaloo. Despite his shock at being told to fight Guile, he later confronts Guile as well as Chun-Li and Cammy coldly without a single word, as the former tells the two to stay back as they fight. Charlie manages to overpower Guile, who still doesn't fully believe this is actually him due to his stitched-together appearance and detached ruthless demeanor. However, in later scenes, the two rekindle their friendship and values after Guile rescues him from being chased from Necalli.

Chun-Li

Charlie also has a close friendship with Chun-Li, as he risked his life to save hers and his Street Fighter V prologue story has him and Guile offering to fight alongside her as well as advising her to keep her cool and not underestimate her enemies, which Charlie knows is critical to survival in battle. However, in Street Fighter V, Charlie's win quote mentions he will kill her if she stands in his way again; Chun-Li attempts to arrest Charlie in response, in her winquotes. Because of their friendship, it might mean Chun-Li is trying to salvage Charlie's mind and morals of justice, instead of killing for revenge. In A Shadow Falls, he pays her no attention in his initial mission to take Guile's control key, but later maintains his friendship and respect to her during the final assault against Shadaloo.

Abel

While there is little interaction between the two, Charlie is the one who saved Abel from Shadaloo.

Ryu

Ryu and Charlie both respect each others skill after they fought in China.

Crossover appearances

Marvel vs. Capcom games

Charlie was one of the playable characters in X-Men vs. Street Fighter. In his ending, he is captured by M. Bison, who performs terrible experiments on him. Charlie's fate would be left up in the air until Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter, where a secret character by the name of Shadow appeared.

Shadow is a palette swap of Charlie, with nearly his entire body blacked out, and a white eye shining behind his glasses. He has all of Charlie's moves, but his attacks set his opponent alight with blue Psycho Power flames. His Hyper Combos also have a brief pause where his eye gleams before the move was pulled off (this made him somewhat unpopular, as the gleam could give an opponent enough time to block or avoid the attack).

Shadow would later appear in Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes as a secret helper character. In addition, the ending for Chun-Li also hinted that Bison intended to alter her in the same way, and another hidden character, called Shadow Lady, was a Shadow-altered Chun-Li. Shadow Lady's ending in the game also showed a similar fate befalling fellow Capcom character Jin Saotome.

In Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, Charlie appears as his normal self, indicating that this game's events may have taken place prior to the others, or that his alteration was somehow undone by unknown means (due to this game taking place years after MvC1). He cannot transform into his Shadow form unlike Zangief and Sakura for their own alternate forms.

Tatsunoko vs. Capcom

Charlie was planned to be a playable character (alongside Ibuki and M. Bison) in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, but was dropped due to time constraints.^[8]

Cannon Spike

Outside of fighting games, Charlie is one of the playable characters (and one of the three Street Fighter characters, the other ones being Cammy and Vega) in the multi-directional shooter game Cannon Spike.

Capcom Fighting Evolution

Charlie made a cameo appearance (along with fellow Street Fighter characters Dhalsim, Ken, Sean and Dudley) in Pyron's ending.

Street Fighter X Tekken

Tekken fighter Steve Fox uses Charlie's outfit as his Swap Costume in Street Fighter X Tekken.

Puzzle Fighter

Charlie is one of the selectable character in the mobile game Puzzle Fighter. His Tragedy Assault has him slashing the opponent with his hand and then summoning a lightning bolt.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

Charlie appears as one of the game's collectible support spirits. Equipping him will grant the player's fighter Death's scythe.

Comics

Street Fighter II manga

In Masaomi Kanzaki's manga adaptation of Street Fighter II, Guile is directly responsible for Charlie's death. Years before the events of the manga, M. Bison uses Charlie and other members of Guile's unit as guinea pigs for a mind-controlling substance. Charlie went insane during a mission and began attacking unarmed villagers, causing Guile to kill him. Charlie is shown in the manga as a silhouette with an insane smile.

Street Fighter Alpha manga

In the Street Fighter Alpha manga by Masahiko Nakahira, Charlie encounters Chun-Li, Ryu, and Ken in Florida, where Ken had been fighting at a tournament. He personally speaks with Chun-Li, introducing himself and informing her of Shadaloo's growing power. The two discuss their plans to work together against the criminal organization, and Charlie decides to work behind-the-scenes to acquire data and communicate with Chun-Li as she goes along to Shadaloo's tournament with Ryu.

Later on, when Bison launches an attack on Shinjuku-ward, Tokyo, Japan, Charlie joins Chun-Li in attacking Bison's "flying fortress" (a jet containing his Psycho Drive), where he briefly battles Vega. Chun-Li tells Charlie about the Psycho Drive and its connection to Bison's power; this is the final scene in which Charlie appears in the manga.

UDON comics

His story in UDON's Street Fighter comics mixes in a few elements from Marvel vs. Capcom.

Charlie is captured by M. Bison and, the as dictator's infamous Psycho Power is forced into his body, he witnesses Dorai's demise at the hands of one of the Dolls. Brainwashed into becoming "Agent Shadow" of Shadaloo, Charlie is assigned to monitor those who are perceived as a threat to Bison's criminal empire. After Vega's failed attempt at assassinating Ken and his fiancee Eliza, Shadow is instructed to eliminate Guile and Chun-Li who were closing in on Bison. He confronts the two and emerges victorious, but, before he is to execute them, Guile throws him his dogtags and reminds him of the past and his true identity. Confused, Shadow flees the scene deserting the Shadaloo ranks in the process.

Upon reflection, Charlie realizes that he was nothing but a mindless puppet in the service of a global crime syndicate. He joins his former army buddy Guile and interpol agent Chun-Li in their mission to put an end to Shadaloo schemes. As he briefs in Chun-Li of her father's fate, M. Bison arrives at the scene and guns Charlie down.

Bison proceeds to effortlessly defeat Guile and Chun-Li, but before he is able to finish them off, an injured Charlie intervenes and strikes him down with a Psycho Powered Sonic Boom. Charlie discloses that, in order to turn him into the Bison's mindless drone, Shadaloo scientists infused him with dictator's own Psycho Power which gave him great strength but deprived him of his free will. With his new powers under his command, Charlie goes on to fight Bison who, after initial surprise, quickly regains composure and defeats Nash. In a final, drastic effort, an badly wounded Charlie performs Somersault Justice and cuts down the cliff on which the battle took place plummeting both Bison and himself into the abyss.

Charlie is never seen again, except in Abel's flashback. Here, Charlie is the one who rescues Abel from a burning Shadaloo facility. Some time later, when Abel wakes up from a coma suffering from amnesia, he finds himself adopted by one of Charlie's army buddies. Since Seth and the other numbers were completed after Abel escaped, and Seth somehow learned the one-handed Sonic Boom by the time he collected all the abilities he wanted, it is highly possible that Charlie was captured by Shadaloo or S.I.N. This might be canon, since Guile, according to his win quote against Abel in SSFIV, notices that his friend was the one to rescue Abel.

Two bonus comics focus on Charlie. One of them shows Charlie rescuing Guile who was held hostage by enemy forces; the other shows him sparring with Guile in a military base.

Charlie is the subject of an special UDON comic: Street Fighter V: The Life and Death(s) of Charlie Nash, a compilation of past stories which cover both his background, including his previous military work and encounters with Guile, and every instance of him "dying" up to and including Street Fighter Alpha 3. The comic also cover the details behind his "revival" (showing that it was performed by the Secret Society) leading up to his appearance in Street Fighter V, as well as Charlie's Shadow persona.

Charlie also appeared in the epilogue of Street Fighter Unlimited and during the events of Street Fighter vs. Darkstalkers, where he battles Victor von Gerdenheim before Victor is taken to the Makai by Lilith in search of technology that could help Kolin resurrect Gill. Unlike Street Fighter V, where he only helped the Society so he could face off against Bison, his goals appear to align more closely to the Society's.

Live-action movies

Street Fighter: The Ultimate Battle

Charlie is amalgamated with the character of Blanka to form the character Carlos "Charlie" Blanka and is a friend of Colonel William Guile and a soldier in his unit, who is taken prisoner in Bison's Shadaloo compound. He is black-haired, green-eyed, Brazilian, Allied Nations uniform-wearing, hybrid of Charlie and Blanka is before the canon appearance of Charlie Nash in Street Fighter Alpha: Warriors' Dreams.

Charlie is amalgamated with the character of Blanka to form the character Carlos "Charlie" Blanka (portrayed by Italian-Australian actor Robert Mammone), a friend of Colonel Guile and a soldier in his unit, who is taken prisoner in Bison's Shadaloo compound. This character appeared before Charlie's canon debut in Street Fighter Alpha.

When Bison discovers the friendship between Charlie and Guile through one of Guile's threats, he sends Charlie to be brainwashed and mutated by Dr. Dhalsim (Bison's unwilling scientist in this film) to become the green-skinned, red-haired killing machine known simply as Blanka. Dhalsim, however, secretly changes Blanka's mental programming to prevent him from becoming a killer.

During a scuffle between Dhalsim and the lab guard, Blanka is released prematurely and his first act is to murder the guard to save Dhalsim. He later attacks Guile when he sneaks into the lab, but recognizes him as his friend. He is almost shot by Guile in order to end his suffering, but Dhalsim stops him on the grounds that Blanka is essentially still himself. Blanka and Dhalsim later fight Bison's forces together when the AN army attacks Bison's base. In the climax, however, Blanka refuses to return to civilization with Guile in his state, choosing to perish in the explosion of Bison's base along with a repentant Dhalsim.

In the video game based on the movie, Blanka is a playable character, though in his mutated incarnation with the original Blanka's moveset. His ending in the home version reveals that he and Dhalsim both survived the explosion and Dhalsim eventually reverted him to his human form.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

In this film, Charlie (portrayed by Chris Klein) is an Interpol agent. When both him and Royal Thai Police detective Maya Sunee mee are called to investigate the murder of several crime syndicate families in Bangkok, Nash informs Maya that the Shadaloo perpetrated these crimes.

Street Fighter: Resurrection

Charlie is featured in the series with Alain Moussi portraying the character, this is the first live-action version of Charlie Nash to be game-accurate.

Animations

Street Fighter: The Animated Series

The American animated Street Fighter TV series, which aired from 1995 to 1997, adapts Blanka's origins from the live-action film into the series, thus merging Blanka and Charlie's characters into one as well.

The episode "Eye of the Beholder" features Blanka reverting to his human form and he is given clothing similar to the ones Charlie wears in the Alpha games, but with Blanka's color scheme (a green vest and brown cargo pants). However, Charlie still retains Blanka's height and voice, and he's a lot slender than Blanka. In addition, Charlie is originally blond and blue-eyed in the original video game series. In the animated series, he has medium brown skin, black hair, and dark brown eyes.

Street Fighter II V

In the Street Fighter II V anime series, Charlie (voiced by Ryōichi Tanaka) is referred as Nash. He is Guile's best friend, who has served alongside of him in several combat situations. He dies during the mission to rescue Ken from M. Bison's fortress, killed by Bison himself.

Since the show was produced before the development of Street Fighter Alpha, Charlie does not resemble his in-game counterpart at all. In the show, he holds an impressive similar appearance to the French actor Jean Reno.

While Nash is known as "Charlie" in the English localization of the games, Nash retains his Japanese name for the English dub of the show (except in one scene where Guile calls him "Charlie", implying that his full name is Charlie Nash).

Gameplay

Fighting style

Charlie was introduced as the one who originally taught Guile his current fighting style. Because of this, Charlie is a “clone” who uses the same fighting style, complete with most of the same normal and special attacks, but with some few differences. The main difference is that Charlie's fighting style is “perfected” and relaxed, while Guile's is less proficient because of his short temper and lack of focus. This is shown in his ability to throw a Sonic Boom with one hand (and sometimes even his feet), as well as his two-hit Flash Kick that uses both legs. In addition, Charlie also possesses the Knee Bazooka, one of the only few dash attacks in Street Fighter Alpha 3. In A Shadow Falls, Charlie uses the Sonic Hurricane against M. Bison.

Moveset

In Street Fighter V, much like his personality and appearance, his moveset has undergone a drastic change while still retaining some of its original roots; he now utilizes the Moonsault Slash, an overhead attack from the air from both X-Men vs. Street Fighter and Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes. His Flash Kick, now called Sonic Scythe, has been altered as it is performed differently and with one leg. Charlie also appears to exhibit powers similar to M. Bison, including his wind-like ki emanates a dark, Psycho Power-esque hue during a few of his attacks and he can teleport with Sonic Move, that allows Charlie to warp behind or above his opponent. As of Street Fighter V, Charlie is no longer a charge character.

In general, Charlie possess a drastically retooled and more violent fighting style; this includes a new tackle maneuver, Tragedy Assault, in which Charlie violently shoves his opponent's head to the ground and shocks them with a bolt of electricity, and the Judgement Sabre in which Charlie forces a vertical Sonic Hurricane into the opponent's head.

Super Combos

Charlie's first Super Combo in the Alpha series (and his X-Ism Super) is Somersault Justice, in which Charlie unleashes a series of back-to-back Flash Kicks; in A-Ism levels 1 and 2 feature two Flash Kicks, while level 3 adds a third.

Charlie's second Super Combo is the Sonic Break. Charlie throws a number of Sonic Boom attacks in various ways and numbers depending on the level of Super used. At level 3, Charlie throws a Sonic Boom normally, then via an uppercut, then with a Spinning Back Knuckle and finally kicks a Sonic Boom to demonstrate his mastery of the attack.

Charlie's third Super Combo is the Crossfire Blitz. At level 3, Charlie strings together a series of grounded hard kicks leading into a series of jumping roundhouses and ending with several ki-infused punches, finishing with an uppercut.

In Street Fighter V, Charlie's Critical Art is the Judgement Sabre. When executed, Charlie dashes through his opponent (the attack is a strike but the dash does not deal a hit if unblocked) who becomes enveloped by black mist. Rising up behind them, the mist dissipates and Charlie slams a vertical Sonic Hurricane into the opponent's head, dealing ten hits.

Stage Themes

Videos

See also

• Charlie's moves in Street Fighter Alpha 3
• Nash's moves in Street Fighter V

References