Darien Fawkes, the Invisible Man

Real Name: Darien Fawkes

Identity/Class: Human Cyborg

Occupation: Former thief, secret agent

Affiliations: works for the Agency under the command of the Official, Bobby Hobbes (partner), the Keeper (Claire, his doctor), Agent Alex Monroe; formerly the FBI

Enemies: Arnaud de Fehrne, Chrysalis, Catevari, Allianora

Known Relatives: Kevin Fawkes (brother, deceased), Celia (aunt), unnamed uncle (worked on the I-Man project, deceased), Madeline (grandmother)

Aliases: Ralph, Simon Cole

Base of Operations: U.S.A.

First Appearance: The Invisible Man (TV Series)

Powers/Abilities: Able to turn invisible by releasing a special chemical known as Quicksilver into his body. This is controlled by a gland implanted in the base of his skull. When invisible, his body temperatures drops to such a degree that he can freeze certain objects merely by touching them. He can also turn other objects invisible so long as he is in contact with them, although he (and the objects) remains visible to ultraviolet light. Darien can turn specific portions of his body invisible, while leaving the rest in plain sight - if he does this with his eyes, then he can see in the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum, allowing him to spot other invisible people. His abilites are based on the flow of adrenaline through his system, with the result that he often turns invisible when feeling powerful emotions such as anger, excitment or fear.

If Darien stays invisible too long he risks permanent psychosis - "Quicksilver Madness" (in fact, even without being invisible, the chemicals would eventually cause madness if not treated daily with a counteragent), but a tattoo of an ouroboros (a snake eating its tail) on the bottom of his right wrist under his watch band helps his keeper keep track of how far the Quicksilver has slipped into his system. When his system was clear of the toxic quicksilver it was green. As the toxic chemicals built up in his system then the snake would slowly turn red starting from the tail to the head. When the head finally turned red then he would hit stage one Quicksilver madness. There were a number of stages and symptoms to the Madness - for example, in the earliest stage Darien's eyes would turn red; by the fifth stage the eyes would be silver, and the Madness would be irreversible and incurable.

History: Darien Fawkes was a career burglar until he robbed an old man's house and was discovered, the old man promptly suffering a heart attack. Darien attempted to to revive the man, but, just as he succeeded, the police found him, and in a position that made it look like he was raping the old man. Under California's three strikes rule, this would mean he would be imprisoned for life, if his brother, Kevin, hadn't come to his rescue. Kevin Fawkes was a scientist working for the government on a prototype implant originally developed by his and Darien's uncle, who had figured out a way to create a working bio-synthetic gland while working for the government under "the Official". After his death, Kevin came in and took his uncle's research and made a Quicksilver gland. A gland that secrets the synthetic hormone called Quicksilver (not the same as the element Mercury). The project needed a guinea pig, so Kevin arranged with his bosses to have Darien released from prison in return for agreeing to be the test case. Believing that since his brother was head scientist for the experiment, the surgery would have to be safe, Darien went along with this.

The gland was implanted at the base of Darien's skull, allowing him to release quantities of Quicksilver into his body, allowing his body to bend light and thus become invisible. The operation was a success - but the doctor died. Another scientist, Arnaud De Fehrne, had also been working on the gland, and he proved to be a traitor, partially sabotaging the process and killing Kevin while doing so. He had mutated the gland before it was implanted into Darien to release toxic chemicals causing a terrible side effect - the chemical would cause a state of growing paranoia and psychosis dubbed Quicksilver Madness, unless Darien got daily injections of Counteragent, an antidote - and even this could only slow the drift into insanity. With the only man who could have removed the Gland (his brother) dead, and a secretive government operation known only as The Agency his only source of Counteragent, Darien became a reluctant secret agent. Partnered with cynical ex-FBI man Bobby Hobbs, answering to The Official at the "Department of Fish and Game", and relying on the Keeper for his doses of counteragent, his cases would see him encounter the villainous Chrysalis organisation; Catevari, another experimental agent whose touch was deadly poison; Allianora, a Chrysalis operative who could drown men with a kiss; China's invisible woman; and of course, the evil Arnaud De Fehrne. However, some of Darien's most interesting cases included him discovering two rather interesting details about the Quicksilver gland; namely, where the gland had been before, and where the Quicksilver had come from.

In the first instance, he learned that, prior to being inserted in his head, the gland had been used on a man named Simon Cole, an assassin for the C.I.A., but had been removed after Cole became permantly invisible and turned completely insane. Everyone thought Cole had returned, but actually it was just the gland, which retained an imprint of Cole's memories and personality, making Darien act like Cole at certain moments. In the second case, Darien, Hobbes and Claire discovered that the original Quicksilver had been discovered in the dead body of a sasquatch - the species known to all as Bigfoot. A natural gland, the Quicksilver was the reason that Bigfoot's existence had never been confirmed; no matter how many people went hunting for it, the sasquatch could just turn invisible and run away to safety right under the hunter's noses. Extracting the gland, the government had set its scientists working on a synthetic version.

Eventually Claire risked her career to permanently cure Darien of his quicksilver madness; however, despite a brief period of employment for the FBI, Darien returned to work at the Agency on one condition; that he could work on his own time, gets better pay, and with Claire reinstated to her job.

Comments: Played by Vincent Ventresca. The show ran for two seasons and forty-six episodes.

Thanks to Shaun Harris, David Spence and David Bird for additional information about the character. In addition to some notes included in the history above, David Bird also mentions "Arnaud De Fehrne was actually able to recreate another perfectly working quicksilver gland but without the mutation that released the toxic chemicals. There was a mistake when it was implanted into his own brain and it rendered him permanently invisible. Chrysalis was eventually able to take it out without killing him and then was able to clone it at least six times and implanted into cows. We never found out if there were more clones of it running around."

CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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