Written by Mr. Mouseburger 9th Apr 2006
Kindly submitted by Kooshmeister
Eddie Black is a minor crime boss and rival of Robert G. Durant (q.v.). During the pre-title sequence, Black only serves to set up Durant as one dangerous character, who is not to be trifled with. Thanks to Skip smuggling a gun in his artificial leg into the meeting between the gangs, Durant catches Black by surprise and is able to decimate his rival's gang.
Black is the sole survivor of the resulting shootout, and is then seized by Rudy (q.v.) and Pauly (q.v.). Just before the shootout, Black had told Durant, "I got three things to say to you, Durant." What Black's three points were are irrelevant as Durant approaches his now helpless enemy with his cigar cutter. "Now, let's consider MY points, one by one," he says, taking Black's hand and sliding his index finger into the cigar cutter.
"One, I try not to let my anger get the better of me." Durant calmly slices off Black's finger (without any blood, oddly). To his credit, Black takes the pain rather well. Durant slides the cigar cutter over Black's middle finger. "Two, I don't always succeed." Slice! Black loses another finger. Now the cigar
cutter is placed over Black's ring finger as Durant coldly says, "And three... I've got seven more points." Understandably, Black starts screaming as we cut to the movie's opening titles.
I think i would reserve pulling that face for the cigar
cutter being placed over another appendage.......
We are never shown what becomes of Eddie Black, and it's possible that Durant did not actually kill him. But we learn later that Durant collects the fingers of people he and his gang kill, so it's entirely possible that Black is a goner.
I was going to add this death as "Cheating Death"
Possibly, but i think that it is fair to say that if he does not appear in the film after this point, he is dead.
I agree with Kooshmeister's view that the scene was to show how evil durant was, and therefore how deserving his death at the end is. It is highly unlikely that Durnat would kill all of Black's gang and then cut off all his fingers, and let him live.
Eddie lives!
In the short-lived series of Marvel comics that followed the movie, not only does Durant return, but Eddie does as well (with two new metal, gun-outfitted hands).
If the comics are considered official canon, then the Cheating Death category should be there.
You must be joking, right? Did he get them in Jamaica, when a salvage crew found them swimming in the middle of a pool of toxic waste?
Nope. He's a gangster. He has connections.
Here he is (from DARKMAN #1):
Pic 1
Pic 2
The gun hand in action
Well I personally think the comics and novels are a separate continuity from the films, therefore as far as the movies are concerned, Eddie is presumed dead. However the gun hands in the comic is a nice touch. How does Durant come back? Hopefully it's a better explanation then Darkman II offered...
I only have issues 1 and 6, but from what I gather, Durant was badly burned in the helicopter explosion. He's been in a coma in hiding at the hospital that Julie works for now. I'm just guessing here, but he gets some reconstructive surgery on his head and face (the only parts salvageable) and a brand new cybernetic body (where he can detach his head and walk around on an pider-like cybernetic apparatus, like Mr. Freeze).
The final issue (number 6) has Darkman found floating near a shantytown by the bums who live there (after being thrown from a building by Durant in the previous issue). When Claude Bellasarious (the same Bellasarious of the memo that destroyed Peyton Westlake's life and the comics' Wo Fat), head of the powerful Metropolitan Club (which run's the city's illegal activities) finds out, he sends Durant and and some men to finish him off and take care of the bums (witnesses). As bums are gunned down, Darkman strikes, using animal-like fury and savagery to defeat the gang and badly beat up Durant (he even seperates his head from his body and smashes it into the ground). He doesn't kill him though: he sees the horrified expressions on the faces of the surviving bums, and reailizes that the mosnter within him still sets him apart (he had considered setting up a home there). Before it keels over, Durant's cybernetic body grabs the head from Darkman and throws it away. The still-living Durant escapes with the spidr-like cybernetic apparatus to fight again another day. Darkman, to make up for what happened to the shantytown, finds Claude and tells him that he's protecting the city. He's protecting the people Claude preys on. He tells him that Claude is looking at a dead man, and this dead man's haunting him.
INCONCEIVABLE! Well at least Black was a bit "surprised" to hear Durant survived in this version, everyone in the film seemed to just "accept" it
when Eddie Black was having a freightened look on his face was he doing his best impression of Col. Dietrich or Gollum?
Try THIS.
that crime boss should be the first main villain to die.you know Baddy (Major)!
Um, no, he's a very minor villain in the story. In fact the scene he appears in has nothing to do with the main plot except to establish Durant as evil.
Make that EEEEVEEELLLL.
why didn't Darkman kill Eddie Black in the first place?
Because at the time Eddie Black is tortured and presumably killed, Darkman didn't exist yet. He was still Dr. Peyton Westlake. I hate to sound rude, but have you even seen the movie?
no not yet but i will.
Offscreen Killing?
Yeah, I agree.
"1.I'm not selling my property. 2.NOBODY muscles any black especially a couple of dicks. and 3.If you whores don't like it which you already don't we can cut you're balls off." those were eddie's points.
In the factory, how come all of black's goons got pwned by durant's gang so easily. I suppose durant was just more of a professional and so black paid dearly with his finger.
They were taken by surprise. Durant's gang suffered casualties, too. You'll notice when he goes in he has way more guys than just Rudy, Rick, Smiley, Pauly and Skip.