Alex Mercer, A Good Man Who Fall Into the Darkness

Villain is a bad person in a story. Without villain, the story would be plain. Villains can either have a unique backstory or remain as a pure evil villain with an unknown backstory. I could have chosen Darth Vader from Star Wars or Khan from Star Trek, yet I choose this person as my favorite villain. He is a ruthless man from an action-adventure open world game series, Prototype. He is a protagonist in the first Prototype and an antagonist in Prototype 2. He is Alex Mercer.

Alex Mercer

Alex Mercer started as a researcher head in a huge research corporation, Gentek. He was researching a virus named Blacklight when the Blackwatch, a special force unit dedicated to combating biological warfare, shut down the Gentek project and ordered all project personnel eliminated. Mercer took a sample of Blacklight away. When he was pinned down in Penn Station by Blackwatch, he broke the vial containing the Blacklight and started an outbreak of Blacklight virus in Manhattan. The virus eventually made him an evolved human with powerful shapeshifting abilities, superhuman power, and the ability to “consume” people and gain their memory. Although he had a great power, he seemed to lose his memory.

At first, he tried to regain his memory and stop the outbreak in Manhattan, New York. He released Elizabeth Greene, a carrier of a virus named Redlight, and regretted it as she started to make the outbreak even worse. He defeated her and uncovered the truth that Blackwatch was experimenting Redlight in Hope, Idaho and found out that Greene became a carrier for this virus while the others were dead or turned into zombies. Then, he knew he must stop Blackwatch, too. He stopped the Blackwatch from nuking the entire Manhattan and stopped the outbreak in Manhattan.

After he saved Manhattan, Mercer started to lose faith in humanity after he saw people hating him even he had saved their life. He traveled around the world to search some reason for protecting humanity. Unfortunately, throughout his travels, he only found more reasons to hate humanity rather than to protect it.

Alex, disguised as Jack, having dinner with Flint and Autumn

Along the way he stopped at a lumber mill and took on the alias of a writer named Jack. He rented out a cabin from the mill owner Flint and his daughter, Autumn, whom later became attracted to him. While Mercer were there, Zurich, Flint’s former business partner, wanted the lands around Flint’s lumber mill. Zurich sent out two thugs to kill Mercer and Autumn but they were killed by Mercer.

After realizing that he had a feeling for Autumn, he decided to go after Zurich and consumed him. He discovered through Zurich’s memory that Flint was once a criminal involved in many murders and extortions. Enraged and disappointed, he returned to Flint’s cabin and killed him.

Alex Mercer returned to his cabin to find Autumn there and attempted to convince her to come with him, only to discovered that Autumn had stolen his money. She shot him in his head but shocked when she saw him regenerating. Felt betrayed and angered, Alex Mercer killed Autumn and consumed her. After he killed her, he finally lost his faith in humanity completely and felt that he was wrong to stop the Blacklight outbreak. He decided that it was his duty to destroy humanity and usher in a new and better world.

Exactly 14 months after the first outbreak, Mercer returned to New York and started the second Blacklight outbreak. He created some evolved human by specially infect the target to infiltrate Blackwatch and Gentek to make his virus spread. He became a ruthless man with no mercy. He killed people and destroyed entire New York with no feeling.

Alex Mercer and his evolved army

Alex Mercer was a good man before all this thing happened. Even though he was shy and anti-social when he was a little boy, he loved her sister, Dana Mercer. After several times of betrayal, heartbreaking situations, and seeing people underestimated him and hated him, he started to fall into the darkness. He started to lose faith in humanity. He became an evil man with no mercy. His act was based on his anger and urged to get revenge. He blamed at humanity for everything that happened to him. He may not become an evil man if he never got betrayed or stabbed in his back.

It never happens that a good man turns into a bad man without any reason. In Alex Mercer’s case, he was betrayed, heartbroken, and got everybody around him hate him.  I think it is close with bullying and cyber bullying victims around the world. They may feel depressed as their environment does not support them to survive in social life. Many of them choose to overcome their stress with violent actions or attempt to suicide.

Alex Mercer gave me a point of view to see people or even criminals from their background rather than their conducts. They may have a psychological problem and it is our task to help them solve it. That is why I choose Alex Mercer as my favorite villain. He is evil and bad but he gave me a different point of view that other villain rarely gave me.