#4 – Joanna Dark

First Appearance: Perfect Dark (N64)

Other Video Game Appearances:

Perfect Dark (Game Boy Color)
Perfect Dark Zero

Other Media: Perfect Dark: Initial Vector (Novel)
                    Perfect Dark: Second Front (Novel)
                    Perfect Dark: Janus' Tears (Comic Book)

Joanna Dark first found her way onto game consoles in 2000 when she was introduced in Perfect Dark, for Nintendo 64. Employed by the Carrington Institute, Joanna worked as a mercenary/secret agent. The game's story followed her uncovering a plot by the Carrington Institute's rival corporation, dataDyne, and their alien counterparts, the Skedar. Joanna not only finds that the company is involved with the Skedar, but that the Skedar are in a war with another, peaceful alien faction known as the Maians, who are secretly involved with the Carrington Institue (confusing, eh?). The Skedar, under the guise dataDyne employees, had tried to commission a vessel from the U.S. government to retrieve an Maian weapon from the depths of the sea. They planned to use the weapon against its creators. Being denied by the President himself, dataDyne put forth a plan to assassinate the President and replace him with its own clone.

dataDyne however, did not know that the Skedar planned to test the weapon on the Earth before firing it at their primary target. With the help of other Carrington agents and a Maian nicknamed Elvis, Joanna would foil the Skedar plot and save the Earth. Once the Earth was safe, Joanna helped the Maians launch an offensive against the Skedar, dealing a punishing blow that would destroy their leader and end their assault on the Maians. Joanna would appear only once more on a Nintendo system, in Perfect Dark for the Game Boy Color. The game, release only a few months after the Nintendo 64 game, followed a plot which surrounded the destruction of an illegal cyborg manufacturing facility.

Five years later, Joanna would return with a very different look, this time in high definition, in Perfect Dark Zero for the Xbox 360. The game was supposed to release on GameCube, but after Rare's switched to Microsoft, the development turned to Xbox, finally releasing on Xbox 360. The story takes place three years before the events of the original game. Joanna worked as a bounty hunter, alongside her father, Jack Dark, and her friend, Chandra. The game's story takes her through many trials and tribulations, including uncovering a plot, by the founder of dataDyne, to take over the world, betrayal by her close friend, and the death of her father. The game also explains her introduction to the Carrington Institute and how she got the codename Perfect Dark.

Since Perfect Dark Zero, Joanna has had her fair share of escapades in novels and a series of comic books. There is also talk of television and movie adaptations of the game, but nothing official has arisen just yet.

We'll be rounding out the rest of the top 5 female protagonists and antagonists in video games throughout the rest of Women's Month, so stay tuned.