Charles Marlow
Marlow's name may be inspired by the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe. Conrad's father was a translator of William Shakespeare who doubtless would have known of Marlowe's work as well. Some intertextual interpretations of "Heart of Darkness" have suggested that Marlowe's "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" may have influenced Conrad. Charles Marlow describes a character as a "papier-mache Mephistopheles", a reference to the Faust legend. Marlow's and Kurtz's journey up the Congo River in "Heart of Darkness" also has similarities to another work by Marlowe, "Dido, Queen of Carthage", in which Aeneas is stranded on the shore of Libya and meets the African queen Dido.
Sal Maroni
Salvatore Vincent "Sal" Maroni is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, commonly in association with Batman. The character is portrayed as an infamous gangster in Gotham City and enemy of Batman. Maroni is most famous for disfiguring Harvey Dent, setting the stage for the young district attorney's transformation into the supervillain Two-Face. In live-action, he is portrayed by Eric Roberts in "The Dark Knight" and David Zayas in Fox's "Gotham".