Black Manta

Ralph Powell

Ralph Powell as the Black Manta

Alana Powell (Daughter)

Mitchell Powell (Son)

> "*Shoot me, and I let go!*"
> ― Black Manta to Ramon Hurtado while holding his daughter over a skyscraper
>
>

**Black Manta** (real name **Ralph Powell**) is a former United States Army soldier turned freelance assassin/hitman. He is one of the many mercenaries/independent hitmen attacking The Eternals.

## Biography

### Early life

Not much is known about Ralph's early life, except for the fact that he witnessed his parents divorce at age 10. This did not affect him much, but he did get mood swings on occasion. When he was 17, he joined the United States Army.

### Military Career

Ralph's military career is shrouded in mystery, since he never opened up about his military experiences to anyone. What can be known about his military ops is based on after-action reports released after he was discharged from the military. In one notable case, in the year 1996, he was commended and awarded the Medal of Honor for helping to expose a military scandal that could have damaged America's relations with Russia and China. Sometime after this, he left the military and settled into a quiet civilian life.

### Starting a family and civilian issues

About two years after leaving the military, he met, dated and eventually married his wife, Marianne and became the father of two kids: his oldest daughter Alana and his youngest son Mitchell. He had a great civilian life, working as a manager for a local construction company. However, this dream life was soon crushed when his construction company went bankrupt, forcing him to be let go. This left him desperate to find a new job. Fortunately, one would reach him: in 2010, a family friend gave him intel concerning a "bounty hunting" job that he had applied for. Initially, Ralph was hesitant, until he was told that accepting the job would be a gateway to a chance to relive his military glory days. Convinced, he accepted the job, later discovering that he had effectively become a contract assassin/hitman, something he was new to, but soon grew used to before he knew it. However, to avoid frightening his wife and children, he tried to hide the truth from his family by informing them that he was going on "business trips" with an Entrepreneurship.

### Becoming the Black Manta

By 2016, Ralph, now operating under the codename **Black Manta**, had become a criminal syndicate's worst nightmare: he had transformed into a powerful, cold, manipulative and destructive individual who seemed to be devoid of a conscience: he killed without remorse or hesitation, driven entirely by money. He would go after targets with the biggest bounties, with the aim of becoming rich off the people he killed and possibly starting a hitman business of his own. Black Manta's biggest bounty came in 2019, when he saw an anonymous ad inviting him to assist two other hitmen in destroying a notorious narco-terrorist group that had taken over the nation of Venezuela, with the two hitmen promising to share the spoils after the operation succeeded. Enthralled by the prospect of chasing bad guys once again and motivated by the huge bounty that he would come to claim once he completed the job, Ralph consented without hesitation.

### Campaign against Black Widow

After Bill Maglio, father of Edward Maglio, was framed for murder and later escaped thanks to Jane the Ripper, Ralph received an anonymous tip (unbeknownst to him, it was from Kingfish, the leader of the Black Widows, who was manipulating him) concerning Bill's location, along with a bounty of fourteen million dollars for killing him. Ralph took the job, completely oblivious to the fact that he was being manipulated with false information. Ralph tracked Bill and Jane the Ripper down to a restaurant in St. Louis, Missouri, where a fight broke out. Ralph was moments away from killing both Bill and Courtney until Lewis Jordan and Ralph's own daughter Alana put a stop to it, claiming that they had information that Bill was being framed for murder.

### Killing El Toro

After settling their differences and putting aside their petty rivalries, Corvus, Deathshade, and Black Manta formed an alliance with Edward Maglio and his Righteous Crusaders against The Eternals. However, they ran afoul of Task Force Anubis, a counterterrorism task force that also sought ot dismantle the cartel. This led to a race between the anti-cartel alliance and Anubis: while Anubis was seeking to capture major heads of the Eternals alive, Corvus, Deathshade, Black Manta, Edward and all their friends were seeking to kill them. This came to a head when both the alliance and the CIA encountered Ramon Hurtado. Corvus and Black Manta, wanting to torture Hurtado before killing him, kidnapped his daughter and threatened to kill her if Ramon did not surrender to them. Ramon feigned compliance, only to attack them after Ramon's daughter tried to escape and steal Corvus' gun. This led to a brutal fistfight which led to Corvus killing Ramon, with help from Edward Maglio.

## Skills and Abilities

### Abilities

* **Expert Marksman**: As a former US soldier, Black Manta could shoot with excellent accuracy. He has been known to hit a target from hundreds of miles away.
* **Expert Martial Artist**: Being a former US soldier, Black Manta was quite proficient in hand-to-hand combat, able to hold his own in numerous fights against opponents bigger than himself. He has a habit of searching his enemies for any potential weaknesses, and then exploiting said weaknesses to quickly gain an edge over his opponents.
* **Expert Spy**: Black Manta also was a master at espionage: he could disguise himself as a normal tourist in any country in which he operated in.

### Skills

* **Multilingualism**: Black Manta is fluent in various different languages, including (but not limited to) Russian, German, French, Irish, Mandarin Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Khmer, Icelandic, Norwegian, Hebrew, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Romanian, and even Slovakian.

## Equipment

### Weapons

* **Glock 17**: One of Black Manta's weapons of choice is a dark Earth Glock 17 converted to full-auto with an extended mag, and a suppressor.
* **Glock 18**: This is another one of Black Manta's signature weapons, a selective-fire variant of the Glock 17.
* **Glock 19**: This compact variant of the Glock 17 is Black Mamba's main home defense weapon.
* **SIG Sauer Mosquito**: This weapon was used by Black Mamba on several occasions during his mission to dismantle The Eternals.
* **SIG Sauer P226**: This pistol was used by Black Mamba after losing his customized G17 in a gun battle with the Eternals.
* **M416**: This assault rifle was used by Black Mamba on mutliple occasions, notably during a full blown assault on a drug lab in a Venezuelan village.

## Trivia

* He is considered an antihero, the first antihero in the Delta Verse.
* As of 2020, his daughter Alana is fully aware that her father is a hitman (and fears him because of it).

## Quotes

*"This is where you wish you died faster."*

- Ralph to an Eternals member.

*"Shoot me, and I let go!...Go on, shoot me. Shoot me, Ramon. No? SHOOT ME!"*

- Black Mamba attempting to goad Ramon into shooting him in order to kill the latter's daughter in front of him.