Charlie Nash

Charlie Nash is a character from the Street Fighter games.

Guile's dead combat buddy as mentioned in his  Street Fighter II  ending. He was sent to investigate Shadaloo due to causing corruption in the military, as well as involvement in global drug trading. He eventually confronts Bison, but ends up dying by his hand, with each of the  Alpha games giving possibilities as to his fate. Depending on the game, he is either killed by Bison directly (Alpha 1), betrayed by his fellow Air Force unit and shot via helicopter before being sent careening off a Venezuelan waterfall (Alpha 2), or dies sacrificing himself to hold Bison off as his base explodes (Alpha 3*). It was strongly suggested that Charlie was still alive, as there was no trace of any bodies at the site where he presumably died. In addition, it was revealed that he was the one who rescued Abel from the Shadaloo base where he was being held. And now, after over a decade and a half, Charlie returns as a playable character in  Street Fighter V  bearing a stitched-up body à la Frankenstein's Monster. It is revealed that his  Alpha 2  ending is the canon one, and he survived the fall, being saved by a Russian woman named Helen. After learning of his betrayal, and the fact that he has been written off as dead by the military, Nash is left only with hatred and rage, swearing that he will kill Bison by any means necessary.

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 an orange flak vest. He has glasses, which he takes off before a fight, and an exaggerated hairstyle consisting of a large forelock of blond hair. 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 Helen 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 refered 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 behaviour.

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 prologue and cinematic story modes 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 prologue, 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 prologue 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.

Abilities
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.

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.

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.

Trivia

 * Nash's Street Fighter V seiyuu (Kōsuke Toriumi) previously voiced Fei Long in Street Fighter Alpha 3 and is the voice actor of Strider Hiryu from Capcom's Strider action platformer series.


 * Like Guile, Charlie must have had some flight training, particularly with the AV-8B Harrier II in order to perform the Sonic Boom and Flash Kick.


 * In the Mega Man Remix and the Mega Man Maniax mangas by Ariga Hitoshi, Charlie briefly appears as a news caster in several chapters. Instead of going by his Japanese name of Nash, he is simply called Charlie.


 * Capcom character Dave the scientist, who is one of Devilotte's assistants in Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness, has a minor similar hair and facial appearance to Charlie.


 * In the second promotional trailer for Street Fighter V, which focused on the return of Charlie as a playable character, the theme Nothing Can Keep Me Away from the album Epic Action & Adventure Vol. 10 is playing as the musical background.


 * As the story of the Alpha series takes place in the late 1980's, his background story appears to tie in heavily with the controversial real life US Government endorsed nationwide campaign of the "War On Drugs"; though the agenda was well and alive throughout in the 20th Century, the war saw higher activity during upon the 1970's and the 1980's due to the flood of cocaine and crack cocaine, and the start of a youth awareness program series to warn the young of the alleged dangers recreational drugs could have. Furthermore, how Charlie is targeting infrastructural corruption regarding the military and drug pushing is reference to many allegations throughout the US that certain branches of the US Military and government bought mass quantities of cocaine from South American rebels regarding the rise of Communist and totalitarian regimes, and to support by funding them to overthrow said governments, but remains highly questionable in practice and effectiveness on retrospect; how Shadaloo's position is located in South America in the Alpha series strongly hints at this.


 * According to Udon's Street Fighter V comic, The Life and Death(s) of Charlie Nash, it is possible that Charlie may be a man of religion.


 * On his Street Fighter V character artwork, the statues in the background resemble those of Gill's stage from Street Fighter III: 2nd Impact.


 * Charlie's Battle Outfit 1 in Street Fighter V has a color scheme that is possibly inspired by Gray Fox from Konami's Metal Gear series.


 * Charlie also bears some physical similarities with Dean from the Final Fight games. Both wear military-inspired clothing, have similar fighting stances and have striking blond hairstyles. Dean also has a forelock similar to Charlie. Like Guy and Cody are the Final Fight counterparts to Ryu and Ken, Dean could be considered the Final Fight counterpart to Charlie.


 * His Halloween costume in Street Fighter V is based on Victor from the Darkstalkers series, also made by Capcom. Dan even asks if he can shoot electricity now.


 * His crossover costume in Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition is Captain Commando from Capcom's beat 'em up game of the same name. Coincidentally his Tragedy Assault looks very similar to Captain Commando's "Captain Corridor". He even has a new move called "Justice Corridor".