Riddick
RealName: Richard B. Riddick
Identity/Class: Human subspecies (Furyan)
Occupation: Escaped convict, murderer
Affiliations: Imam, 'Jack' (a.k.a. Kyra), Aereon, Caroline Fry, ParisP Ogilvie, Sharon 'Shazza' Montgomery
Enemies: Johns, Toombs, Night-creatures, Necromongers (especificallyLord Marshal, Vaako)
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: mobile across interstellar space, some centuriesin the future- around 26th century
First Appearance: Pitch Black (2000)
Powers/Abilities: Can see in the dark due to genetic surgery on hiseyeballs; capable of withstanding the pain involved in dislocating such limbsas arms or brief periods; is stronger, more agile and has greater endurancethan the human norm. Highly skilled fighter.
History: Riddick was born to the Furyans, a race of warriors. Whenhe was an infant, almost the entire Furyan population was massacred on theorders of a young warrior named Zhylaw who would later become known as theLord Marshal of the Necromongers. The future Lord Marshal had heard a prophecythat he would one day be slain by a Furyan warrior, and sought to preventthis fate by killing them all first. He was merciless in his butchery, goingso far as to have the babies strangled with their own umbilical chords. Despitethe extent of his plans, however, the Lord Marshal had missed one Furyanbaby - Riddick.
He was found in in a liquor-store trash bin (presumably by visitors to theFuryan homeworld), an umbilical chord wrapped around his neck, but stillalive nonetheless. He grew up with this knowledge, leaving him with the firmbelieve that God existed, and that Riddick hated him. As he grew, Riddickwent all over the universe, committing an unknown number of murders, endingup being wanted on five different worlds in three different solar systems.He never killed for the thrill of it, but simply to overcome any obstaclesstanding in the way of his freedom. Despite all the advanced weaponry inhis day, Riddick's traditional weapons were 'shivs', or daggers, with whichhe commonly gutted his opponents, although he certainly wasn't averse toguns if the need arose. During his stay in Butcher's Bay, a prison wherethen inmates never see the light of day, the surgeon-preacher Pope-Joe introducedan unidentified chemical to Riddick's bloodstream, allowing him to see inthe dark.
Over time, he became an especially cunning and dangerous character, regardedby many as the most lethal man alive, and those who knew him rarelyunderestimated him. Naturally, several bounty hunters made it their missionsto track him down for the money, favouring bringing him in alive due to hisvalue being worth twice as much if he was in that state. He was eventuallycaptured by a bounty hunter known as Johns, who posed as a policeman to divertsuspicion from himself, and was dumped on a passenger ship heading throughspace. However, the ship was caught in an asteroid storm, killing the captainand most of the passengers, leaving the few survivors crashed on a desertplanet with three suns - a definite problem for Riddick's night-vision. Usingsun-filtering goggles, however, he managed to effect an escape, althoughhe was then captured shortly after one of the survivors was killed, beinga natural suspect.
However, the survivors soon realised that there was something else on theplanet besides them, and, despite the reluctance of Johns, Riddick was freedfrom the ship on condition that he didn't use shivs and followed Johns' orders.They eventually tracked down an abandoned mining base on the planet, whichincluded an abandoned shuttle that they could use to get off the planet,but there were two problems. Firstly, the shuttle required five power cellsfrom their vessel to work properly, which would take a while to transportacross. Secondly, the creatures that were on the planet only came out indarkness- and the planet was approaching a period that only occurred everytwenty-two years, when all the planets in the system were in a stright linefrom each other, depriving their world of any kind of sunlight. They triedto finish the job before the eclipse occurred, but they only managed to getone cell to the ship before the eclipse took place, and they had alreadylost three people by that time. However, they did manage to destroy one ofthe creatures, and discovered that light was actually harmful to them, whichgave Fry, the ship's pilot and unofficial 'captain' the makings of a plan.They would collect together anything they could find that produced light,gather the four remaining necessary fuel cells onto some metal plates, alongwith a power source for some of the lights, and then head for the ship, withRiddick leading the way to the ship with his night-vision.
However, even with this plan, the journey didn't go all that smoothly. Threemore people were killed by the creatures, and Imam and Jack, two of the othersurvivors, were left trapped in a cave while Riddick headed off to the shipon his own, with Fry in hot pursuit. However, on the bright side, Johns waskilled when Riddick threw him in front of one of the creatures after Johnssuggested he kill Jack to buy them time to get away; even Riddick's criminalconscience didn't like the idea of killing someone for no real reason. Henearly left Imam and Jack to die on the planet, but Fry made it clear shewouldn't leave them to die, and that she'd die for them if she had to. Thisconvinced Riddick to help her, and he got Jack and Imam into the shuttle,although Fry sacrificed herself returning to help an injured Riddick reachthe shuttle. Affected by the death, maybe more than even he knew, Riddicktook off in the shuttle with Jack and Imam, but only after hitting the creatureswith a large burst of light from the ship's engines.
Five years after that, Riddick was living on an ice planet, having left Jackand Imam to make lives of their own, when he was attacked by a bounty huntercalled Toombs. Since Imam was the only person who knew where he might havegone, Riddick instantly tracked Imam to the planet Helion Prime, where Imamrevealed why he had given away Riddick's location. The whole universe wasbeing threatened by theNecromongers, a dark army making a pilgrimageto their promised land, 'Underverse', a collection of dark stars and planets,who either killed everyone on the planets they found, or turned them intoNecromongers themselves. Their leader was the Holy Half-Dead Lord MarshalZhylaw, the only person alive to have gone to the Underverse and returned,stronger, stranger, half-alive, and half... something else. The full extentof his powers beside enhanced strength was unknown, but he was capable ofextracting other's souls, and also moving at superhuman speeds, althoughhis soul briefly left his body during that time.
At first Riddick was unwilling to get involved, stating that it wasn't hisfight. However, he started to get a bit more interested in fighting themafter Imam was killed by a Necromonger; Riddick rarely met people in theuniverse who he didn't end up killing, and he didn't like it when someonekilled what few friends he did have. He managed to take out a few of theNecromongers, but was still captured and scanned by the Lord Marshall, whoordered his death upon discovering that he was a Furyan. As always, Riddickmanaged to escape, but was captured by Toombs, who had escaped the ice planet,and taken to the Slam, a prison on the planet Crematoria, where the twilightwas tolerable, but where otherwise the surface was lethal, with night fallingto -300 degrees Celsius and the sunrise always measuring over 700 degreesCelsius. The prison, fortunately, was underground, so the sun wouldn't bean issue for Riddick at the immediate moment, but it would still pose a problemfor when he tried to escape. While there, Riddick met up with Jack, now agrown woman called Kyra, who was angry at him for leaving her behind allthose years ago, as well as unintentionally leading her on a false trailwhile trying to acquire nightvision like his.
Fortunately, things managed to work out a bit better between them after Riddicksaved Kyra from an attacking guard, impaling the man on a damaged teacup.Toombs and his crew then got into a fight with the prison governors afterthey learned the Necromongers were after Riddick, this allowing Riddick,Kyra, and a few other convicts the chance to escape. However, the cart thatwould have taken them to the only remaining spaceship was damaged, and withthe prison wardens already some way ahead on the underground path, therewas only one alternative; race along the surface, ahead of the sunrise andbehind the night, and hope they'd be in time. They managed to get to theship, but then had to deal with a large number of Necromongers who'd gottenthere first. Despite their managing to take down several of them before thesun hit, Riddick was knocked out and assumed dead, and Kyra was taken backto Helion by the Necromongers. Fortunately, Riddick was rescued by theNecromonger 'purifier'- the man mainly in charge of converting new Necromongers- who revealed that he himself was a Furyan, who had been waiting for thechance to direct the last of his race against the Lord Marshall. The Purifierthen walked out in the deadly sunlight, leaving Riddick alone to take theship back to Helion and try to save Kyra.
However, upon arriving on Helion, Riddick swiftly discovered he was too late;Kyra had become a Necromonger. The Lord Marshall gave Riddick his choices;if Riddick fought the Lord Marshall and fell, he would die there and then,never to rise again, but if Riddick converted to a Necromonger, he wouldlive, and be united with Kyra again. Riddick, shaken and enraged at the LordMarshall for destroying the only people in the universe he could call friends,threw a knife at the Lord Marshall's head, but only cut his ear and a cheek.The battle began, but Riddick was clearly at a disadvantage; he got in afew good hits, but the Lord Marshall's superior strength and speed gave hima distinct advantage. He even attempted to take Riddick's soul at one point,but Riddick vowed that the Lord Marshall would never claim that prize, andthrew him off again. Eventually, the Lord Marshall got him in a headlock,and would have strangled him if Kyra - still loyal to Riddick - hadn't impaledthe Lord Marshall on a spear at the cost of her own life. Weakened by Kyra'sblow, Lord Marshal asked his aide Vaako for help. Vaako instead picked upan axe and prepared to kill the Marshal so he could become the next NecromongerLord, spurred by his wife's scheming. Lord Marshal used his astral abilitiesto dodge Vaako's swing... only to run right into Riddick's waiting knife.Riddick drove the blade deep into the Lord Marshall's brain, killing himonce and for all. After Kyra died in his arms, revealing that she had alwaysbeen on his side, Riddick realised something he hadn't been expecting; accordingto the Necromonger belief of 'You keep what you kill', having killed theLord Marshall, Riddick was now in charge of the entire dark army.
Comments: Played by Vin Diesel
Profile by David Spence. Thanks to Eric Warren, Jonathan Ojedo, Justin Walterand John Ware for corrections.
CLARIFICATIONS: None.
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