Darkhawk from the Beginning

[nate-grey]

You saw him in Runaways, Loners, and War of Kings, now relive his cult solo that debuted in 1991 and ran for 50 issues + 3 annuals.

Chris Powell was a normal teenager until he found a mysterious amulet that gave him the awesome power of the Darkhawk. Struggling to understand his new powers and his place in the superhero community, Chris also has to deal with a secret identity on top of school and a deteriorating home life. Add to the list a dangerous rogues gallery, surprising romances, and cosmic adventures, and you have a combination that would drive anybody mad. How will Chris Powell cope with the pressures of being a teenaged superhero? Follow along to find out.

We'll start with issue summaries every few days starting with issue #1 and concluding with issue #50. After that, the format is very flexible and can include spin-offs and more recent appearances, or whatever people would like to see. This will be a very collaborative effort, with darkhawk79 and I starting off the reviews and discussion, but any and everybody is encouraged to participate and keep this thread going. If you would like to help out with the issue summaries, just contact me and we'll arrange it! Feel free to also contribute your thoughts, images, favorite moments, or criticisms as we go along. As a longtime Darkhawk fan, this is a very exciting event for me, and I hope others will feel the same way. Hopefully, we can also pull in some new fans to try out an old series.

A summary for Darkhawk #1 will be posted Thursday 12/2/10, so pull out your back issues or follow along with the summaries, and come ready to share your thoughts and experiences!

[nate-grey]

By the way, here is a great Darkhawk site that updates often to keep you occupied until Thursday: Darkhawk Zone. Check it out regularly for most everything Darkhawk-related to hit the net.

[McFarlane's Green Hulk]

Really? Darkhawk made it to issue #50???
I guess I'll be digging thru the bargain bins at my LCS to see what I've been missing -- been hearing a lot of pro-Darkhawk talk lately.

[NunoXEI]

Yes yes yes! Nate-Grey gave me the heads up! It was finally a reason to try the CBR community forums :). Yes yes I am a newby here and fully excited to read and see what people say about the good pl' back issues of DH and his adventures!

Man, I re-read these about 2 years ago because of his return in Nova #17 and then his part in War of Kings and I have been fully ramped up since then. I'm a bit saddened at the end of the Cosmic Book line at Marvel. I'm concerned this will bring abouts that extreme lack of appearances once again. Just hop it's not another decade and a half of sporadic appearances is all!

Can't wait for this thread to commence!

I recently gave Tom vs the Flash a listen thanks to it coming up a couple times on iFanboy. I listened to the first episode and started considering a Darkhawk podcast done in a similar (but different) way. As busy as I am though, I need to make that a project of love as I'd be afraid to only have a dozen listeners hahaha :).

Darkhawk surely needs more love! Bring it bring it bring it!

Thanks Nate-Grey for the headsup and the site link drop. Appreciate the support!

[nate-grey]

Hey NunoXEI! Glad to see you joined up. You have an awesome site that I've been keeping with for the last few months, so it was a no-brainer to get you involved. Darkhawk fans have to stick together. That, and you pointed me in the direction of a Darkhawk wallet, I owe you one.

I've had the first half of the series and about half of the series for years, but it took me a while to finally track down some of the hard to find issues I was missing. I finished up over the summer, so I can't wait to sit down and finally read the series uninterupted. It's going to be a blast!

[Monari]

This is awesome. Darkhawk was my gateway hero into the Marvel Universe. I absolutely LOVED the series and the character himself, who reminded me a little of the anime hero Teknoman that I had watched when I was a kid.

I was so excited to hear about his return via DNA, and I hope they pick up where they left off with him and the Fraternity of Raptors

[darkhawk79]

you pointed me in the direction of a Darkhawk wallet,

And where woudl you find one of these????

Looking forward to re-reading all these again myself and trying my hand at helping nate-grey with the reviews, be gentle though as I've never reviewed anything before so I'll do my best.

[dupersuper]

I remember randomly picking up early Darkhawk issues when I was a kid. I seem to recall liking them, but sadly no longer have them.

[Lil Kis]

Yeah why did they cancel Runawys that was a great book when Brian K Vaughan wrote it

[Category1Games]

I didn't start on Darkhawk until issue 8 which I LOVED and it got me into the series, so I was reading back on issue one and then catching up as it went. I didn't really care for the first little bit of it but loved from 8 - 21 but didn't like the lead up to 25 all that much and actually dropped the book. I've gone back and got the full series now but never read past 25 still, I need to catch up.

The reason this book pulled me in is that it had a sort of Iron Man feel to it but with mystery added to it. I was ten at the time and the issues with Tombstone and Venom were just awesome but the whole arch from 21 - 25 just wasn't that great and the art from 26 - 30 was just bad. Without Manley, the art sucked.

T. Smith and Williams were just bad while Manley sort of started to suck as he went on in the series. I think his style changed to more of a 90'ish style and got away from the sort of Batman/Dark style that he was drawing at first.

Just my 2 cents.

[nate-grey]

Yeah why did they cancel Runawys that was a great book when Brian K Vaughan wrote it

Unfortunately, you hit the nail on the head there. The book was struggling when BKV was writing, but after he left the sales really went down (as did the quality) and the book was cancelled. At least we got a Darkhawk appearance out of it though, and Runaways is a great read for anybody who hasn't read it. BKV's Darkhawk was a little too angry for most, but he gets points for reintroducing him to the MCU!

The reason this book pulled me in is that it had a sort of Iron Man feel to it but with mystery added to it. I was ten at the time and the issues with Tombstone and Venom were just awesome but the whole arch from 21 - 25 just wasn't that great and the art from 26 - 30 was just bad. Without Manley, the art sucked.

Have you read the first DH annual guest-staring Iron Man? If not, you're in for a treat. I agree about 21-25, when I was 10, that was the storyline that got me into Darkhawk, but looking back, it wasn't the strongest. We'll get to it in more detail later though. The art from 26-30 was pretty sketchy, but there were some very good issues in the months after that. There was a slight adjustment period after Manley left, but the quality did pick up.

Notice Chris has the exact opposite personality that he was eventually saddled with by the skim-reading of later writers. He's surrounded by aggression in his younger brothers and burdened with the expectation that he become the man of the home and he's not 'angry', he's frustrated as most teenagers are when realising the shortcomings of authority figures, in this instance Chris' dad. It's a clever way to make him brash without being irrational or difficult to relate to, and it's a shame that it didn't last.

Not sure about all the references to other Marvel universe events so early in the book's run: Spider-Man guest-starring is a smart move, but demonic Hobgoblin's ongoing possession arc being a part of brand new superhero Darkhawk's origin story not so much. But it doesn't get in the way of knowing what's going on, and the book is a lot more accessible than a great many other teen books launching in established fictional universes such as Runaways, Young Avengers or Arana, which are good titles but really do need the first six issues to be taken as a whole compared to Darkhawk's first issue setting up pretty much everything you need to know.

Maybe a little dense in the reading compared to modern titles, but it's a solid opening issue.

Good call on Chris's attitude, his personal life was certainly a mess, which the first issue communicated from the start. The constant stress the family is under definitely takes it's toll on him. Chris's irresponsibility bothers me a lot, but it creates an interesting dilemma when he's given incredible power.

I agree about Hobgoblin. I missed out on his appearances in McFarlane's Spider-Man series, but it's not really necessary to understand what's going on here. I didn't actually figure out that he's demon-possessed until I recently reread it. Hobby does make a truly terrifying villain in this appearance.

[RLAAMJR.]

i want Darkhawk to join the x-force

[Gold guardian]

i want Darkhawk to join the x-force

Hell no, I don't want him to become a killer, that would be so out of character for him.

If anything he should join the Secret Avengers taking Nova's place on the team. After all he was most recently acting as Nova's sidekick/partner and he'd fit the role of their "Big gun" fairly well

[tigerkaya]

Hell no, I don't want him to become a killer, that would be so out of character for him.

If anything he should join the Secret Avengers taking Nova's place on the team. After all he was most recently acting as Nova's sidekick/partner and he'd fit the role of their "Big gun" fairly well

Secret Avengers is no different just look at how Ellis has the team doing right now in their methods. If you want Darkhawk on a team without being a killer I would say put him in either Heroes for Hire or Avengers Academy.

[nate-grey]

All of these teams are very good choices. X-Force has already allowed Deathlok to join, so that lifts the ban on non-mutants. The current incarnation are not as much about killing as the previous group, key word much...

Heroes for Hire would be a great addition, at least for a little while, and it would be fun for him to team-up with some of the other members. DH could return to Earth and take a few jobs while trying to re-establish himself.

Avengers Academy is a natural choice considering his past involvement with the Avengers and the wealth of experience he could bring as a teenage superhero and from his recent experiences. Plus, the Avengers could offer him protection given the current price on his head. Also, there's a mini-Loners reunion going on in that title, so bonus!

Personally, I'm upset that he wasn't affiliated with the Annihilators and continued with his space adventures. Hopefully DNA haven't just left him by the wayside.