DARKHAWK: HEART OF THE HAWK #1 - A Return to Prominence

 This issue was written by Danny Fingeroth, Dan Abnett, and Kyle Higgins; with artwork from Mike Manley, Andrea Di Vito, and Juanan Ramirez.

 

As is often the case with a title such as this, I went into it with quite low expectations, as the concept and character of Darkhawk was always intriguing to me, but the stories that I have read did not exactly live up to that intrigue, often being quite boring, and too focused on the exact same things over and over again, to varying degrees of severity. It is therefore safe to say that this collection of three stories blew me away, with three excellent tales from the life of Chris Powell, as he navigates the realm of the super heroes. Accompanying these previously untold adventures (because they literally didn’t happen until now), were visuals which perfectly encapsulated the eras that each story was taking place within, helped by the fact that two out of the three illustrators happened to have been drawing the character at that time.

Our first tale returns us to some of the earliest days of Darkhawk, all the way back at the beginning of the 1990s (or whenever Marvel’s Sliding Timescale plops us), as the original creative team of Danny Fingeroth and Mike Manley present us with a previously untold adventure in our young hero’s career. Bringing these two on board for this first story was an absolutely genius plan, as the two of them perhaps know the character better than anybody else ever could, and that is certainly noticeable throughout this first sequence. As you would possibly expect, nothing exactly earth-shattering takes place within this story, as that really is not it’s purpose, instead presenting us with a kind of “night in the life” of the hero, as he is still trying to get a grip on the fact that he now as all of this power and responsibility, while also still reeling from the apparent death of his father. Fingeroth presents some very strange retcons within this tale, in particular with the relationship between Darkhawk and Savage Steel, as we learn at the end that this version of the arch-foe was actually Chris’ father, Mike Powell, the entire time. Having read the stories from this time, I can categorically confirm to you that Mike never donned the armour during this period, as for the most part it was always his friend James Zafar, who was like an uncle to Chris. Although of them know who the other actually is (maybe, we will likely never know), it presents an interesting dynamic of father fighting son, that I feel really could have added some further emotional stakes to the original series. The other, slightly more interesting retcon, is that Chris and Allegra Bazin meet each other for the first time here, rather than ever so slightly later on in the timeline. Thankfully, rather than just saying that the two met at this point, and then leaving us confused as to how Allegra doesn’t recognise him later, Fingeroth gives the explanation of Allegra just refusing to remember Chris’ name throughout the entirety of their ‘date’, instead knowing him as Rando for the whole time, before finally calling him by his real name after the Savage Steel fight, as she is whisked away by her father’s employees/goon squad.

The next tale, which I would prefer to spend as little time on as possible, brings us forward in the timeline by nearly twenty years, as we pick up with our hero in around 2009, after Civil War, Annihilation, and the War of Kings events. In the humble opinion of this writer, this story was by far the weakest one, although still solid enough to get the smallest modicum of enjoyment from. This is not really an era that I am all that familiar with, as I hadn’t fully gotten into reading comics in 2009 and have only read up to 1994 in my current reading order, so I have next to no context for what happened during War of Kings, aside from what Dan Abnett tells us here. While the story did hit on the key continuity details that we needed to know, I felt that it leant too heavily on what happened in the first story of this book, borrowing an entire story sequence from it, by way of a wall almost falling on some innocent bystanders during the battle with the Brood. Despite this little criticism, it does seem that some of the more confusing aspects of Darkhawk are mostly ignored in this story, which gives me some hope that the future will be a little more straightforward for new readers.

Our final story, written by Kyle Higgins, with visuals by Juanan Ramirez, more or less brings us to the present day, with Chris aboard his space craft, attempting to keep a Shadow War at bay, using all of the systems he can spare. With his systems slowly failing, and unable to call upon the Darkhawk android, Chris records a message using the Datasong of his amulet, making sure that all of the knowledge that he has accrued over the years is stored for whoever the next wielder of the power of Darkhawk can learn from his mistakes. This final story serves as a short teaser for the new upcoming Darkhawk series later on this year, ending with the presumed death of Chris Powell, as the amulet sets off to find its new wielder. Although not exactly alluded to here at all, I am going to assume that the next person to become Darkhawk will in fact be one his brothers, not sure which one, as it would be kind of cool to see the Powell legacy continue in the role of Darkhawk, bringing the character to a new generation of teenage readers, just as the original did in the 1990s.

As of right now, I don’t know all that much about the upcoming series, although I presume Higgins and Ramirez potentially have something to do with it, but I honestly think that the future is bright for the character, hopefully bringing some of the intrigue and success that I feel Marvel were lobbying for the first time around with the concept. Everybody involved with this anniversary book really brought their A-Game to the table, utterly silencing any doubts that I originally had for it when I saw that it was being released this week. Perhaps Marvel could also give Sleepwalker a little bit of love this year as well, as it is that character’s 30^th Anniversary also, although I doubt that anyone would buy it to be honest, those stories were even more boring that Darkhawk’s back in the day.

 

I will be givng “DARKHAWK: HEART OF THE HAWK” an astonishing “B+” grade.