Alec McDowell
Encyclopedia
Alec McDowell is a fictional television character portrayed by Jensen Ackles
in the 2000–2002 cyberpunk
television series Dark Angel
, created by James Cameron
.
Alec was named for his "smart alec" attitude. He's a transgenic
, though he prefers genetically empowered ("Freak Nation"), and is an X5, like Max (there are several X series, going up to X8). He was bred, trained, and raised by Manticore, a facility that used experimental genetic technology to produce various classes of enhanced beings for warfare. Born to a surrogate mother, Alec was around 20 years old when he first appeared on Dark Angel. Unlike his genetically identical twin, Ben (a.k.a. X5-493), he was never called Max Guevara
's "brother," since Ben and Max were not biologically related and Alec was from a separate unit. Alec never met Max until he was assigned as her breeding partner in the season 2 premier .
Just before "The Pulse" (an electro-magnetic pulse bomb set off over the United States), Max and a number of her unit escaped from Manticore in 2009. X5-494, however, was not one of the '09 escapees and did not achieve his freedom until more than 10 years later when Max instigated the destruction of Manticore and freed the transgenics. Alec was already outside of the compound then, assigned to corral Max back to Manticore and to facilitate the capture and/or death of Eyes Only.
Once free, he engages in various methods, generally illegal, to gain quick cash; one of the first was cage fighting. He wasn't planning on doing this long, but ceased altogether (excepting mental coercion ) after he gets caught, is forced to kill, and then nearly killed , by Ames White, the deadly agent assigned to hunt down and destroy all escaped transgenics. Alec then emulates Max by working at Jam Pony (a bike messenger service) in order to secure a Sector Pass and scout potential places to steal from. He also runs various scams and had shady business dealings around the city. However, he does limit himself to products that won't get his clientele killed, limiting his customer base.
Wired for survival, he's initially looking out only for himself, but through Max's influence, and his own repressed conscience, he changes, enough that he willingly and often risks himself for friends and transgenics in distress. By the end of the series, he and Max work together to build up the new community for Manticore escapees dubbed Terminal City (a.k.a. Transgenic City, or more commonly: T.C.), a place where they could live and defend themselves from the hostile "ordinaries" (normal humans), as well as the government, and makes a stand with Max and the other transgenics.
Although he appears to be an ordinary human (except for the bar code on the back of his neck that's genetically encoded into his DNA), he possesses extraordinary physical strength, able to overpower a man three times his weight, his reflexes are superhumanly fast, and his eyesight and sense of hearing and smell are extremely acute, which, along with his training, would make it very hard for someone or something to catch him by surprise.
He can leap great distances vertically, allowing him to jump over a barbed fence, and is capable of sprinting at extreme speeds allowing him to blur, making it very difficult for anyone to catch him on foot, except another transgenic.
X5s have enhanced night vision, to the point where they can see well in very little light, and telescopic vision, allowing them to selectively zoom in, and view objects from a distance.
All transgenics have a high number of stem cells in their blood allowing for them to have extremely high regeneration rates. However, if an X5's organ becomes extremely damaged, such as a bullet to the heart, it has to be replaced, and can only be replaced with an X5 or bio-mechanical substitute. All X5s are O-negative blood typed and are universal donors but can only receive from another X5.
Their metabolisms are extremely high, thus making them almost completely insusceptible to alcohol and possibly poisons.
X5s are very dexterous and have extraordinary agility and coordination and advanced lung capacity, allowing them to perform complicated acrobatic and gymnastic maneuvers that would be very difficult for a human, with ease. The X5s were also designed to be physically attractive.
In addition to his superior physique, Alec possesses a genius
level I.Q. and problem-solving skills. He is very gifted at assessing people and situations, which makes him highly adaptive to change and able to learn and mimic with extreme speed and accuracy.
Like all X5s, Alec endured brutal physical and mental training and rigid discipline (brainwashing) from childhood till the time of his escape, and his training combined with his enhanced physique makes him nearly unstoppable when facing normal humans, though he is by no means invincible.
Trained as a Manticore supersoldier
/assassin, some assumptions are that: he is highly skilled in CQB, recon, infiltration, tracking, observation, escape and evasion, espionage, computers, explosives, and handling vehicles (including various military planes and helicopters), has achieved fluency in many languages, and has a black belt in various martial arts such as Krav Maga
, Taekwondo
,and Judo
.
X5s, as children, were trained to hold their breath for four minutes and can hold their breath for much longer as adults.
Alec (pre-series, as X5-494) became a concert-level pianist in less than a day in preparation for the Berrisford mission .
494's identical twin/genetic clone, X5-493, Ben, was one of the children in Max's Unit who escaped in 2009. Ben, however, didn't adapt to the outside world, remained lost and confused, and became a serial killer that Max had to stop, and kill Pollo Loco"). Max having to kill Ben was a major reason for Max's antagonism towards Alec, since he served as a constant reminder of what she had been forced to do .
X5-493's escape resulted in PSY-OPS time for Alec, as did his eventual psychosis at a later date.
Alec gets arrested for Ben's murder of a man named Timothy Ryan, for which the police have an eye witness and DNA evidence. Ben also killed at least ten other people.
This caused a lot of trouble for all of the X5s, after the escape, Manticore attempted to "simplify" those remaining since they were thought to be designed with too much independence, sending them through extreme re-indoctrination The twins of the escapees were assumed to have the same psychological make-up, and so got the worst treatment, including six months in PSY-OPS .
In the episode "The Berrisford Agenda", we see flashbacks to 494's first long-term away mission in 2018 when he was ordered to observe, then assassinate, Robert Berrisford, a Manticore subcontractor who was becoming too curious about the supersoldier
program. However, while using the alias of the young piano teacher Simon Lehane (whom 494 killed in order to take his identity), 494 fell in love with Berrisford's seventeen-year-old daughter, Rachel. Rachel would have been killed in the car bomb he was supposed to set off, and at the last minute, 494 attempted to stop the execution. Unfortunately, his Manticore handlers were suspicious of 494 and triggered the bomb. Robert Berrisford survived, but Rachel ended up in a coma that lasted for two years. 494 was brutally punished by Manticore for his disobedience. However, he was allowed to live (Manticore having done all they could to make him forget, or not care, about the Berrisford mission) and ultimately resumed his role as a soldier. After the fall of Manticore in 2020, Alec did get the opportunity to say good-bye to Rachel at her bedside before she ultimately died. It was in this episode that Max realized Alec was capable of love and was far more than a killing machine for Manticore.
494 was given the name "Alec," by Max when she first met him while imprisoned at Manticore. He was supposed to be her "designated breeding partner", but when Max refused his ordered advances, 494 was willing to back off, albeit with a very snarky attitude. After that, Max dubbed him "Alec" — as in "smart aleck" — due to his egotistical cockiness, and a wary love/hate relationship between the two ensued. (Max's second choice for 494's name was "Dick".) 494 liked the name "Alec" and kept it. The last name "McDowell" was given to the character by one of Dark Angels writers, whose favorite actor was Malcolm McDowell
. However, the name was never actually revealed on the show; the scene in which it was once shown on a file folder was edited out. The writer commentary for "Designate This" says that Alec was originally conceived of as being like McDowell's character Alex in A Clockwork Orange
but turned out otherwise.
Many fans thought that if Dark Angel had continued for a third season, there would have been a romance between Alec and Max, and there was actually a story treatment by the show's writers to that effect (one of several). However, the show was canceled, leaving the Max/Alec relationship only a possibility. As the writer commentary for "Hello, Goodbye" discusses, Alec was imagined as a romantic foil for Max and Logan's relationship. However, the commentary also notes that his relationship to her is like that of a jerky older brother.
Alec's adventures with Max continue after the end of the Dark Angel series in the Max Allan Collins
novels Skin Game and After the Dark. There are also details of his years at Manticore in The Eyes Only Dossier by D.A. Stern.
Jensen Ackles
Jensen Ross Ackles is an American actor. He is known for his roles in television as Eric Brady in Days of our Lives, which earned him several Daytime Emmy Award nominations, as well as Alec/X5-494 in Dark Angel and Jason Teague in Smallville...
in the 2000–2002 cyberpunk
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
television series Dark Angel
Dark Angel (TV series)
Dark Angel is an American biopunk/cyberpunk science fiction television series created by James Cameron and Charles H. Eglee. The show premiered in the United States on the Fox network on October 3, 2000, and was canceled after two seasons...
, created by James Cameron
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
.
Alec was named for his "smart alec" attitude. He's a transgenic
Chimera (genetics)
A chimera or chimaera is a single organism that is composed of two or more different populations of genetically distinct cells that originated from different zygotes involved in sexual reproduction. If the different cells have emerged from the same zygote, the organism is called a mosaic...
, though he prefers genetically empowered ("Freak Nation"), and is an X5, like Max (there are several X series, going up to X8). He was bred, trained, and raised by Manticore, a facility that used experimental genetic technology to produce various classes of enhanced beings for warfare. Born to a surrogate mother, Alec was around 20 years old when he first appeared on Dark Angel. Unlike his genetically identical twin, Ben (a.k.a. X5-493), he was never called Max Guevara
Max Guevara
Max Guevara is a fictional television character and protagonist in the cyberpunk science fiction television program Dark Angel. She is portrayed by Jessica Alba as an adult and Geneva Locke as a child...
's "brother," since Ben and Max were not biologically related and Alec was from a separate unit. Alec never met Max until he was assigned as her breeding partner in the season 2 premier .
Just before "The Pulse" (an electro-magnetic pulse bomb set off over the United States), Max and a number of her unit escaped from Manticore in 2009. X5-494, however, was not one of the '09 escapees and did not achieve his freedom until more than 10 years later when Max instigated the destruction of Manticore and freed the transgenics. Alec was already outside of the compound then, assigned to corral Max back to Manticore and to facilitate the capture and/or death of Eyes Only.
Once free, he engages in various methods, generally illegal, to gain quick cash; one of the first was cage fighting. He wasn't planning on doing this long, but ceased altogether (excepting mental coercion ) after he gets caught, is forced to kill, and then nearly killed , by Ames White, the deadly agent assigned to hunt down and destroy all escaped transgenics. Alec then emulates Max by working at Jam Pony (a bike messenger service) in order to secure a Sector Pass and scout potential places to steal from. He also runs various scams and had shady business dealings around the city. However, he does limit himself to products that won't get his clientele killed, limiting his customer base.
Wired for survival, he's initially looking out only for himself, but through Max's influence, and his own repressed conscience, he changes, enough that he willingly and often risks himself for friends and transgenics in distress. By the end of the series, he and Max work together to build up the new community for Manticore escapees dubbed Terminal City (a.k.a. Transgenic City, or more commonly: T.C.), a place where they could live and defend themselves from the hostile "ordinaries" (normal humans), as well as the government, and makes a stand with Max and the other transgenics.
Powers & abilities
As is standard with X5s (and partially shared with the other transgenics), he has many superior physical traits, including:- Enhanced strength, speed, agility, reflexes, durability, stamina, and coordination, including the abilitity to jump extremely high.
- Accelerated healing with stem cells and metabolism, which makes it very difficult to become drunk.
- Enhanced eyesight, which allows him to see perfectly in the dark and selectively zoom in on objects from great distances, and hearing.
- Enhanced immune system—all transgenics were made immune to all common bio-warfare agents.
- Eidetic memoryEidetic memoryEidetic , commonly referred to as photographic memory, is a medical term, popularly defined as the ability to recall images, sounds, or objects in memory with extreme precision and in abundant volume. The word eidetic, referring to extraordinarily detailed and vivid recall not limited to, but...
. - Genius level IQ.
Although he appears to be an ordinary human (except for the bar code on the back of his neck that's genetically encoded into his DNA), he possesses extraordinary physical strength, able to overpower a man three times his weight, his reflexes are superhumanly fast, and his eyesight and sense of hearing and smell are extremely acute, which, along with his training, would make it very hard for someone or something to catch him by surprise.
He can leap great distances vertically, allowing him to jump over a barbed fence, and is capable of sprinting at extreme speeds allowing him to blur, making it very difficult for anyone to catch him on foot, except another transgenic.
X5s have enhanced night vision, to the point where they can see well in very little light, and telescopic vision, allowing them to selectively zoom in, and view objects from a distance.
All transgenics have a high number of stem cells in their blood allowing for them to have extremely high regeneration rates. However, if an X5's organ becomes extremely damaged, such as a bullet to the heart, it has to be replaced, and can only be replaced with an X5 or bio-mechanical substitute. All X5s are O-negative blood typed and are universal donors but can only receive from another X5.
Their metabolisms are extremely high, thus making them almost completely insusceptible to alcohol and possibly poisons.
X5s are very dexterous and have extraordinary agility and coordination and advanced lung capacity, allowing them to perform complicated acrobatic and gymnastic maneuvers that would be very difficult for a human, with ease. The X5s were also designed to be physically attractive.
In addition to his superior physique, Alec possesses a genius
Genius
Genius is something or someone embodying exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of unprecedented insight....
level I.Q. and problem-solving skills. He is very gifted at assessing people and situations, which makes him highly adaptive to change and able to learn and mimic with extreme speed and accuracy.
Skills
X5s, meant to be the (transgenic) officers, were exceptionally well trained and suited for military combat, strategy, and espionage (including various weapons and martial arts).Like all X5s, Alec endured brutal physical and mental training and rigid discipline (brainwashing) from childhood till the time of his escape, and his training combined with his enhanced physique makes him nearly unstoppable when facing normal humans, though he is by no means invincible.
Trained as a Manticore supersoldier
Supersoldier
Supersoldier is a term often used to describe a soldier that operates beyond normal human limits or abilities. Supersoldiers are common in science fiction literature, films, TV programs, computer, conspiracy theories, and video games, but have also made appearances in other related genres, such as...
/assassin, some assumptions are that: he is highly skilled in CQB, recon, infiltration, tracking, observation, escape and evasion, espionage, computers, explosives, and handling vehicles (including various military planes and helicopters), has achieved fluency in many languages, and has a black belt in various martial arts such as Krav Maga
Krav Maga
Krav Maga is a noncompetitive eclectic self-defense system developed in Europe that involves striking techniques, wrestling and grappling. Krav Maga is known for its focus on real-world situations and extremely efficient, brutal counter-attacks...
, Taekwondo
Taekwondo
Taekwondo is a Korean martial art and the national sport of South Korea. In Korean, tae means "to strike or break with foot"; kwon means "to strike or break with fist"; and do means "way", "method", or "path"...
,and Judo
Judo
is a modern martial art and combat sport created in Japan in 1882 by Jigoro Kano. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the object is to either throw or takedown one's opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue one's opponent with a grappling maneuver, or force an...
.
X5s, as children, were trained to hold their breath for four minutes and can hold their breath for much longer as adults.
Alec (pre-series, as X5-494) became a concert-level pianist in less than a day in preparation for the Berrisford mission .
Relevant History
- Twin Brother Ben
494's identical twin/genetic clone, X5-493, Ben, was one of the children in Max's Unit who escaped in 2009. Ben, however, didn't adapt to the outside world, remained lost and confused, and became a serial killer that Max had to stop, and kill Pollo Loco"). Max having to kill Ben was a major reason for Max's antagonism towards Alec, since he served as a constant reminder of what she had been forced to do .
X5-493's escape resulted in PSY-OPS time for Alec, as did his eventual psychosis at a later date.
Alec gets arrested for Ben's murder of a man named Timothy Ryan, for which the police have an eye witness and DNA evidence. Ben also killed at least ten other people.
- The '09ers' Escape
This caused a lot of trouble for all of the X5s, after the escape, Manticore attempted to "simplify" those remaining since they were thought to be designed with too much independence, sending them through extreme re-indoctrination The twins of the escapees were assumed to have the same psychological make-up, and so got the worst treatment, including six months in PSY-OPS .
- Love
In the episode "The Berrisford Agenda", we see flashbacks to 494's first long-term away mission in 2018 when he was ordered to observe, then assassinate, Robert Berrisford, a Manticore subcontractor who was becoming too curious about the supersoldier
Supersoldier
Supersoldier is a term often used to describe a soldier that operates beyond normal human limits or abilities. Supersoldiers are common in science fiction literature, films, TV programs, computer, conspiracy theories, and video games, but have also made appearances in other related genres, such as...
program. However, while using the alias of the young piano teacher Simon Lehane (whom 494 killed in order to take his identity), 494 fell in love with Berrisford's seventeen-year-old daughter, Rachel. Rachel would have been killed in the car bomb he was supposed to set off, and at the last minute, 494 attempted to stop the execution. Unfortunately, his Manticore handlers were suspicious of 494 and triggered the bomb. Robert Berrisford survived, but Rachel ended up in a coma that lasted for two years. 494 was brutally punished by Manticore for his disobedience. However, he was allowed to live (Manticore having done all they could to make him forget, or not care, about the Berrisford mission) and ultimately resumed his role as a soldier. After the fall of Manticore in 2020, Alec did get the opportunity to say good-bye to Rachel at her bedside before she ultimately died. It was in this episode that Max realized Alec was capable of love and was far more than a killing machine for Manticore.
- His name
494 was given the name "Alec," by Max when she first met him while imprisoned at Manticore. He was supposed to be her "designated breeding partner", but when Max refused his ordered advances, 494 was willing to back off, albeit with a very snarky attitude. After that, Max dubbed him "Alec" — as in "smart aleck" — due to his egotistical cockiness, and a wary love/hate relationship between the two ensued. (Max's second choice for 494's name was "Dick".) 494 liked the name "Alec" and kept it. The last name "McDowell" was given to the character by one of Dark Angels writers, whose favorite actor was Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell
Malcolm McDowell is an English actor with a career spanning over forty years.McDowell is principally known for his roles in the controversial films If...., O Lucky Man!, A Clockwork Orange and Caligula...
. However, the name was never actually revealed on the show; the scene in which it was once shown on a file folder was edited out. The writer commentary for "Designate This" says that Alec was originally conceived of as being like McDowell's character Alex in A Clockwork Orange
A Clockwork Orange (film)
A Clockwork Orange is a 1971 film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 novel of the same name. It was written, directed and produced by Stanley Kubrick...
but turned out otherwise.
Many fans thought that if Dark Angel had continued for a third season, there would have been a romance between Alec and Max, and there was actually a story treatment by the show's writers to that effect (one of several). However, the show was canceled, leaving the Max/Alec relationship only a possibility. As the writer commentary for "Hello, Goodbye" discusses, Alec was imagined as a romantic foil for Max and Logan's relationship. However, the commentary also notes that his relationship to her is like that of a jerky older brother.
- The novels
Alec's adventures with Max continue after the end of the Dark Angel series in the Max Allan Collins
Max Allan Collins
Max Allan Collins is an American mystery writer. He has written novels, screenplays, comic books, comic strips, trading cards, short stories, movie novelizations and historical fiction. He wrote the graphic novel Road to Perdition , created the comic book private eye Ms...
novels Skin Game and After the Dark. There are also details of his years at Manticore in The Eyes Only Dossier by D.A. Stern.