The Wraith

The Wraith is the title character of the movie of the same name, which was written and directed by Mike Marvin and released in 1986. Acted out in the film by Charles "Charlie" Sheen, The Wraith is a vengeful magitech (or possibly alien-resurrected) spirit who challenges road pirates to races to the death. Nicholas "Nick" Cassavetes acts out his greatest enemy, Packard Walsh, in the same film.
==Appearance==
As Jacob "Jake" Kesey, he is often seen outfitted in a denim jacket and jeans or a rawhide jacket, wearing sunglasses. When shirtless, he can be seen to have scars from multiple knife marks all over his back.
But as The Wraith, he is outfitted from head to foot in black futuristic-looking biker armor with a black full-face motorcycle crash helmet, whose visor can be flipped up mechanically. He is also shown with multiple braces, resembling those which trauma victims wear to assist them in regaining their mobility, attached to his armor's arms and legs; these disappear whenever he kills a member of Packard's gang.
==Biography==
Little is known about James Hankins, nicknamed "Jamie", prior to his transformation into Jake Kesey and The Wraith. What is known about him is that while he was alive, he was living in Brooks, Arizona. (No such city, town, or community as Brooks, Arizona actually exists.) He was in love with and going out with a young woman named Keri Johnson, who still lived in Brooks. However, unfortunately for him, envy arrived in the form of Packard Walsh, the evil leader of a gang of road pirates who challenged people to drag races, with their cars as collateral. Packard, who was insanely jealous of anyone who might even look at Keri, stormed in with the gang during a night of passion between Jamie and Keri. They knocked Keri out and proceeded to beat and stab Jake multiple times. Once they had finished murdering him, they loaded his bloody corpse into the trunk of a car, pushed the car off a cliff, and blew it up with a well-timed shotgun blast.
Alas for them, Jamie came back from the dead in two distinct but connected forms. The first form was that of the nice, mild-mannered biker named Jake Kesey, who was new in town. The second form was that of The Wraith, a black-suited, magitech-based--or possibly alien-restored--quasi-ghost, who was out to destroy those who had killed him.
As Jake, he tried to rekindle his previous romance with Keri and encourage her to stand up to Packard, who, at this point, had intimidated her into being his girlfriend, with Keri being none the wiser of who Packard truly was till the very end.
But as The Wraith, in addition to being armored in a black head-to-foot racing suit with its black full-face motorcycle crash helmet, he was armed with a laser-projecting weapon that resembled a shotgun, and he drove "The Turbo Interceptor," a futuristic-looking fast car, black in color like his armor, that could survive even the most gruesome of damage. Those killed in their crashes with it were left with their corpses naked but unscarred otherwise, except that their eyes were reduced to burned-out sockets.
The Wraith's antics caught the ire of Sheriff G. L. Loomis, who had originally been trying to catch Packard racing when he caught wind of this unknown foe. Though Loomis did his best to try to apprehend The Wraith, he did not quite care, since it was only Packard and his gang whom The Wraith was after; when Packard Walsh himself was eventually killed, Loomis said, "Roadblocks won't stop something that can't be stopped." He added, "It's over. There's nobody left in Packard's gang to kill."
One by one, The Wraith picked off Packard's gang, leaving him for last. Once the accomplishment of his mission of vengeance was completed, The Wraith approached Keri, revealing himself. In the end, he passed the Turbo Interceptor to Jamie's brother William "Billy" Hankins, while he rode with Keri out of town--and, presumably, out of the entire state of Arizona as well, apparently never to return.
==Personality==
As Jake, he is rather laid-back, if not somewhat cynical, but his heart is in the right place. He gets along with Billy Hankins, not letting him know who he is till the end. The romance he had had with Keri in his previous life is what drives him to keep going. He cares passionately about Keri and is determined to help her free herself from Packard Walsh.
But as The Wraith, since Charles Sheen and his stunt drivers had no lines whenever any of them were outfitted in the identical black racing suits they wore whenever behind the wheel of the Turbo Interceptor, writer-director Mike Marvin gave very little to go by.However, The Wraith's actions shape his personality.In the races, he has a habit of toying with all his victims before zooming ahead of each, stopping the Turbo Interceptor in front of them, and waiting for them to crash directly into him at high speeds, knowing full well that he will invariably survive all the said crashes, while they will not. Outside his car, the said toying comes into the fray to a much worse degree. Using his shotgun, he wrecks Packard's garage and, at one point, he appears tempted to shoot Packard himself then and there. The Wraith's actions cause "Skank," a member of Packard's gang, to describe him as "weird and pissed off." At one point, The Wraith even takes his toying as far as crashing Packard into the graveyard, before taunting him with a headstone marked "Packard Walsh RIP."
While the other members of Packard's group are shown no mercy, the only one of them whom The Wraith is willing to spare is "Rughead," based on the principle that he alone (Rughead) had had nothing to do with Jamie's murder. This shows that The Wraith does have mercy.
The Wraith also has little care for collateral damage, as shown by his destroying police cars simply because they are in his way; the law-enforcement agents who drive them, however, are left unharmed.
==Powers and Abilities==
===Powers===
As The Wraith, Jake is able to do the following:
*Virtual immortality: Whenever his car is crashed or blown, he and it are able to restore themselves unscathed.
*Psychokinesis: When Skank confronts The Wraith with his shotgun, The Wraith is able to destroy the barrel with his mind.
*Appearances and disappearances: The Wraith, in that form as well as in the form of Jake, is able to appear and disappear into thin air, surprising and shocking anyone that witnesses this.
*Soul splitting: This is not manifested all the time, but sometimes when The Wraith disappears he can split his soul into six blue orbs. In his human form, Jake has also been shown able to do this, much to the shock of Packard Walsh.
*Transformations: At will, Jake can transform between both forms. It is implied that he finds the process extremely painful. After his business has been finished, it is ambiguous whether Jake possesses this ability any longer; when he transforms in Keri's presence, he says, "Can't do that again."
===Abilities===
*Driving expertise: As The Wraith, Jake Kesey is able to maneuver obstacles with great reflex, toy with his opponents, and drive at higher speed than the average stock racer.
*Motorcycle-biking expertise: As Jake, he is able to put his great driving skills into play on his bike as well, narrowly dodging Skank and "Gutterboy," members of Packard's gang, when the latter two give chase.
*Marksmanship/sharpshooting: The Wraith is able to fire with amazing accuracy, using his shotgun. Many assume that he is merely firing wildly at Pacakard's garage. But it is clearly shown, when he points the shotgun in Packard's face then shifts the barrel's direction, that he is doing this deliberately.
===Devices===
*Turbo Interceptor: The Wraith's car, faster than the average car; chief among its attributes is ability to reconstruct itself completely after being wrecked.
*Shotgun: The Wraith uses a shotgun similar in appearance to a Franchi SPAS-12. But unlike the SPAS, instead of bullets or conventional shot shells, the gun shoots laser projectiles and is capable of damage far worse than the average shotgun shell. Yet these projectiles do not set off either the ether or the acetylene used in Packard's garage, both of which gases are highly flammable and indeed explosive, when they are fired.
*Motorcycle: As Jake Kesey, the 1978 Honda Civic Motorcycle is The Wraith's default mode of transportation. While it seems not to be as special as the Turbo, it is known to be unusually quiet and, much like the car, is able to disappear whenever Jake executes his soul splitting.
==Trivia==
*The car that The Wraith drives in the movie is the 1986 Dodge M4S Turbo Interceptor. Originally conceived as a pace car by Dodge and PPG industries, it was also meant to demonstrate that a car powered by a four-in-line automotive engine could, especially when using turbocharging, rival V8-powered cars, turbocharged and not, in terms of top speeds.When Mike Marvin wrote and directed The Wraith, there were only four such cars in existence, the original that Chrysler-Plymouth-Dodge loaned out to the production and three duplicates, each of which was built on a Volkswagen chassis; those meant to be destroyed in crashes were non-driving mock-ups.
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