"My high-flying, high-flying, bird"

What up people,
I thought today I'd talk a little bit about another Marvel character from the early 90's that seemed to catch my attention; his name is Darkhawk.

I don't know why exactly I seemed to gravitate towards him during my impressionable reading years in the early 90's. I guess because the character and concept at the time, was new to me, therefore it seemed interesting enough to give this guy a shot. It didn't hurt also that I liked the name and the look of the character.

I read and collected enough of his series to know that I wanted to know more about this guy who was really an alien and a regular human being both sharing the same body, like Sleepwalker, and other similar comic creations throughout comic history. Unlike the weirder Sleepwalker, Darkhawk seemed like a character more in line with Spider-Man than anything else. Yeah Spidey didn't share his body with an alien being, but DH was sort of an everyman hero like Spidey and Nova before him. He had normal problems like the rest of us, except all Chris Powell had to do was touch an alien amulet, and Shazam! instant super-powers.

I liked the fact that like us, he was truly weirded out by the whole thing, but he rolled with the punches and tried to make the best out the the whole situation. After all, isn't that heroic figures do? Make the best out of the hand that their dealt?

One of my favorite storylines at the time, was the Heart of the Hawk. This probably seems stale and not as intriguing as the storylines that come out now, but at the time, especially for a young Chris Powell, this story arc forced him to mature fast as a new superhero. Basically its like this: Bad guy extraordinaire and occasional Spider-Man villain Tombstone, decides he wants DH's amulet since its a major source of power. He finds DH, fights him, and actually manages to rip the amulet right out of DH's chest! When was the last time you got to see that in a comic? This forced Chris to become stuck in his Darkhawk form, which was slowly or quickly(depending on how you view it) dying without the amulet, which served as the main power source. Eventually DH gets it back, but man did he go through some shit just to get it back.

There were other stories, such as the time DH fought the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants over a powerful mutant teleporter named, well, Portal. That was good one too, which led into another big story arc where its revealed that Chris isn't as unique as he though, and that there are actually other Darkhawks out there in the universe.
Good, good stuff.

Of course while all this is going on, Darkhawk some how manages to find time to briefly(and I mean briefly) join the West Coast Avengers, and then later down the line, the New Warriors.

Darkhawk's series last only 50 issues, and then on he went into comic limbo until the late 90's, where he joined a group of fellow limbo members called The Loners, and later Excelsior.

Writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning later brought Chris back, as he participated in the whole War of Kings event that served as their Marvel space opera. He's seemed to make peace with his DH persona, and also works as the security chief of Project: Pegasus.

He also happens to have a MU action figure, the 1st one ever actually. But I'd prefer if they make a ML one when the line restarts next year. Here's hoping right?