Here’s some news I never thought I’d be reporting related to our buddy Darkhawk! Lawyer-turned-rapper, Adam WarRock (get it? Like “Adam Warlock”, see!) has released a free concept album called The West Coast Avengers EP. The collection includes a song called “Darkhawk” which samples Above the Law’s, “Murder Rap”, from their Livin’ Like Hustlers album released in 1990.

You can download the whole album for free, which you can grab at ComicsAlliance.com, but I have taken the liberty to snip the Darkhawk track out of the collection to post it here for the fandom’s enjoyment!

Adam WarRock is releasing THE WAR FOR INFINITY album in September 2010, all produced in collaboration with internationally-acclaimed DJ RUCKUS ROBOTICUS of Dayton, OH. You can find out more about Adam WarRock on his blog’s about page.

I can’t believe I forgot to post this classic Darkhawk piece by artist Corey Breen! The final color is here as well as the starting pencils. You can read about Corey’s process, see each step along the way through inks and color breaks, and history of the coming-abouts of this Darkhawk piece on his blog.

Although the points mentioned by Multiversity are valid, they don’t make Nova any more odd than Thor when he has to deal with Asgard stuff, Wolverine when he has to fly coast-to-coast and all around the world for whatever shenanigans he’s up to in the dozen books he appears in, or Spider-Man who has enough personal life story lines to wrap up, or at least come to terms with and move on from… you get the picture.

I always (and still do) primarily support the Marvel Galactic line of books. Why? Because I find them more original ALL the time and they have underused characters that could use more attention and development.

So why blog here about MAYBE Nova leaving the Secret Avengers? Because why not replace Nova with… come on, like you haven’t guessed already… DARKHAWK! Right? Am I right? huh?

Darkhawk’s already been an Avenger, he’s teamed-up with the likes of Captain America in his own book when he was a rookie, and on Avengers West Coast (with War Machine in particular) and Annuals, Moon Knight in Spider-Man’s Round Robin story line from the 90s–he’s teamed with plenty others current Avengers–Spidey in his own book and minis, Wolverine in Secret Defenders–and he’s already been on a “seeee-creet” team… as mentioned: Secret Defenders.

Why not replace a busy cosmic hero with one that served with him as a New Warrior, as director of Project PEGUSUS, as a cosmic ally against the Sphinx?

It just makes sense to me, and I want to see it happen. Am I wrong to wish such possibilities?!

The Covered blog is one of my favorite RSS feeds, and I’m always excited to see new covers redone by current artists. This was a special gift that came in today featuring the Secret Defenders #1 cover from 1993! Oh, foil cover, how my memories flare for you…

The cover was redone by artist T.J. Kirsch and sticks to the original’s composition fairly straight up, but it’s still awesome to see Darkhawk finally pop up on the Covered blog. Tons of awesome stuff there–go check it out!

I’m not sure how I forgot to post this until now. I’m a huge fan of Comic Book Club and miss the days where they were dumping tons of comicy goodness into my iTunes feed. You can still follow the occassional episode on their ComicBookClub YouTube account.

In this Newsarama interview Pete LePage talks to C.B. Cebulski about Darkhawk’s miniseries leading up to War of Kings. It was filmed in 2009, but still cool to hear the Loners writer show his enthusiasm for out Buckethead.

This piece has Darkhawk facing off against none other than Green Lantern, entitled “Lets Dance“, by Andrew Huerta (aztekh on DeviantArt). Seeing as there was a time near the end of Darkhawk’s run when people started comparing him to Green Lantern (specifically after he formed a massive hawk forcefield avatar around him) and even now that he’s a space-faring hero, it’s awesome that someone actually thought of commissioning a piece depicting a face off.

For any fans who feel like initiating up a public discussion revolving around Darkhawk, please feel free to contact me (link about) and I’ll do my best to answer as fully as possible! Without further ado, lets start off with an email by Brandon concerning Darkhawk retconned origin and continuity!

Sawat De (Hello in Thai)

My name is Brandon and like you I am a adamant Darkhawk fan. I have to admit though I was a bit surprised when I found this site, I always assumed that there were still other Darkhawk fans out there, but I figured they were probably as lazy as I was (heh). In any case I’d first like to commend you on a fantastic site, to say that Darkhawk doesn’t get enough respect in the marvel universe or elsewhere would be an understatement, so it’s nice to see someone trying to even the playing field a little.

The reason I’m sending this message though is to get the opinion of another true Darkhawk fan on an issue I’ve personally found to be somewhat shall we say frustrating… The question I wish to pose has to do with the rehashing of Darkhawk’s origin and continuity. I can’t really put this question to any of my friends and expect a real response since none of them really care or know much about Darkhawk, so I can’t get a real view point. So I’d like to ask another real fan about their opinion on the matter.

I personally found the revamping to be lackluster by in large, particularly when it seemed as though some of Darkhawk’s daunting questions might finally be answered in earnest, but instead we find out that D.H.’s entire origin, including his most powerful villain were all the result of him being so angry (even though that part of his story hadn’t really been established yet…) that he just imagined it all, regardless of how many issues that brings up, what with portal, St. Johny, all the people who saw Evilhawk in action and so on. At first I was just happy that D.H. was getting some real screen time, but then in only a few panels they effectively managed to squander over 20 years of character history.

Anyway, without going into a full on rant that’s my take on the issue, and like I said I just was wondering what other fans really felt about this even in D.H.’s history. So if you’ve taken the time to read to this point I thank you for your time, and if not “meh”…

-Respect-
Brandon

Hey Brandon!

Glad there are others out there who are interested in Darkhawk as well. The points you bring up below are definitely things that I can only hope can get touched on a bit more as he appears in other books (maybe his own eventually?!) and clarify what I also believe “true” fans have an issue with.

More than anything when it comes to retconning a comic book character, a bit of liberty is taken to bump the character up a decade or two in order to make them relevant to the modern audience of younger readers who may have been born when the first Darkhawk issues came out.

I was a young teen then so things like St Jonny and Evilhawk are unfortunate things to loose. THey haven’t even really brought up Phillip Bazin, Alexa, Loadstone or Peristrike Force since! … This feels like a deliberate attempt to “lighten the load” and move on with DH in any way possible to try and make him “stick” with a strong enough reader-base to warrant a new book, or a more steady appearance in books like Nova or any other Marvel Space books in the future.

My opinion is that it’s kinda unfortunate. The character had a history. To explain it as mental trauma and physiological breakdown is a bit over-zealous. On he other hand, DH did in fact have a very VERY strong cosmic angle to his origin post-issue-25 with the Null Ship, Osch and the intergalactic gang… even those things were technically “made up” I guess… again, unfortunate… but at the end of the day I’m really just happy he’s at least TRYING to get back in the picture!

I think there is potential for the character INCLUDING trying to make some of his past rogue’s gallery actually mean something. I felt like back in the original run the creative team was really trying to root him into the Marvel U with a supporting cast. Having his limited Avenger’s affiliations and occasional New Warriors team-ups over shadow all of his own title’s continuity really hits “true fans” harshly.

When I stop and think though… the original series DID end in 1995… 15 years ago… The most I can wish for is that there are other 10-15 year-olds reading Darkhawk for the first time post-Runaways in Nova and War of Kings and getting as dedicated to his journey as I was, still am, and hear stories via this fansite of others in the same boat. We just wanna see Darkhawk–the perpetuous underdog it seems–succeed!

PS: How can I not take the time to reply ? It’s a rare rare event you can stream on about Darkhawk with some one who GETS HIM! haha. Do you mind if I add this email and reply to the site? If you wanna send a pic of you with something Darkhawk-related feel free! If not, also cool of course! All the best!

Original pencils by spiderguile

Inked by inkmark

I love it when artists do group pieces like this and include Darkhawk amongst Spidey’s “friends”. This piece was drawn by “spiderguile“ on DeviantArt and inked by “inkmark” also on DeviantArt.

Harkons back to the good ol’ days in the 90s when this relationship of mentor and student was more pronounced. With all the Spider-Man comics on the stands in the last decade, it’s really unfortunate that this relationship gets no support through Brian Michael Bendis (who has been heard scoff at the mention of Darkhawk… sigh).

UPDATE JULY 13, 2010: TONS OF COLORED VERSIONS!!!

I’ve been collecting colored versions of the above and figured it was time to show the three pieces that I’ve found thus far.

Inked and colored by Josh Templeton

Colored by Andreastyle

Colored by SoulColor

I had the luxury of being contacted by another Buckethead, Kevin White, with two Marvel Masterpiece sketch cards he’s got in his collection. The first is by artist, Benjamin Glendenning. I did some digging around and found his DeviantArt page (skulljammer) and the sheet Darkhawk is featured on. Glendenning’s says that

This sheet has my favorite 2 cards Darkhawk and Iceman….they came out much better than I anticipated.

This is a great depiction of classic Darkhawk and Kevin is a lucky Buckethead for snaggin this beauty.

This bottom image is done by Andre Moore for the Marvel Masterpiece set and features a Darkhawk bust. I came across (and “faved”) this image on Flickr many many moons ago and it’s great to see this site reach out to the collector who owns this piece and then hear from him about it.

These unique Marvel Masterpiece sketch cards are terribly difficult to find in digital form to add them to the site without fans like Kevin reaching out like this. It’s much appreciated! If anyone else out there has DH goodies to share please contact me as well!