Charlie Nash

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

- 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, is a character from Capcom's Street Fighter series of fighting games. Charlie is a First Lieutentant in the United States Marine Corps, typically flying with his VTOL Harrier, and fights injustice alongside his friend Guile.

Charlie is 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 the Street Fighter Alpha series, 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. Also, the Marine Corps has its own fighting style called MCMAP, which is similar to the fighting style that Charlie and Guile use.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

Street Fighter Alpha and Alpha 2
Charlie is given a mission to track down 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.

Although Charlie is never to be seen again, it is hinted that he still may actually be alive. In his SFIV intro, Guile states that Charlie's body was never found. Futhermore, in SSFIV, during the Guile's rival fight against Bison, dictator taunts Guile by saying "forget your friend, he is nowhere to be found" suggesting that he is not familiar with Charlie's ultimate fate which is odd since Bison is marked as the one directly responsible for Nash's disappearance.

Nevertheless, Charlie's apparent 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
Charlie was rumored to be playable in Street Fighter IV; one of All Games Network's articles hinted at one of the new characters being a Sonic Boom user, who turned out to be Seth.

Story-wise, 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 Street Fighter storyline, while Seth shares an origin with Abel, and also utilizes Sonic Boom technique as his projectile attack.

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. However, by Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes, Shadow seems to have reverted 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.

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.

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.

Street Fighter X Tekken
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 is captured by M. Bison and, as dictator's infamous Psycho Power is forced into his body, he witnesses Dorai's demise at the hands of the Dolls. Brainwashed into becoming agent Shadow of Shadaloo, Charlie is assigned to monitor those who are percieved as a threat to Bison's criminal empire. After Vega's failed attempt at assasinating 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 Shadallo schemes. As he briefs in Chun Li of her father's fate, Bison arrives at the scene and guns Charlie down.

Bison proceedes to effortlessly defeat Guile and Chun Li, but, before he is able to finish them off, 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, 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.

Trivia

 * 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.