Revisiting Darkhawk

He was supposed to be the next big thing- the cool new super hero to usher in another wave of success for Marvel in the ’90s.

They teamed him up with Spider-Man for a period and even had him square off against popular foes like Hobgoblin and Venom. But in the end, the character never took off like Marvel had hoped.

Darkhawk.

The reason why many of you are asking yourself who Darkhawk is as you read this, is because he’s a pretty obscure character. The fact is that the dude from “War of Kings” with the cool costume has been around longer than you think. In spite of some excellent art by Mike Manley [through the series’ first 25 issues], the series lasted only 50 issues before Darkhawk was inserted into a bench-warming role with the Avengers. Sparse appearances over the next 15 years until CB Cebulski penned his WOK miniseries on the character gave him a bit of a push, but overall, he’s a character that will always be regarded as a failure.

That failure started in the first issue.

While the splash pages in that issue by Manley are fantastic, as only Todd McFarlane has managed to draw a scarier version of Hobgoblin, the writing by Danny Fingeroth is too silly to take serious.

By 1991, comic book fans were asking for more and even though Darkhawk kills a mobster in the issue (the series did try to be darker and grittier than the other books Marvel was publishing at the time) the story makes no sense. Why would an intergalactic amulet be in the basement of a worn-down amusement park? Chris Powell, Darkhawk’s alter-ego is also as charismatic as a wet mop. The fact that his father is a crooked cop and his mom is a lawyer fighting the mob gives him little reason to wage a war against crime.

Okay, maybe it does, but it’s not compelling. The fact that Powell looks like a younger version of the mullet-sporting John Stamos from “Full House” only makes readers take him less serious.

Even funnier is the homeless man that ends up playing a role in how the character gets his name.

“Powers got to be used, not abused, by a Darkhawk.”

Reading it nearly 20 years ago as an eight-year-old was one thing, but now, any relatively-intelligent comic book fan reading would have to wonder, what the frack is a Darkhawk and why is this homeless man suddenly throwing out cliches like a Nancy Regan anti-drug ad?

Because of this ludicrous writing and the addition of Evilhawk, Powell’s boring main nemesis, the series eventually tanked. You can’t blame the creative team though. They were telling a story the way they were all told during that time. Plain and simple, they were exactly visionaries.

The character is worth a retcon one day though; maybe then it’ll live up to its potential.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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