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A hunter needs his trophies, Saxton. You of all people should understand that. You were my best student, once. Before you gave it all up, for her.
~ Charles Darling before kicking Saxton Hale off a plane

Charles Darling is a minor antagonist in the Team Fortress 2 comic series, both its main line and its minor update-related comics. He is the former hunting mentor of Saxton Hale, but eventually left conventional hunting to imprison animals in his zoos instead. He first appeared in the update comic Bidwell's Big Plan, and appeared in the main comics line in Unhappy Returns and A Cold Day in Hell, making a flashback appearance later in The Days Have Worn Away.

Biography[]

Past[]

At some point before 1957, Charles Darling was a renowned and wealthy hunter, who specialized in hunting rare and exotic animals, and taught his skills to other aspiring hunters. Darling also possessed extensive knowledge on more mythical and supernatural creatures, such as the Megatherium of Mictlan, protector of the Aztec underworld. He took on a young, brash, superhumanly strong Australian man named Saxton Hale as his student, who quickly rose to be Darling's finest pupil. However, Saxton eventually left Darling after falling in love with Maggie, an adventurous woman who shared Saxton's interest of punching exotic animals. Over time, Darling sought to capture the animals that Saxton and Maggie went out to hunt, leading to Darling and his former student becoming adversaries.

At some point, shown in The Days Have Worn Away, Darling traveled to an Aztec temple to summon and capture the Megatherium of Mictlan. However, Hale and Maggie intercepted Darling, but Darling managed to capture the pair, tying them to posts as he used a flute to summon the creature into the capture zone. However, the beast smashed through the very stones meant to hold it, to Darling's shock. Out of options, Darling cut Hale and Maggie loose to fight the Megatherium, but Hale and Maggie's more brutish nature led to them ignoring him when he tried to explain the creature's abilities. The Megatherium then fired its laser eyes at Hale and Maggie, who narrowly dodged as Darling managed to say what the animal was, although the Megatherium then managed to grab him. As Saxton and Maggie concocted a scheme to use the summoning flute to send the Megatherium back to the underworld, Darling desperately shouted that the plan required a very specific anti-summoning ritual, even as the Megatherium began to swallow him alive. Just as he was being shoved further down its gullet, Darling tried to explain the proper method of blowing the whistle, but Saxton and Maggie decided to just beat the Megatherium to death, leaving Darling screaming for the beast to not swallow him. Through unknown means, Saxton and Maggie slew the Megatherium, freeing Darling, but the two sides separated and remained adversaries.

By 1957, Darling had founded Darling Zoos- inventing the concept of zoos in the process, deciding to make his growing collection of captured animals public. Equipped with new resources and his vast wealth, Darling flew to an African veldt via helicopter to collect animals for his zoo, starting with panthers. He eventually found a large group of panthers in a clearing, the felines being beaten to death by none other than Saxton Hale and Maggie. Before the pair could finish the panthers off, Darling flew down and threw down a net, catching the senseless panthers and hauling them into the air. Descending a rope ladder from the chopper, Darling greeted Saxton and Maggie, explaining to them his plan to put every wild animal on Earth behind bars in order to charge the public money to see them. Saxton called this out as being little more than an animal dungeon, but Darling then introduced the word "zoo", which he also invented, taking pride in language- and bars- being what separated man from animal. As Saxton declared that animals belonged in the wild where he could beat them to death, Darling flew off with his catch.

At some point, Darling founded Darling's Triassic Preserve to preserve and disgrace long-extinct animals. Additionally, Darling started up a collection of the last-of-kind animals- the last living specimens of extinct species, who he cruelly kept alive and tortured until their minds were broken to sad resignation. He arranged these animals to stand on boxes behind walls of his manor with their heads poking through holes in the wall, making them resemble mounted trophies, so that Darling could stare into the defeated look in their eyes and find hilarity in it.

Sometime between 1957 and 1962, Saxton Hale became CEO of Mann Co., leaving Maggie. Disillusioned and unable to find another man who survived more than a week on her extreme adventures, Maggie was hired by Charles Darling in an unknown capacity, who took advantage of Maggie losing her old spirit.

Bidwell's Big Plan[]

In 1968, during the Gravel Wars between RED and BLU, Darling, now older, continued to hunt down and capture animals from around the world for Darling Zoos. Saxton continued to oppose Darling, and managed to fight his way onto a cargo plane that Darling was using to transport newly-captured animals, including pygmy rabbits, Dodo birds, sea cows, wild finches, giraffes, quagga, and Tasmanian wolves- some of whom were obviously to add to his last-of-kind collection. Somehow, Darling forced Saxton onto the edge of the cargo ramp, which was down, Saxton holding on while shouting that hunting was supposed to be about fighting and killing wild beasts, not imprisoning them. Darling merely retorted that a good hunter needed trophies, and criticized Saxton for leaving him in favor of Maggie, before kicking Saxton off the plane.

Saxton would survive the fall by grabbing onto an endangered bald eagle and using it to guide him to Mann Co headquarters, officially adding Charles Darling to his nemesis list.

Unhappy Returns[]

In 1972, Gray Mann had taken over Mann Co.. Hale, thinking Darling could help him get Mann Co back, broke into one of Darling's zoos to find him. However, Saxton was soon angered by the sight of the caged animals and burned the zoo down instead, abandoning his original plan. This led to Saxton being arrested, but Darling dispatched Maggie a month later to free Saxton. Once Saxton and Maggie arrived at Darling's mansion, Darling- reading his own book How to be a Nemesis- welcomed them in, Saxton horrified to learn that his ex-girlfriend now worked for his old nemesis.

A Cold Day in Hell[]

Darling then calmly showed Saxton his living trophies, specifically a Himalayan wildebeest, snow leopard, and others, explaining why he kept the animals alive, and that once they die, their species are extinct. Darling then fed an aged vulture some meat as he explained to Saxton that he was willing to help Saxton get his company back- if Saxton acquired enough Australium, a life-extending substance from Australia, to keep Darling's collection alive indefinitely. Saxton tried to explain that he had plenty of the metal, but Darling revealed that he already learned that the Administrator had stolen it all, stockpiling it over 150 years, as the Administrator had extended her own life with Australium. Additionally, Darling knew the truth of the Gravel Wars, that the Administrator had been behind keeping Redmond and Blutarch Mann's feud alive, having unraveled the maze of shell companies the Administrator used to cover her tracks. However, he did not know why, only that the Administrator's stash was in Australia. Saxton, while not trusting Darling, agreed to help him in order to get Mann Co back, Darling swiftly sending Saxton and Maggie on their way to Australia.

The Days Have Worn Away[]

Aside from his flashback presence in this issue, Darling did not appear. However, it was finally revealed that the last Australium on Earth was removed from the Australian mine and instead moved to a cave that Soldier lived in, which Miss Pauling ultimately dumped into an ocean trench following the death of Zepheniah Mann and the Administrator. Additionally, Saxton Hale simply reacquired his company by just demanding its ownership back from its current CEO, Olivia Mann. As such, Darling was unable to keep his collection alive.

As he was already elderly in 1972, Darling presumably died of old age by the turn of the century.

Trivia[]

  • Charles Darling is presumably related to William Darling Esq., the father of Zepheniah Mann's wife Bette Mann, thus making Charles a distant relative of the Mann family.
  • His name is presumably a reference to Charles Darwin, as evidenced by the specific animals Darling collected in Bidwell's Big Plan, which referenced animals Darwin studied in On the Origin of Species.

Navigation[]

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TF Industries
Administrator | Mann Co. (Saxton Hale | Gray Mann | Silas Mann) | BLU (Blutarch Mann) | RED (Redmond Mann) | Miss Pauling | Robots

Team Fortress 2 Mercenaries
Scout | Soldier | Pyro | Demoman | Heavy | Engineer | Medic | Sniper | Spy

Mann Family
Zepheniah Mann | Blutarch Mann | Redmond Mann | Gray Mann | Silas Mann | Olivia Mann

Team Fortress Classic Mercenaries
Scout | Soldier | Pyro | Demoman | Heavy | Engineer | Sniper | Spy

Others
Bread Monsters (Giant Bread Monster) | Merasmus | Bombinomicon | Monoculus | The Devil | Old Nick | Charles Darling | Bonzo | Zombies | Skeletons | Toastmaster | Gourdon | Scarecrows | Salmann | Yeti | Krampus

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