The Darkness has battled with its counterpart, The Angelus, on multiple occasions. The Darkness is passed down through the generations of male hosts. However, this can shown to be weakness as the previous host procreates, they lose their power and the child doesn't inherit the darkness until he is 21 years old.
The power of the Darkness is an immense elemental force that allows those who wield it access to an otherworldly dimension and control over the countless legions of Darklings who dwell there. They are given the power to create constructs and summon otherworldly beings to serve them, limited only by strong light and their imagination.
Powers & Abilities
Host Bonding: In order for the Darkness to achieve its full potential, it needs a host. The host are typically male, but there has been one case in which a woman had its power. The power is also passed down through birthright. In the case of Ian Nottingham, he was able to absorb the Darkness for a short time, but Jackie was able to reclaim it.
Darklings
Summoning Darklings: Darklings are the impish, deviant, base and foul-mouthed servants of the Darkness. Created from necroplasmic materials and animated by the spirit of the Darkness, the Darklings are the foot-soldiers of the Darkness host; serving and obeying his every whim, protecting him from harm, and tending to his needs. The hosts communicate with the Darklings through telepathy, able to give them commands and receive messages from across long distances as well as see and hear through their eyes
Superhuman Physicality - Darklings are superhumanly strong, agile, resilient and fast, regardless of size. They are able to evolve to become stronger, bigger and more viscous. They can scale sheer surfaces and jump several feet into the air. Their teeth and claws can rend steel and many possess prehensile tails and large bat-like wings for flight.
Darkness Armor
The signature ability of the Darkness is the creation of an invulnerable mystical armor about the host. This armor significantly augments the host's strength, speed and endurance, making him a powerhouse and a challenge to even the most physically powerful of superhumans. The appearance and design of the armor is a reflection of the host's character.
Invulnerability: The Darkness armor is impervious to even the most destructive of conventional weapons.
Superhuman Strength: The armor dramatically increases the host's strength. Batman, a man in peak physical condition with a bench-press capacity of 1,000 lbs, described the strength of the Darkness armor as "infinitely stronger" than himself. While wearing the armor, Darkness hosts become almost unstoppable; no man can stand against them and even most superpowered beings must consider their strength when facing an armored Darkness host. The armored host can lift cars with ease, bend steel, break chains, crush stone, and uproot trees.
Superhuman Speed: The host can run in excess of a hundred miles per hour while in the armor. Their reflexes are similarly accelerated, allowing them to deflect bullets with their wrists. In close distances, hosts can seem to appear and disappear from sight.
Shape-shifting: The host can alter the appearance of the armor to perfectly mimic the appearance and voice of another. On an advanced level, they can take on the forms of dragon-like creatures.
Wings: The host can manifest either bat-like or feathered wings to allow high speed flight.
Claws: Can grow razor-sharp talons at the ends of their fingernails sufficient to pierce human skulls easily. These claws also aid in adhering sheer surfaces.
Blades: The armor can form blades and spikes to slay opponents.
Superhuman Stamina: The armor energizes the host and allows him to remain active indefinitely without tire.
Respiration Protection - The armor supplies oxygen and protects the host from low-oxygen environment such as outer space, underwater, or in a gas-filled room.
Superhuman Agility: The hosts possess unnatural agility and coordination; able to perform parkour feats effortlessly and jump several yards in a single bound.
Regenerative Abilities
Healing Factor: The Darkness endows his hosts with versatile regenerative abilities; able to heal grievous wounds and massive loss of tissue in mere seconds. These healing abilities are advanced enough to regrow damaged or lost internal organs. When Jackie Estacado was raised from Hell by Tom Judge, the Darkness re-assembled a new body for Jackie using only raw material from his jawbone and the burnt corpses scattered around the scene.
Healing: These healing powers work both ways; both on the host and - if the host chooses - others.
Immunity: These restorative abilities also render the host immune to diseases and other forms of biological affliction, including those of a supernatural nature. The host's immunity also extends into resistance to magical attacks to the body or mind.
Construct Creation
Construct Creation: The Darkness is, by definition, the literal chaos that brings about creation. This primordial and chaotic power is held by each host, allowing him to create solid constructs from pure darkness-born materials. The Darkness grants the host the ability to create objects, armor, and beings. This power is limited by the host's imagination. The most recent host, Jackie Estacado, was able to create a woman in order to deal with his copulation weakness. However, he needed knowledge and training from someone who knew the human anatomy. The Darkness weapons, and an whole universe after the destruction of his previous universe.[1]
Tentacles: Hosts can create tentacles of various shapes and sizes to do their will. These can range from piercing spears to clawed talons to fanged mouths. These tentacles are strong enough to lift cars and dismantle buildings, as well as eviscerate other creatures at the host's command. Like the Darklings, the hosts controls them telepathically.
Chemical Engineering: With the right understanding of physics and biochemistry, hosts can create such base chemicals as water, organic materials, fire, bodily fluids, drugs, or potent corrosives from the Darkness by changing the molecular structure of raw Darkness-born material to the appropriate sequence.
Weaponry: With the right knowledge and mechanical engineering, the host can fashion weapons such as swords and guns from the Darkness.
Mystical Abilities
The Darkness allows the host other, more arcane abilities that defy the laws of physics.
Teleportation: The host can travel anywhere in the shadows.
Immortality: Hosts of the Darkness have the potential to live eternally as time and death have no full dominion over them.
Heightened Senses: Certain senses are heightened; such as the ability to literally feel a person's footsteps from several yards away, even while underground.
Extrasensory Perception: The hosts can occasionally perceive a person as they really are, beyond the glamour of humanity.
Empathy: The host can interpret a person's emotions and thoughts.
Precognition: The host can see a person as they will be when they die and can instinctively know when, where and how that person will die.
Reanimation: The Darkness can reanimate the dead as zombies.
Soul Absorption: The Darkness can hold vast quantities of souls within his body as well as expel them at will.
Witchcraft Negation: In certain instances, the Darkness has shown strong enough to overpower a witch's immortality by flooding her mind with his memories and emotions. The experience is so overwhelming to the witch that it depletes her life force completely. The host does not seem to be in full control of this power and only works if a witch casts a memory-drain spell on him.
Weaknesses
Despite his vast power, the host of The Darkness does possess weaknesses and limitations.
Vulnerability to Light: This is a purely Earthly weakness. The powers of the Darkness depend on Darkness, as they are banished away by strong light. The host is rendered mortal in the light of day. Anything created by The Darkness is burned away by strong light. The Darkness host can become more tolerant of light with time, experience, and training. Weapons of light are harmful to wielders of the Darkness. Some enemies carry light cannons or flash bangs, and certain areas have lighting that severely limits the wielder's mobility and distorts their senses of sights and hearing. To combat this weakness, hosts can destroy the light source (turning off lights in a room, smoke grenades, etc.) and sticking to the shadows.
The Sun Dagger: The Sun Dagger can kill the host of the Darkness.
Copulation: If a host impregnates a woman, the spirit of the Darkness is passed to the newly conceived child and the host dies.
Notes
A lot of this base content was taken from Top Cow Wikia and written by North911 and other community members.
