Charlie

Charlie Nash (チャーリーナッシュ, Chaarii Nasshu), usually called Charlie in English and Nash (ナッシュ, Nasshu) in Japan, was a character from the Street Fighter series of fighting games.

Charlie was first mentioned by name in the Street Fighter II storyline (first released in 1991), where he is the deceased war buddy of Guile, one of the playable characters in the game. Charlie was canonically introduced in Street Fighter Alpha, which takes place between the events of the original Street Fighter and SFII.

Biography

A member of a "secret elite military team", Charlie Nash co-piloted a special mission into Thailand along with his long-time friend, Guile. Their mission backfired and they were both captured. After their escape, Charlie was convinced that the enemy had had inside information from someone within the U.S. military, and is determined to get to the bottom of it, seeking whoever had been behind the incident in Thailand.

As suggested by the fighter planes seen in the background of his stages, Charlie may not be a member of the US Air Force, but rather the United States Marine Corps Aviation, as that branch uses the AV-8B Harrier II and the F/A-18C Hornet, which are seen in Charlie's stages throughout the Alpha series.

Name

Charlie is known as Nash in Japanese iterations. This is due to the Japanese-English translation error in Street Fighter II and its upgrades where, in Guile's ending, Guile accuses M. Bison of killing his friend Charlie in Cambodia. In the Japanese version of the game, however, there is no mentioning of Guile's friend's name nor Cambodia.

Appearance

Charlie wears green cargo pants and a light yellow flak jacket. 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 as the lack of glasses does not seem to hamper his ability and sight.

His outfit (minus the forelock) is also Guile's alternate costume in Street Fighter IV.

Personality

Charlie was a calm and confident fighter - sometimes to a fault - with a strong sense of justice. Charlie had a crime-fighting attitude akin to his friend Guile, though more out of righteousness rather than revenge; even so, he sometimes acted reckless. While normally he acted in a professional manner, he did not let his emotions get the better of him at times.

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.

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.

Chun-Li

Charlie also has a close friendship with Chun-Li, as he risked his life to save hers.

Story

Street Fighter Alpha and Alpha 2

Charlie is given a mission to track down M. Bison and uncover Shadaloo soldiers in the American military army. In his SFA ending, he defeats Bison. As he calls for backup, Bison attacks him from behind and apparently kills him. In SFA2, Charlie encounters Rolento, who wants to know what Charlie's intentions are. When Charlie mentions about Shadaloo, Rolento decides to stop him. Charlie's ending sees him eventually tracking Bison down to Brazil and confronting him near a waterfall. After the battle, Charlie interrogates Bison. Before he can get a response, he is shot from the back by his intended backup helicopter and falls from the waterfall. Bison does not see Nash as a threat and does not bother to confirm whether he died. These endings, however, can hardly be considered canon since Charlie reappears very much alive later, in Street Fighter Alpha 3.

Street Fighter Alpha 3

In Street Fighter Alpha 3, Charlie's fate has two outcomes. The central plot is that Charlie supposedly goes AWOL; however, he is really undercover to investigate Shadaloo and its connection to the military. The latter ending is what actually happened according to the plot of the series; the first is an alternate "what if" ending.

In his main ending, found by completing the campaign mode as Charlie, he tracks down Bison, survives battle and manages to destroy Shadaloo's secret base. This ending isn't canonical because Charlie is dead by the hands of Bison as of Street Fighter II, which takes place after Alpha 3.

In the updated console ports of Alpha 3, Guile is added to the playable roster as well. In Guile's storyline, he is ordered by his superiors to track Charlie. After realizing Charlie's intentions, Guile teams up with Charlie in order to destroy Bison's Psycho Drive, while Bison was regenerated after Ryu destroyed his body in the process. Guile escapes, while Charlie stays behind to hold off Bison and sacrifice his own life in order to destroy M. Bison permanently, though it proved unsuccessful.

Charlie's death encourages Guile to avenge him in Street Fighter II. In Super Street Fighter II Turbo, a scene is shown of Guile visiting Charlie's grave.

Street Fighter IV

Before the rival fight between Guile and Abel, it is presumed that Abel may know information about Charlie after Guile demonstrated a Sonic Boom. Guile wanted answers, but none were given. It is hinted at, but never confirmed, that Abel's adopted father, a retired soldier, may have been Charlie himself. It's more likely, however, that Abel saw Seth performing a Sonic Boom rather than Charlie, since Charlie is considered long dead in the Street Fighter storyline, while Seth shares an origin with Abel, and also utilizes the Sonic Boom technique as his projectile attack.

Street Fighter V

In the gameplay trailer presented at the end of the 2014 Capcom Cup, Charlie was hinted at through a quick sequence, appearing at the trailer's end with a glowing green circle on his forehead. Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono also dressed up as Charlie to further promote his return to the game.^[1]

Other appearances

Crossover games

Charlie was one of the playable characters in X-Men vs. Street Fighter. In his ending, he is captured by 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. However, by Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, Shadow seems to have reverted back to his original form, but exactly how is unknown. 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.

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

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

Udon comics

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

Charlie was captured by M. Bison and brainwashed into becoming "Agent Shadow", a mindless soldier of Shadaloo. Though he is initially sent by Shadaloo to attack Guile and Chun-Li, Guile throws Charlie his dogtags, making Charlie remember his name and flee in confusion. Eventually Charlie recovers his memory and tears off the Shadaloo emblem on his uniform. After reuniting with Guile and Chun-Li, he tells them about the atrocities that Shadaloo is committing and the the fate of Chun-Li's father. Noticing M. Bison's approach, Charlie pushes Guile and Chun-Li out of the way and is riddled with bullets, supposedly dying in the process.

However, Charlie miraculously survived and shot a Sonic Boom at M. Bison moments before he was about to kill his allies. It is revealed that M. Bison attempted to transfer his Psycho Power into Charlie while brainwashing him. While the dictator initially believed it was a failure, the experiment was in fact successful, and manifested in a purple energy that seeped from Charlie's body. Charlie attempted to fight back with Psycho Power-enhanced Sonic Booms and Flash Kicks, but the dictator still proved to be too powerful. Seeing no other options, Charlie sacrifices himself to send himself and Bison plunging into the sea.

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.

Trivia

Charlie was planned to be a playable character (alongside Ibuki and M. Bison) in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, but was dropped due to time constraints.^[2]
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.
In the comic adaptation of Street Fighter by UDON, Charlie's Japanese name is made into his surname, giving him the full name of Charlie Nash (this name was later canonized by Capcom as seen on Charlie's dog tags in Guile's intro in Street Fighter IV).
In the Mega Man Remix and the Megamix 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.