Flippin exciting dude! What a great character to revamp and send to the front lines of Marvel. Back in the day I thoroughly enjoyed the Darkhawk comic whilst sitting in my 7th grade English class, trying to pass it off as viable literature to my teacher, Mrs. Marcincabbage. To me it was right up there with the works of Twain and Poe, except with awesome art and kickass characters.

'Twas 1991 when writer and then editor-in-chief of Marvel comics Tom Delfalco created the helmeted, amulet weilding bad-guy-buster with artist Mike Manley and writer Danny Fingerton. For 50 issues, from 1991 to 1995, Chris Powell, a.k.a Darkhawk, flew his way into the Marvel Universe, battling diabolical villains such as Lodestone,Tombstone and one of my faves, Venom!  Even the team-ups were classic; from the flaming-skulled Ghostrider,to Captain America, to the phenomenal Round Robin series with the Punisher, Night Thrasher, Moon Knight, Nova, and our lovable web slinger Spidey himself. They were like, battling some crazy cyborg dude called Midnight with a chip on his shoulder and his panties in a bunch. Ha! Then, sadly, after his series Darkhawk flew off to the land of cameo appearances. He did a stint with a  group of pimple-faced teenage superheroes  called  Loners who were still trying to figure out why the world spins and what their place on it was. Although, while with them he did blow the super villain Ultra to shreds with a point blank blast from his amulet. Sick!

BOOM!

Fast forward to 2009, Son. Darkhawk is back with a modernized look to his armor and anger still out of check. He makes his appearance in Secret Invasion as Chief of Security with project P.E.G.A.S.U.S and layin waste to Skrulls with old buddy Nova (another sick superhero whose been brought to the forefront from the jaws of obscurity. I highly recommend you read it. Read it!). Leading the way in the new ageare writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning in a 4 issues series "War of Kings: ASCENSION", and CB Cebulski writing a 2 issues series "War of Kings: DARKHAWK". These marvelous Marvel writers take us to Chris Powell’s home, where BOOM! Out of nowhere another Darkhawk shows up named Talon. What the frak?! Who knew there were more, right? Well there used to be a whole bunch of them called “The Fraternity of Raptors”. Then Talon is telling the D man that he has only nipped the tip of his full power and ability. Soon he figures out there is whole new set of sweet armors he can change in to and out of and more!  Not to mention there is a crisis of galactic proportions going on in space in the series "War of Kings" and they gotta get involved because apparently The Fraternity of Raptors used to be the shizzle in galactic squabbles back in the day and his real name is Razor not Darkhawk and the Raptors may be for evil and not for good yadda, yadda, yadda etc. etc.!!!! Ugh, I’m out of breath. Need I say more?

 So I say to you men and women of the comic reader realm pick up Darkhawk and follow this dynamic character as we find out more of his exciting origin, learn about his sweet new abilities, and his  involvement in “War of Kings”. I’m excited to see what lies in store for the D man! 

-Ted P. Sima

SICK!