General Hospital Message Board

What are we supposed to believe about Duke?

I recall him as a somewhat weak but charming man, involved in the mob to some degree reluctantly. He met and fell hard for Anna, romanced her, married her, did all he could to get free of the mob and eventually 'died' in order to keep her and Robin safe.

So, are we supposed to believe his current story about a turkish prison, or is that just a tale he concocted to explain his absence? Matching fingerprints are easily explained--an insider at the PCPD switched them for his prints. We know that Duke's apparently been lurking around for some time, given the stuff with Bernie. As to whether or not the Duke of today is the same as the Duke from years ago--too soon to tell unless we have a backstory that the Duke of old had really been playing Anna all along and that he'd only pretended to be abandoning crime for the love of Anna.

Or, did he have some sort of breaking point like Jerry Jax supposedly did when he hit overload and joined the dark side forever?

I just can't see him as Faison with plastic surgery. Faison loved Anna, but it seems to me that he would have wanted her to want him, not a made over version with Duke's face.

At this point, I'd prefer to learn that Duke was faking Anna out all those years ago, that he had never cherished ambitions of being squeaky clean for her and that for whatever reason, he's decided to return to PC to boot Sonny aside and claim the town as his territory. Shooting Jason in the back does tend to indicate that Duke is a villain and bent on concealing his evil deeds from the rest of Port Charles, Anna in particular.

Does anybody have any spoilers regarding the direction of the storyline? Is this really Duke and has he been evil all along?