Darkforce

"And nothing bad ever happens when you work with something called 'Darkforce'."

- Phil Coulson

The Darkforce, also once called Zero Matter, is a form of unstable and powerful cosmic radiation made of pure negative energy.

Discovery
"We are in possession of what could be the greatest discovery of all time." "You've failed to illustrate that to us, Calvin." "Well, I mean I'm not a scientist, all I can say is that sharper minds than ours tell me this substance is potentially priceless."

- Calvin Chadwick and Thomas Gloucester

The Darkforce is a theoretically transdimensional element that first manifested on Earth in the 1940s, when a mysterious anomaly occurred in the wake of an Atomic Bomb test by Isodyne Energy that fermented into a portal. A military team that had been witnessing the event were sucked in by the portal, as were all their supplies and vehicles. The portal then vanished, and the only thing left behind was a cluster of Darkforce, writhing around in the spot that the portal had appeared.

The Darkforce found itself in the possession of Isodyne, and was given the label "Zero Matter". The scientist Jane Scott touched the substance and became frozen solid afterwards. Actress and genius inventor Whitney Frost coveted the Zero Matter, seeking to use its otherworldly properties to her own ends. Through her husband, Calvin Chadwick, Frost believed that the Zero Matter could be used to push humanity to higher levels of advancement. Unfortunately, Chadwick's benefactors, the Council of Nine, lost interest in the operation and ceased all funding on utilizing the Zero Matter. Refusing to let this slide, Frost went to Isodyne Energy with the intent of stealing the Zero Matter for herself. However, Strategic Scientific Reserve Agent Peggy Carter and Isodyne scientist Jason Wilkes, perceiving the Zero Matter as too dangerous to be left in Isodyne's hands, arrived at the same time with the same intent. Frost and Wilkes clashed over the Zero Matter, but in the struggle, the canister containing the force fell and broke open. The Zero Matter subsequently unleashed a pulse of energy that left Frost infected with Darkforce energy and Wilkes invisible and intangible.

Frost soon learned that she could turn a person into Darkforce energy, then absorb that person into her body, as she accidentally did with the film director Kenneth; however, a side effect was that the black scar on her face grew after an absorption. The Darkforce caused a desire in the two individuals to intake more; Wilkes desired it to become tangible while Frost wanted the substance to feel invulnerable. Both sought to drain the body of Scott of her infection, but Frost reached the location first and successfully absorbed the corpse's Darkforce. Desiring more, Frost sought an Atomic Bomb to replicate the creation of the rift, but was unsuccessful due to Carter, Edwin Jarvis, and a select team of SSR agents.

At risk of fading away permanently, Wilkes designed a machine that would restore himself to tangible form, but required a sample of Zero Matter to stabilize himself. Carter recruited Dottie Underwood into stealing a sample from Frost at Chadwick's campaign party. Following the acquisition of the sample, Wilkes is able to make himself solid again.

Frost used her Darkforce abilities to take control of the Council of Nine, she orders Vernon Masters to retrieve the nuclear rods Carter stole. She then used Darkforce to torture Underwood, learning of Wilkes' predicament. Breaking into Howard Stark's mansion, she attempted to draw the Zero Matter out of Wilkes, but he resisted and gained more Darkforce to step outside his containment unit, before being knocked out and kidnapped.

Frost is able to coerce Wilkes into getting the location of the nuclear rods from Carter, and once Masters had acquired them, began to recreate the Isodyne experiment, successfully reopening the rift into the Darkforce dimension. To Frost's fury, the rift drew Wilkes into itself. Subsequently, Wilkes was returned after Carter and her team used a Gamma Cannon designed by Stark to close the rift.

Frost later used all sorts of painful instruments to extract the Zero Matter from Wilkes, but the latter actively resisted. When Carter later freed Wilkes, ultimately he couldn't hold it, as Zero Matter exploded from his body, restoring himself to normal. Frost then absorbed all the Zero Matter into herself and became more obsessed with letting more Zero Matter into the world. Carter and Daniel Sousa infiltrated her house and copied her research, so Howard Stark,Aloysius Samberly and Wilkes could create a rift generator.

Upon opening the rift at Stark Pictures, Frost immediately sensed it and was drawn to the rift. Stark then fired the Gamma Cannon at Frost, expelling the Zero Matter from her body and back into the rift. However, Carter and her allies could not shut down the rift generator remotely, forcing Daniel Sousa to try shutting it down manually. His life was saved by Jarvis and Samberly, who load the weapon's gamma core into Stark's flying car, which flew into the rift and detonated, sealing it.

Despite the resolution of the crisis, to Carter's annoyance, Stark desired to study Darkforce to make a profit out of it.

HYDRA's Experiments
"It was you! You took me there! They did things to me there!" "They were trying to contain you." "No! They were trying to make me stronger. And they did."

- Marcus Daniels and Phil Coulson

In the 21st century, the Darkforce became the subject of interest to Doctor Abner Croit and his assistant Marcus Daniels. The scientists led an experiment to harness the electrical power of the Darkforce. During a lab accident, the Darkforce granted Daniels the power to absorb any form of energy, thus empowering him. This allowed him to manipulate brain and heart electrical impulses, killing his victims with just one touch and turning him insane with power. After Agent Phil Coulson imprisoned Marcus Daniels at the Fridge, S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists performed experiments on him that strengthened his power over the Darkforce. Upon release from the Fridge, Daniels used Darkforce energy to battle a splinter team Coulson put together to recapture him. Daniels' manipulation of Darkforce energy ultimately was not strong enough to absorb the energy released by the Gamma Power Reserve created by Leo Fitz and Bruce Banner, and Daniels was killed.

Capabilities
"Zero matter is always drawing energy into itself. It'll always be the coldest object in the room because it is literally devouring any nearby energy."

- Jason Wilkes

Darkforce is an extra-dimensional substance that, in its pure form, absorbs all ambient energy, reducing the temperature of the surrounding area. It resembles a viscous, black liquid, and has the properties of a, according to Jason Wilkes, a scientist in the 1940's who observed its properties. Darkforce has such a strong attraction to itself that it can defy gravity and destroy matter to reconnect to the larger mass.

In its impure form, Darkforce has different properties, depending on the person manipulating it.