I’m guessing everyone knows what time it is!!! Darkhawk commission time! Here I present you with a Darkhawk sketch done by Peter Nguyen, also known as “ink4884″ on DeviantArt.com. I just can NOT get tired of looking for artists to bring their vision to the table with this guy. Every time I’m lost for moments at a time pondering Darkhawk’s most spectacular awesomeness! Peter here has a hell of a varied style and if you don’t believe me, just hop on over to DeviantArt to check out ink4884’s gallery–you’ll be impressed by his range!
The use of the space is used perfectly. The glider wings take advantage of the left and top edge drawing focus to Darkhawk’s helmet. The line work is loose and fluid which helped capture the flighty gesture form of this aerial acrobat. The lines are then brought under control, working nicely with the lights and shadows to bring out the armor’s form.
This Darkhawk in my alternate world seems to possess the flight that was later gained in the “Darkhawk 2.0″ form as the grappling hook has been traded in for a duo of Wolverine-like extracting claws. The right forearm set seems to be retracted at the moment. This is a unique concept that feel right. I love the glider wing extensions–I’ve always liked the idea of Darkhawk’s wings looking more like… well… wings! The glider wings are cool when you keep Darkhawk street level. With all the space talk coming up with the characters new direction in Marvel, I think it’s time to trade in the glider flaps for something more “iconic”. (I was about to say “useful”… but he’s going to be in SPACE… wings would have as much use in space as glider flaps ).
Anyways, that’s another wrap! You can also catch Peter’s stuff over at his website!
Second up in the commission-athon this week is a Darkhawk sketch by another DeviantArt artist by Andrew Huerta, his username “aztekh”. This sketch is colored with marker and by the signature you can tell he’s got a bit of the graffiti influence happening. The ink lines are clean and there’s a beautiful control of those markers–simple, straight-forward and simplistically perfect!
This Darkhawk’s android form takes on a bit of the juice-factor with some fibrous rippage. I just noticed a small detail in the eye visor that I missed before–you can kind of see a faint indication of eyes. Great touch. Darkhawk also sports a gladiatorial shoulder-pad on the left shoulder instead of both which adds to the asymmetry of the originals character’s design due to the one claw grappling hook only being on the right forearm. This claw in particular looks like chitinous and disastrous not only against fleshy substances but tinbox’s like Ironman as well.
You can check out more of aztekh’s work on DeviantArt.com where more of these great bust marker sketches can be seen. I tempted as all hell to commission another one or two–this guy’s stuff makes me a happy fanboy indeed!
Alrighty, continuing onward with “Darkhawk Awareness Week”… Yes, I’ve given a name to my motivations. Darkhawk deserves that! Today, I show you the first of a couple commissions I requested; this on done by Tim Kelly. You can see more of Tim Kelly’s work on DeviantArt.org.
His art style is very reminiscent of the Sam Keith’s work on the Image Comics “Maxx” series back in the early ’90s. His art also takes me back to the old school Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle stuff by Eastman and Laird. The shadows in particular stand out wonderfully; they add to the mood and drama of the piece… very foreboding. I like to imagine alternative Darkhawk concepts as belonging to Elseworlds or something. This guy feels like he belongs in a more natural setting–like a forest protector or something–with his trust hawk sidekick… I live to entertain my own imaginings–I could MAKE wonderful things happen with this Marvel property if only I was given the shot .
This guy is not going to have trouble finding work. He is working on a solo gig right now called Project SLUG that I’m excited to see in print. His concept work is phenomenal. I will likely keep hounding this guy about working on something together in the future. Even if it’s something small–I don’t care!
Ok… Corny blog post titles aside… the last week has been filled with another “NunoXEI Deviation”. To those who know me they will know what I am talking about. To those whom are still strangers–please don’t be a stranger anymore… I need more friends, talk to me–to those who are strangers, a “NunoXEI Deviation” is when my mind does a hard left when it wants to be on a straight an narrow path for once. Some call it A.D.D. but it’s more absurd than that. My mind gets caught up in seemingly irrational purposes with no tangible reasons other than the randomness that is the action of being stuck in the very deviation… Did I loose people with that explanation? Well, welcome to a NunoXEI Deviation.
For the last three months now I’ve been getting back into comics in a rediculous way. First I went on a one and a half month comic book shop hop looking to close up loose holes in my collections–in the process I began collecting new old series as well, like Legends of the Dark Knight from issue #1, Science Mystery Theatre from issue #1, trying to collect all the New Warriors and New Mutants, you get the picture. I purchased about probably around 400-450 single issues and about 20 graphic novels. If you are wondering–NO! I have not read it all yet… but I’m working on it!
But the thing that REALLY got me was the fact that Darkhawk appeared in Nova #17. That appearance sucked me back in with news that the Marvel 2009 event “War of Kings” was going to see Darkhawk get a new 2-part mini-series. I mean ya, it’s only two comics, but I FELL something is boiling in the Marvel pot. And I want them to serve me some goddamn Darkhawk!
See… Nova kinda resurfaced a big hit after the “Annihilation” Marvel event… so War of Kings could be Darkhawk’s foot in the door. Serving him up as a hero in a self help group and hanging with other supers who have put their powers aside to live normal lives just doesn’t seem to be sticking with new readers–and the old readers who know old school Darkhawk are antsy to just see him out of the teen drama/soap scenario and into something deserving his past.
As you can tell from my past couple trade reviews, I’ve caught up on the Nova series and it is indeed a welcome treat. If they take Darkhawk into the cosmic arena and start laying down some strong framework with good writing and story-telling, I am back in full force. To prove it, I have already started my 180 degree NunoXEI Deviation on DeviantArt.org by looking for artist commissions of this fine fine hero! The commissions are already being worked on and I will serve them up on NunoXEI.com for all to marvel at the awesomeness!
For now, you all have to settle with my Bruce Timm style Darkhawk concept art I spent the night working on… instead of writing the comic script I promised myself I would write by the end on the night. Oh, oh… and I worked on preparing to make four custom Darkhawk figures MWHAHAHAA… that will come later as well !
Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning have marveled me again.I have to repeat that I never thought for once that a sci-fi enveloped series like Nova would completely win me over! This review will be kept short as there are a few things I just want to rant about that stood out.
The first trade of Nova ended off with Nova getting spit out at the edge of the known universe, called “The Rip”. This had a bit of that Farscape feel but soon has a little Twilight Zone thrown in (or perhaps Event Horizon…) when Nova finds himself in a flouting Celestial-head-turned-research-collective/community… I kind of pictured it as a Babylon 5 type of situation. Without spitting out spoilers I’ll just bring up the thing that I was both baffled at and enthusiastically excited about. Knowhere’s Chief of Security was a… dog–
–A frigging golden retriever cross labrador. A RUSSIAN golden retriever cross labrador. How do I know it’s Russian? Because it speaks with a Russian accent… telepathically. And it’s wearing a spacesuit… and is a high level telepath who can shoot bolts of telepathy with its bark, and create powerful force fields with its… um… growls maybe?!
All I can say is that there were a half dozen pages or so where I was internally giggling in childish excitement at this preposterous idea. It was PERFECT!
A frigging telepathic Russian space-dog named Cosmo. I love it. Now I definitely have to buy Guardians of the Galaxy because he’s their liaison helping them navigate the less known places in the universe.
The second thing that I was so extremely excited about was the fact that my favorite New Mutant from WAAAY back is re-introduced into the Marvel universe after being gone for so long. Warlock! Ya, I maybe I’m alone with the love I had for the character but I just can’t wait to finally read all 100 issues of the New Mutants again once the collection is complete (so very close now… I think hitting a convention will fill in the remaining holes).
Seeing as the whole Phalanx invasion of Kree space was going on, and Nova himself was infected with the techno-organic virus–which was slowly eating away at him despite Worldmind’s efforts to keep it in remission–it only makes sense that if it’s time to re-introduce a new OLD character into Nova’s star spanning adventures: It’s Warlock, the “mutant” technarch that belongs to the Technarchy (he has a flawed programming that makes him a pacifist–that’s why he was designated a “mutant”… man, sorry… awesome simplicity always gets me… [wipe away tear]). But, OH! there’s more to him since he last appeared in the late 80s (and even 90s here and there), oh yes, but for that you’re just going to have to read the book!
The text below is a transcription of the Robert Kirkman “Mission Statement” that he put together on a video after getting back from the San Diego ComicCon, August 2008. The video was edited and hosted on Comic Book Resources website. I do not claim ownership over any of the text, and have provided this transcription as a way to spread Robert Kirkman’s message to the masses.
I have taken liberties to present Kirkman’s message in as “prose”-like a manner as possible–editorially cleaning up sentence structure for clarity. If anyone feels anything is inappropriately presented please leave a comment below so that I can edit the transcription.
Mission Statement, by Robert Kirkman
Hi, Robert Kirkman here. The question that I was asked the most is: “Why did I do it? Why did I leave Marvel Comics to do creator-owned work, exclusively?” Aside from a thousand other reasons, the main reason, the one reason I want to talk about now is: I did it to save the entire comic book industry.
I know that sounds a little arrogant, a little goof-ball, and that’s fine, but this is very serious, and I’m going to tell you what I’m thinking.
Right now, the comic book industry is backwards. No one watches a movie and decides that they want to do movies and aspires to only ever do pulp fiction too; and no one reads a novel and decides they want to do novels and only ever aspires to do Moby Dick too.
In the industry, the way it works right now is, a lot of times guys come into creator owned comics like me, like Bendis, like Jonathan Hickman, like Matt Fraction, we come into the comic book industry doing creator-owned work, and we eventually graduate up to Marvel and that’s the end of the story. Then you work your way up the Marvel pecking order and sometimes you get to the top, and sometimes you get to the middle, and sometimes you languish at the bottom; but you make a good living and it’s excellent, excellent work, it’s fun to do. At the end of the day I had a great time at Marvel. Joe Quesada, super brilliant man, but at the end of the day, when you’re hot, you’re hot, when you’re not, you’re not—and when you’re not hot, they don’t want you and your career is over, and that’s bad for creators.
The thing you need to do is eventually go off and do creator-owned stuff, it’s been proven that when you do creator-owned work, your life in the industry is a little longer, as long as it’s good. They sell very little but they make a lot of money because they’re not paying for a corporation. I’ve got artists making a living just by doing my books and I make a swell living on trade paperbacks and single issues and everything that I do. So I’m here to say that it can be done, and that it should be done.
The way that the comic book industry should work is that you start out in low-selling creator-owned stuff that you do on your own, or low-selling books that you eventually graduate up to Marvel from doing—or DC—and you work your way up through that, and when you hit a certain level when you can sell a book on your own—you leave.
The problem is—and this is where it gets into “saving the industry”—I read a ton of Marvel and DC books, and I love them because they are fantastic, and I am the target audience. I’m going to be 30 years old this year, and I’m just going to get older, and older, and older. The books are tailor made for me, they’re the characters that I grew up loving, but they are doing things that are more mature, and stories that are more complex. They are all excellent, excellent comics, but the fanboy becomes the fanman, becomes the old man, becomes the dead man, and we are all going to take the comic book industry with us. There are not enough new people coming into the industry as it is.
If all those people that are getting the kind of freedom at Marvel and DC to do whatever they want and make the stories as complex and entertaining as they are—we’re doing that on creator-owned books. The audience that we have now would be able to read those books and enjoy those books, but they’d be on original characters. That opens up a whole new door to cinema and adapting movies—it’s a whole new revenue stream for creators. It is more lucrative than working at Marvel or DC.
I know that people are watching this—Marvel and DC are saying, “What the hell is wrong with this guy?”, “This is the worse thing in the world!” that, “He should not be telling people to leave Marvel and DC!” I am telling you right now, that in the long run, it would help Marvel and DC because our audience—the 30 year olds are reading all the top guys’ creator-owned stuff because we follow the creators. Younger kids don’t care about the creators. Appealing to kids is what Marvel and DC should be doing. Darkhorse and Image should be appealing to the “fanmen”—and I hate that term—but if you’re 20 to 40 to 50 to 60 and you’re still reading comics—and there’s nothing wrong with that. I’m still reading comics, comics are better than television and movies, and the more people that knew that, the better off they’d be.
We can’t put a lockdown on Marvel and DC characters because those characters belong to the world. Those characters help children learn to read, and help children enjoy reading. I know there are “Adventures” lines and stuff like that, but those talk down to kids to a certain extent and that’s not what kids want. Kids want to feel like they’re reading something that’s not necessarily meant for them, but appropriate for them.
That’s what we need to do. That saves the comic book industry and that makes Marvel and DC’s work easier because they’re appealing to a larger audience, they’re not having to give these ridiculous contracts to these high paid writers and artists, and the writers and artists are happier because they’re doing what they want.
The more people that do creator-owned work, the easier it’ll be to sell creator-owned work. I’m one guy, I’m out there, I’m doing it, I’m making a living—I’m making a good living. If there were two of me, we’d be selling better. If there were six of me, we’d be selling huge. If there were twenty of me—fans—would—come.
It can happen. Creator-owned books would be selling better, and Marvel and DC books would be selling better. Marvel and DC would still be number one and two, and everyone would be happier.
We’re doing great right now. The movies are great. Sales are up. Trade paperbacks are killing bookstores; graphic novels are the only growth department. It’s a good time for comics—and people just aren’t really talking about the state that we’re in as much as they used to.
It’s not time to rest on our laurels; it’s not time to go, “Well, we’re on an upswing! That’s great!” There’s more that can be done and I think that this is a discussion, this isn’t the final say. I’m sure that I said things that are completely wrong, but I think that everyone should consider thinking about this and talking about this. We shouldn’t be so afraid to have an open discussion about such things.
I propose a conference: The heads of the companies should get together… on a cruise?—who knows, whatever—and talk about this kind of stuff. There is no way that through cooperation, and communication, we can’t do huge, huge things that we never thought we could do. We can still compete—and competition is excellent, and we should still compete—but there’s no reason that we can’t work together to make comic books what they once were, what they can be, and what they were meant to be.
I love comics, I love everything about them, I love everyone who reads them, and I love everyone who does them. It’s a special part of my life and I just want to make sure that my great-great-grandchildren can still read the same medium that I grew up loving. I don’t care if they’re reading it on a television screen in their wrist—as long as they’re still reading it: comics will survive. We’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen.
I hope that this didn’t infuriate too many people. I hope that you see the intent. I think that’s enough from me. I’ll sign off. Thanks a lot guys.
Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning are the writing team behind the new Nova ongoing series. Nova is the last survivor on an intergalactic police force, The Nova Corps. He is now empowered with all the power of the Nova Force from those destroyed during the Annihilation War. As Nova Prime, he is the last chance the galaxy has to protecting that power and the knowledge contained in the Worldmind which exists in his consciousness.
The main theme presented right at the start is that of a young galactic superhero with the pressure of countless deaths on his shoulders. Nova wants to race off to help planets in need, but being the only surviving Nova Corps member makes it impossible to save everyone—he just can’t be everywhere fast enough—and he HATES that. This constant struggle to push himself further and further nearly sets him off on a self-destructive path that puts himself and the Worldmind in life-threatening danger.
The journey that Nova goes through to compose himself and accept the reality of his past is what the readers get to experience with this series. He comes back to Earth after the Civil War story arc has taken place; the Initiative is in full effect, the fact that the New Warriors were the ones connected with the disaster that sparked the Civil War, and a reality where all heroes must be registered with S.H.E.I.L.D. make it all the more difficult to swallow. The world he knew as home, and even the home of his parents, no longer feel like home to him. He feels more alone on Earth than he feels out in space.
After spending a day on Earth he’s realized that the galaxy is a much simpler reality to exist in. He feels more alone on Earth than he feels out in space. That sets up an amazing juxtaposition. Earth’s problems are too small to consider important compared to the tens-of-thousands emergency calls logged in the Worldmind’s queue—issues of planetary and galactic levels and threats.
Something about Abnett and Lanning’s creativity exhilarates me. It’s not just the sci-fi stuff; that genre has never really done anything for me… until I came across Farscape, then Firefly… Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica and Stargate can even be added to the mix (watched in the last 5 years). Mostly, for me, it’s a bit of that Farscape feeling. A person, alone in a space he’s unfamiliar with (literally, get to the end of the first trade to know what I mean), who struggles to survive and find meaning and purpose. That may be a bit over-encompassing, but the essence of what I mean is in there somewhere…
It’s also a bit of that early-90s comic adventure rompy-ness. The first trade spends two issues on Earth and then hits space again. This thankfully grounds the collection with the values I think create the foundations of what makes this creative team amazing! Keep the stories simple, keep them energetic, keep them removed from the gritty “reality strong” directions of the current Marvel Universe, and tell a good story!
I’m in no way saying I think the ongoing series needs to be a closed universe—not at all—only that the core purpose of the Nova title gets to play in a vast arena that hasn’t been explored thoroughly in over a decade (Infinity Crusade I guess was the last one?). DC Comics has their Green Lantern Corps stories that fill this kind of niche (even more so now with the current Geoff Johns stuff Red Lantern stuff… damnit, another trade I’ll be buying at some point…) it’s good to see Marvel finding a way to do the same with a property they already had in place but shelved for very very long. Nova has a couple attempts at an ongoing—I believe this one has found some good foundations and hopefully it can build something great (with Darkhawk preferably of course).
I’m glad Abnett and Lanning have proven that there are shelved properties that can venture into new frontiers of the Marvel UNIVERSE… not Marvel Earth (616 for the geeks out there)! Next month we see an old Nova ally, and “sometimes” member of the old school New Warriors of the early 90s get a 2-part series to start off Marvel’s new event series: “War of Kings”.
Darkhawk flies again as a component of the story arc, and I for one am excited about learning all about his alien origins. Thanks to the Nova ongoing, he’s not only back, he’s handed a bit more of the diversity he had in the old days. I still respect Runaways and Loners giving him some face time, and I love him at the street level, but he can be a lot more than that. He can be COSMIC damnit… make a superfan proud! Hopefully he’ll get his own story in the future too, and a renaissance of super-heroic tales with that early 90s flare will get the rightly deserved attention it needs!
I’ve been a huge Darkhawk fan since the first issue of Darkhawk #1 came out in 1991. I was much younger back then, and Darkhawk was my entry drug into comics. When the ongoing Darkhawk series came to an end at issue #50, I was well into grabbing whatever Image comics I could try out; eventually that over loaded me and comics lost that special quality I came to love about Darkhawk. Things turned bloody, mature, gritty and EXTREME! I over-loaded very rapidly and burnt out in 1995.
It’s no surprise that it was Darkhawk that brought me back to comics 13 years later! I was listening to iFanboy when they mentioned that Darkhawk made an appearance in the new Nova ongoing series, issue #17 in October. I immediately rushed out to grab it!
I noticed something about that issue of Nova beyond the giddy excitement of seeing Darkhawk again with a former New Warrior’s teammate. This issue on Nova showed me that it was possible to tell the kind of stories that I remember loving back in the early 90s. Stories motivated by heroism, fun and energy-filled swashbuckling-esque excitement!
Andy Landing and Dan Abnett, through the Nova series, had re-invigorated something inside me that I couldn’t wait to experience again. I’ve been hungry for some good sci-fi thrills as well and that was also covered, in their Nova and in Guardians of the Galaxy series.
A Little Detective Work
Brian K. Vaughan (now a co-producer of “Lost”) brought Darkhawk back from a near-decade of obscurity in April 2005, when he introduced him as part of a support group called “Excelsior” composed of heroes who gave up their super-powers in order to get their real lives back on track. This group appeared in Runaways, vol 2, in the “True Believers” story arc… and one of the editors was none other than C. B. Celbulski (I’ll make the connection soon).
Later, in November 2005, Robert Kirkman (of the highly acclaimed Invincible ongoing series at Image Comics) put a team together for a Marvel Team-Ups issue story arc entitled “Legue of Losers”. This story takes place in an alternate timeline where all the Marvel heroes are killed except for a handful of “forgotten” heroes, mostly from the early-90s. Darkhawk ends up leading this team into the future where they defeat the time-travelling villain and set the present time back to normal. They get stuck in 2099 though and are never recognized for their heroism. This fun story introduces Darkhawk as a potential “leader” of sorts instead of the rage-filled time-bomb in Vaughan’s Runaways.
Fast forward to 2007 and we’re back to C. B. Cebulski! He takes the helm writing a new tale with Darkhawk in it and does the favour or cementing Darkhawk back into public awareness—albeit in a different context for new young readers in late 2007, with The Loners. The Loners continues to explore what Vaughan started as he and a bunch of young heroes work to get their lives back together with the help of their LA support group (no longer called Excelsior due to copyright issues with Stan Lee). The series never makes it past the first arc but at least a new generation can be brought on to encourage MORE tales involving Darkhawk, and I for one was all for it!
This takes us to Nova in October 2008 where Landing and Abnett now give us a more experienced Darkhawk, one with new responsibilities, one with new motivations… one that touches on part of his origin that has been seemingly ignored since Darkhawk’s ongoing series ended in the mid 90s—Darkhawk’s otherworldly origins, his suit’s alien android technology, and the amulet’s Null Space power source—Darkhawk was street level… but he was also a Marvel cosmic hero deep down in his roots.
FINALLY, this was being explored and it was coming in a 2-part Darkhawk miniseries for Marvel’s new epic event, War of Kings: Darkhawk, set to release February 2009 where the stories of Darkhawk continue to unfold!
Wrap Up
I’m like a child again. I just flipped open the cover of The Loners, and I can’t wait to see what mysteries Cebulski explores in February and March. I can only hope and dream of the day that the War of Kings: Darkhawk miniseries picks up some support and turns into “volumn 2” of an upcoming Darkhawk ongoing series later in 2009!
Darkhawk Commission by Peter Nguyen
).
For the last three months now I’ve been getting back into comics in a rediculous way. First I went on a one and a half month comic book shop hop looking to close up loose holes in my collections–in the process I began collecting new old series as well, like Legends of the Dark Knight from issue #1, Science Mystery Theatre from issue #1, trying to collect all the New Warriors and New Mutants, you get the picture. I purchased about probably around 400-450 single issues and about 20 graphic novels. If you are wondering–NO! I have not read it all yet… but I’m working on it!
Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning have marveled me again.I have to repeat that I never thought for once that a sci-fi enveloped series like 
–A frigging golden retriever cross labrador. A RUSSIAN golden retriever cross labrador. How do I know it’s Russian? Because it speaks with a Russian accent… telepathically. And it’s wearing a spacesuit… and is a high level telepath who can shoot bolts of telepathy with its bark, and create powerful force fields with its… um… growls maybe?!
The second thing that I was so extremely excited about was the fact that my favorite New Mutant from WAAAY back is re-introduced into the Marvel universe after being gone for so long. 
Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning are the writing team behind the new 
I’ve been a huge Darkhawk fan since the first issue of Darkhawk #1 came out in 1991. I was much younger back then, and Darkhawk was my entry drug into comics. When the ongoing Darkhawk series came to an end at issue #50, I was well into grabbing whatever Image comics I could try out; eventually that over loaded me and comics lost that special quality I came to love about Darkhawk. Things turned bloody, mature, gritty and EXTREME! I over-loaded very rapidly and burnt out in 1995.
Later, in November 2005, 
Fast forward to 2007 and we’re back to 
