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 lieutenant in the United States Air Force, 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 take place between the events of the original Street Fighter and SFII.

Appearance
Charlie wears green cargo pants and a light yellow flak jacket. He has glasses which he takes off before a fight. He has an exaggerated hairstyle consisting of a large forelock of blond hair. This outfit (minus the forelock) is also Guile's alternate costume in Street Fighter IV.

It's worth noting in the cutscenes where Charlie is seen flying, he never wears a mask.

Personality
Charlie is a calm and confident fighter with a strong sense of justice. Charlie has a crime-fighting attitude akin to his friend Guile. Charlie has bad chemistry with Shadaloo and M. Bison. While normally he acts in a professional manner, he does let his emotions get the better of him at times. He possesses a strong sense of camaderie, as in order to save his allies, he sacrificed his own life in a vain effort to end Bison.

Charlie doesn't actually need his trademark glasses, he wears them because he likes them.

Story
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 became 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.

Street Fighter Alpha and Alpha 2
Charlie is given the duty 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 could 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's 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
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 likely was meant to be Seth). In the end, he did not make it in, though there was fan made artwork for his non-existant SFIV appearance.

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 he also utilizes Sonic Boom technique as his projectile attack).

According to UDON comics, however, Charlie is the one who rescues Abel from 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 as well be canon since Guile, according to his win quote against Abel in SSF4, notices that his friend was the one to rescue Abel. 

Crossover games
Charlie was one of the playable characters in X-Men vs. Street Fighter, a non-canonical crossover title. In his ending, he is captured by Bison, who performs terrible experiments on him. This is a similar scenario to the one seen in UDON comics. 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 was a palette swap of Charlie, with nearly his entire body blacked out, and a white eye shining behind his glasses. He had all of Charlie's moves, but his attacks would set his opponent alight with blue Psycho-Power flames. His supers also had a brief pause where his eye would gleam 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 Jin Saotome.

Charlie was planned to be a playable character (alongside Ibuki and M.Bison) in Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, but was dropped due to time constraints. Outside of fighting games, Charlie is a playable character in Cannon Spike.

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

Sprites




Trivia

 * 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 Japanese version of the game, however, there is no mentioning of Guile's friend's name nor Cambodia.
 * 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 is the only character in the Alpha series whose all three endings are non-canon.
 * 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 ).
 * Charlie is thought to be the mercenary who saved Abel from the destroyed Shadaloo base.