Darkhawk's origin

[jrnewto]

I’ve really enjoyed Jared & Jason's efforts to retain Darkhawk’s initial origin on these forums, despite the Fraternity of Raptors retcon (which I’m not that fond of).

What about, for a moment, we set aside this later retcon and attempt to build on Danny Fingeroth’s story!

So what mysteries do we have left over from his original series:

>the amulet’s ability to draw evil and corrupt people to it (how every villain always knew to rip it from Darkhawk’s chest);
>the terror behind the mask that affects Chris (it being his recollection of the Fraternity doesn’t work at all given other humans who would know nothing of their history were also horrified by it);
>Chris’s anger (wouldn’t it be more related to his wielding power drawn from the Darkforce Dimension, much like its corrupting influence on Cloak);
>St. Johnny as a previous Darkhawk (ala Cagliostro to Spawn, given his techno-organic transformation);
>the Darkhawk before Chris (leaving notes for Chris warning of the Curse – who was it and could he be tied to someone in the MU we already know)
>how Portal fits into the grand scheme of things (including which Hawk he killed, the details of their fight – including where it took place given how many years he’d aged from his earlier appearance in Avengers – and how the armour didn’t contain the amulet when it seemed reasonably easy for other villains to remove it from Darkhawk’s chest)
>Evilhawk (I don’t believe it could just be a manifestation of Chris’s rage);
>the purpose as you point out of the body-transference and android healing ship stranded in Nullspace (wonder if it’s related to where Aquarian drew his power from which could have been Limbo).

You know, Jason drew a really cool analogy between Portal and Boba Fett, and therein could lie a possible direction for Darkhawk. Did you know George Lucas’ original script had Anakin hooking up with Sith Pirates whom he would later draft into service for the Emperor (as Mandalore Red Guards)? If we liken Portal to an MU Boba Fett – which I’ve now adopted as his true origin – do we then reveal the Darkhawks as having previously been a force of intergalactic mercenary/pirates-for-hire, who like the Mandalore Pirates, wielded dark magick in the form of Darkforce?

Is anyone out there keen for us to attempt to pull a logical rat’s nest into a seamless garment?

[Jason Abbadon]

Regarding the "pirate/mercenary" angle- it's concievable to keep that as part of the MU's past while retaining the Retcon/UPdate of the Frat or raptors (which I quite like and prefer).
There was a looong time between the fall of the Raptor's influence to Chris obtaining the amulet- and obviously oher people had used amulets in that time: some undoubtedly for good, others for evil and possibly, all being corrupted by the amulet's inherit nature.

In that way, i'd liken them more to what Jim Starlin originally had done with Adam Warlock's Soul Gem- it's alive, vampiric, manipulative and, when worn by anyone with less willpower than Warlock, it uses the wearer as a host- living a lifetime of evil and passion untill swapping out for a new host.
But it could not take over the High Evolutionary and he gave it to Warlock (kinda his adopted son at that point).

It might well be that Sh'Iar institutions such as the Imperial Guard were originally created to do battle and subdue the raptors and the amulets- keeping them from new hosts....but over the milennia, the threat was lost among court intrigue and changes in ruleship of the Empire.
I wonder if Lilandra and Deathbird would have known about the threat of the Raptors...Deathbird is still alive but comatose, IIRC.
It might not have been jsut convience that had Razor assisinate Lilandra- she may have been a threat to the Raptor's return.

Now there are three Raptors loose...only Chris is stuck on Earth (though he might know how o get back to Sh'Iar space...he'd be a wanted man.


As to the "former darkhawk", might that may have been a person that had rid himself of another amulet- and was eventually drawn back to it as Evilhawk?
It's possible...though I sorta like the notion that Evilhawk is really Chris' anger out of control- and it wold be excellent to see Chris go all "Evilhawk" on the Raptors- kinda like "Hulking Out".

Portal though...where was his character last seen? He may have been to a dimension where the raptors never fell from power and, having killed one (or found a dead one or more) cobbeled his own armor together to survive. He certainly seemed to have fought another Darkhawk-armored person....possibly even an alternate reality Chris Powell- or the mysterious former owner of the amulet, I suppose.

Regardless, there's certainly a lot that can be done with the character to make him an A-Lister, IMHO!
Meanwhile, here's an excellent article in Danny Fingeroth's Darkhawk:
http://www.philosophynow.org/issue73/Thinking_Comics_with_Danny_Fingeroth

Regarding the knowledge of “the right thing” the superhero is supposed to know, Fingeroth’s own Darkhawk character often agonizes about the rightness of his decisions. In an early battle in his crime-fighting career, he is a callow adolescent trying to discover his powers and limits. His tactics against the terrorist leader Psi-Wolf result in the death of Dr Vonya, whom he was seeking to protect. Afterwards, Chris Powell/Darkhawk expresses these regrets: “[I] thought no one could stop me. That all I had to do was want to do the right thing – and the right thing would get done. With no harm to anyone but the bad guys… Am I – despite my good intentions – a worse menace than those I fight?!” (Darkhawk #18, Aug 1992, p.30). Thereafter he recurrently worries about injuring bystanders.

Darkhawk’s heart is in the right place of course. But Fingeroth’s dialogue itself conveys Darkhawk’s lack of knowledge regarding the right thing to do, and the outcome confirms his uncertainty. Thus Darkhawk, like Spider-Man, feels angst about who/what he is becoming and how he should wisely use the special powers accidentally bestowed on him. Decisions are also complicated by the moral ambiguities in characters such as the Punisher or Portal, who could be and sometimes are allies in crime fighting, but usually defy collaboration because they are predisposed to revenge.



You know, I have to go back and re-read those old issues- at the time I was only mildly interested in the character, but now I see Fingeroth was making a very real modern Spider-Man type of hero- and I see that lot of his self dount and agonizing over his decision is a reflection of what Peter parker went through in the first fifty or sixty Spider Man issues- quitting several times, beating himself up for not being perfect, making mistakes that cost lives...

I wonder if we can track down Danny Fingeroth and ask him our questions directly?

[Expletive Deleted]

Portal though...where was his character last seen?Marvel Zombies 3 and 4, and the Savage She-Hulk mini-series. He's currently the head of ARMOR, the covert agency that deals with incursions from alternate realities. His agents include Morbius, Howard the Duck, and Machine Man.

[Jason Abbadon]

Thanks!
Does he use his own power to get agents to/from other realities?


I wonder at his age...he may be much older than we'd think from his first appearance in Avengers- having spent years of his life in other dimensions between 616 appearances.

[Cthulhudrew]

Now there are three Raptors loose...

Possibly four- that Kree archaeologist guy from Nova is still out there, and may turn into a raptor again, potentially.

[NunoXEI]

SWEET! Glad to see this topic on the CBR forums where some other minds can add their thoughts about Darkhawk.

I also just recently read the Marvel Zombies stuff and though Portal looked a little old. But like, mentioned here, it's entirely possible that he's aged on an alternate world before coming back to 616 so I can let that go. That being said, I DID like the idea of both Little Sky and Chris Powell being roughly the same age, aka 18-22.

@Jason Abaddon:
Also just read the first three ultimate trades of Ultimate Spider-Man, and that same psychological theme was refined and given great study by Brian Bendis. He tends to shoot down Darkhawk as a character in interviews and an "ultimate version" would never come from him, but reading this type of early SPider-Man really REALLY brough back the same types of feelings I got from Fingeroth's run on Darkhawk a decade earlier.

[jrnewto]

Regarding the "pirate/mercenary" angle- it's concievable to keep that as part of the MU's past while retaining the Retcon/UPdate of the Frat or raptors (which I quite like and prefer).
There was a looong time between the fall of the Raptor's influence to Chris obtaining the amulet- and obviously oher people had used amulets in that time: some undoubtedly for good, others for evil and possibly, all being corrupted by the amulet's inherit nature.
Given the amulet drew power from the Darkforce Dimension, I'd posit that it was this that was responsible for Chris's developing madness than anything to do with Raptor knowledge.

If you'll recall, we previously saw the same thing occurring with Cloak.


It might well be that Sh'Iar institutions such as the Imperial Guard were originally created to do battle and subdue the raptors and the amulets- keeping them from new hosts....but over the milennia, the threat was lost among court intrigue and changes in ruleship of the Empire. I wonder if Lilandra and Deathbird would have known about the threat of the Raptors...Deathbird is still alive but comatose, IIRC.
It might not have been jsut convience that had Razor assisinate Lilandra- she may have been a threat to the Raptor's return.
I wonder if the Fraternity of Raptors have some connection with the Dark Phoenix? Could the Shadow King be somehow tied into this group given his original battle with Xavier on the Astral Plane has him wearing a helmet with a bird-like insignia on it (thumbnailed below)? Does this not scream Dark Phoenix/ Shi’ar?

While we're on the topic of the Shi'ar Royal Family, do you recall Heather Cameron’s codename Lifeguard (from X-Treme X-Men)? Was this meant to clue us in to her being the daughter of Deathbird’s unnamed sister whom she murdered. Jean Grey pointed out that the cranial markings on Heather’s head and the crest of feathers she had manifested suggested she was of Shi’ar royal ancestry. Was her mother, Deathbird’s sister, on the side of Life/Eternity and Deathbird on the side of Death/Vengeance? But who was Deathbird avenging when she killed her mother and sister? And where then does this position D’Ken and Lilandra in the overall scheme?


Now there are three Raptors loose...only Chris is stuck on Earth (though he might know how o get back to Sh'Iar space...he'd be a wanted man.

Can we return to the original list above and begin working through each individual point perhaps to see what we can come up with?


As to the "former darkhawk", might that may have been a person that had rid himself of another amulet- and was eventually drawn back to it as Evilhawk?
It's possible...though I sorta like the notion that Evilhawk is really Chris' anger out of control- and it wold be excellent to see Chris go all "Evilhawk" on the Raptors- kinda like "Hulking Out".
Chris's rage is more easily explained by his tapping of the Darkforce energy, but is Evilhawk his future-self? Or Chris's father?

I'll also point out that in Darkhawk #24, when Chris is fighting Evilhawk in an old amusement park, a member of Code B.L.U.E. shouts 'Freeze! Both of you!' Which wouldn't seem to make sense if Chris was actually in the Evilhawk armor and just hallucinating that he was still Darkhawk fighting Evilhawk, meaning there was only one person to have freeze.


Portal though...where was his character last seen? He may have been to a dimension where the raptors never fell from power and, having killed one (or found a dead one or more) cobbeled his own armor together to survive. He certainly seemed to have fought another Darkhawk-armored person....possibly even an alternate reality Chris Powell- or the mysterious former owner of the amulet, I suppose.
He claimed to have fought and killed another Darkhawk, so can we come up here with a cool explanation for who that Darkhawk might have been?

Can we also come up with a cool explanation for who the mysterious former owner of Chris's amulet was? Could it have been someone we already knew in the Marvel Universe? How cool would that be to reveal?

And what about St. Johnny? There had to be a cooler explanation behind him than what we got? What could it be?


You know, I have to go back and re-read those old issues- at the time I was only mildly interested in the character, but now I see Fingeroth was making a very real modern Spider-Man type of hero- and I see that lot of his self dount and agonizing over his decision is a reflection of what Peter parker went through in the first fifty or sixty Spider Man issues- quitting several times, beating himself up for not being perfect, making mistakes that cost lives...

I wonder if we can track down Danny Fingeroth and ask him our questions directly?
Each decade since Spidey's introduction there was an effort made by Marvel to capture that 'lightning in a bottle': in the 70s it was Nova, the 80s Speedball, Darkhawk in the 90s and finally the 00s with Ultimate Spider-Man which tended to have more success than these previous incarnations.

[jrnewto]

With regard to Darkhawk's face I wonder if it might have been a Dire Wraith. Recall they were wielders of magic and during their appearance in Uncanny X-Men they appeared to be throwing heaps of darkforce around.

Were the "darkhawk" armours an attempt to set themselves up as "black knights" against Rom's "white knights"?

[NunoXEI]

I'll also point out that in Darkhawk #24, when Chris is fighting Evilhawk in an old amusement park, a member of Code B.L.U.E. shouts 'Freeze! Both of you!' Which wouldn't seem to make sense if Chris was actually in the Evilhawk armor and just hallucinating that he was still Darkhawk fighting Evilhawk, meaning there was only one person to have freeze.

I'd hate to accept my own words here, but these sorts of scenarios are all "trumped" by: "It was all in his head". The thing with reading stories of Darkhawk's past that are now defined by the notion that even we--as readers--got Darkhawk stories tainted by Chris's own madness and psyche. Unless, in some other comic book continuity there was reference to Evilhawk and Darkhawk being independent beings, we're really left with nothing but Chris Powell psyche stories from Evilhawk's appearance onward. Everything at that point is questionable and retconnable with little need to offer deeper explainations :).

Sucks... but that's the trump of storytelling with hard-button resets every decade or two haha. Someone let DC Comics know is ALRIGHT to do this to Hawkman once and for all!

[jrnewto]

I'd hate to accept my own words here, but these sorts of scenarios are all "trumped" by: "It was all in his head". The thing with reading stories of Darkhawk's past that are now defined by the notion that even we--as readers--got Darkhawk stories tainted by Chris's own madness and psyche. Unless, in some other comic book continuity there was reference to Evilhawk and Darkhawk being independent beings, we're really left with nothing but Chris Powell psyche stories from Evilhawk's appearance onward. Everything at that point is questionable and retconnable with little need to offer deeper explainations :).

Sucks... but that's the trump of storytelling with hard-button resets every decade or two haha. Someone let DC Comics know is ALRIGHT to do this to Hawkman once and for all!
I reckon for the moment we avoid the later retcon and attempt to build something workable based on the original series.

Interesting mentioning Hawkman here since their both being a force from another galaxy reincarnating on earth. Although if we're drawing a parallel to the DC Universe the Darkhawks seem akin to the Manhunter androids who came before the Green Lanterns.

[Cthulhudrew]

The under the helmet thing- there's a couple of ways I could see working that angle. On the one hand, maybe whatever is beneath the mask is sort of a dark mirror- it reflects back at the observer all the things that they most fear and loathe about themselves; the "truth" as Powell's father's "ghost" mentions in War of Kings: Ascension.

The alternative explanation is that it is indeed the truth about the Fraternity of Raptors; a glimpse of what lay underneath the mask reveals the entire millennia-old conspiracy of murder, lies, betrayal, and evil that the organization has perpetuated in the interests of their own greater good. The horror of the depths of that depravity might be enough to scare anyone who looks at it, and be too much for their minds to fully retain the memory of. (For a technical description, maybe it briefly allows communion with the datasong.)

[jrnewto]

The under the helmet thing- there's a couple of ways I could see working that angle. On the one hand, maybe whatever is beneath the mask is sort of a dark mirror- it reflects back at the observer all the things that they most fear and loathe about themselves; the "truth" as Powell's father's "ghost" mentions in War of Kings: Ascension.

The alternative explanation is that it is indeed the truth about the Fraternity of Raptors; a glimpse of what lay underneath the mask reveals the entire millennia-old conspiracy of murder, lies, betrayal, and evil that the organization has perpetuated in the interests of their own greater good. The horror of the depths of that depravity might be enough to scare anyone who looks at it, and be too much for their minds to fully retain the memory of. (For a technical description, maybe it briefly allows communion with the datasong.)
I like your first suggestion that Darkhawk's face reflects back to the viewer what they fear most about themselves, a "black mirror" so-to-speak.

[NunoXEI]

And it leaves the actual details dynamic, which is always more effective than just giving us an actual face. It's that whole concept of the horror movie monster always being more frightening when it's kept a mystery to the audience. Once it's revealed it has to deal with different personal opinions and definitions of what each of us think is "scary".

[jrnewto]

And it leaves the actual details dynamic, which is always more effective than just giving us an actual face. It's that whole concept of the horror movie monster always being more frightening when it's kept a mystery to the audience. Once it's revealed it has to deal with different personal opinions and definitions of what each of us think is "scary".
I agree.

Okay so let's recap where we're up to in working through the above points.

Anger Issues
Driven by his wielding power drawn from the Darkforce Dimension, similar to its corrupting influence on Cloak.

The question moving forward becomes what will be the long-term impact of its use on Chris?

Face Behind the Mask
A reflection of the viewer's "dark side".

Remaining
>the amulet’s ability to draw evil and corrupt people to it;
>the Darkhawk before Chris;
>St. Johnny as a previous Darkhawk;
>how Portal fits into the grand scheme of things;
>Evilhawk's true origin;
>the purpose of the body-transference and android healing ship stranded in Nullspace.

You know what could have been a great core to drive the series is revealing and making a bigger deal early on of the amulet's ability to draw evil to it. This could be a great method by an intergalactic police force to wield something capable of doing this so they can draw criminals out of the woodwork and take care of them without having to go to all the effort of seeking them out. Is this the route we could take with sorting his origin out? The other focus behind the series would of course be that the police force, and whoever is undertaking its crime-prevention duties, has a tiger by the tail in the amulet since there is always the risk the villain will be powerful enough to take it for their own or cursing the Darkhawk like the Black Knight's Ebony Blade.