Time for another Darkhawk commission to get up on this blog! I figured why not start off another round with something completely out of the norm! The above piece was done by a DeviantArt artist that goes by the name “fourbrokenwindows” (DeviantArt gallery). This style was something that intrigued me. The artist was taking commissions so I figured, “Heck, why not give it a shot?” and so, I asked for a Darkhawk of course! What I got back was this great piece–the original piece to on a canvas board–so it made it that much more special to me!

The psychodelic linework allowed Darkhawk to come out more dreamlike or as if looking at his own reflection in water. It’s not to far out there with his continuity though! He DID teamup with Sleepwalker after all a couple times, and he DID teamup with Doctor Strange in order to enter the “cyberspace dimension” in one of his annuals, he DID go up against ‘Cuda, still one of my favorite completely under-used water-based villains in Marvel.

Here we got an animated Darkhawk by artist Alfredo Rodriguez (DeviantArt gallery). This clean vector art piece takes me back to the late 90s/early 2000s when I’d spend all my time watching Flash Animations at places like Icebox. Man, I wish Darkhawk could, at the very least, warrant a short Flash animation! That’d be kick ass! If there was no chance of me being sewed for financing that, I may actually be crazy enough to consider it… just too many of my own ideas to finance before walkin down that path of awesome.

I find this Darkhawk could have guest appeared in Power Puff Girls or Dexter’s Lab… if you check out Alfredo’s gallery you can see a real nice assortment of vector concepts and works. He’s got a couple cool Bug Boy pieces. That’d be a fun character to write something for… You can actually check out a strip Alfredo is working on called Energy Team on ComicBites.com as well as one he’s writing there as well called Extreme!

This piece wasn’t a commission, but I felt I still needed to highlight it as a “bonus feature” for the one I DID commission from Matt Bellamy: The “Striker” Darkhawk version based on the final issue of War of Kings: Ascension. The original of this on can be found on DeviantArt in Matt’s Gallery.

This little guy hearkens back to the earlier Darkhawk suit design but loses the grappling hook and adds the perma-wings. I’d say this guys closest to the League of Losers version done a few years back (2005) by Robert Kirkman and Phil Hester.

I was going to take a break from commissioning more pieces of Darkhawk for a while. Then something came up that made it impossible for me to head to the Toronto Fan Expo over the weekend. I figured I was going to spend money to get in and on gas, right? So why not filter it back into comics somehow?

I was scanning DeviantArt and came across a guy who did chibi-styled Guyvers and Iron Man versions. I was instantly hit with the image of Darkhawk on War of Kings: Ascension #4 all decked out in arsenal and manga-esque flare. I quickly discovered Matt was taking commissions so I jumped on board anxiously. You can see Matt Bellamy’s (GuyverC) art on his DeviantArt Gallery page. You can see what I mean.

There was an amazingly quick turn around time. Thankfully for me Matt was a Darkhawk fan and didn’t need me to dig up my nerd-knowledge and Google-fu on him. He was good to go and turned out this piece! He took some liberties in the design but it’s still pretty true to the concept of “decked out DH”! I love this little guy and I love the idea of Darkhawk being an artist’s dream come true–screw continuity of design–just make it up if you think it’s cool and now it fits!

The last issue of War of Kings: Ascension came out a while ago now, so this post is a little delayed. I was contacting an artist by the name of “GuyverC” on DeviantArt to do up a Darkhawk commission. The artist had a knack for doing Guyver armors and gundam characters, so I thought: How appropriate–I should ask for a version of Darkhawk closer to his latest designs (shown above)! So I did.

It wasn’t surprising to me when he called out the newest Darkhawk armor designs being based (even remotely) on the ZGMF-X13A Providence Gundam. He provided a link to an image and I couldn’t help seeing the over-whelming similarities. He sure knew his gundam!

This once again brought to mind something that concerned me about Ascension. I mean, I LOVED the fact that Marvel retconned an explanation for why the armor kept changing through the last 15 or so years. That was cool. My concern was for HOW it might change. In theory the suit will now change into whatever Chris Powell feels he needs based on the scenarios he gets himself into. I mean “hulking” out Darkhawk Guyver-style is cool and all… but I’m afraid it’ll just drop poor Darkhawk into the domain of gimmicky americanime.

Not that americanime is bad… just: Is there a place for its influence in modern Marvel continuity? As a design direction? As a conceptual direction? Can the style mix freely with non-anime storytelling? Just thoughts running through my head.

Here’s one more Darkhawk commission post for the day! Come on, can it really get old? Seriously. This one is by artist Alex Owens, easily one of my favorite artists on DeviantArt. He does Darkhawk up a little like Batman or Nightwing-ish. He took liberties on the glider wings being more like a cape and I kinda like the way it looks, especially since it’s mixed with the first Darkhawk armor design which was significantly more street-level. Alex Owens’ Deviant gallery is stock full of awesome work and his commission fees are perfecto! You can follow his bloggin and his artin’ over on his blog: The Art of Alex Owens!

War of Kings: Darkhawk and Ascension have come to a close. I got a little shaky at first but now I’m fully on board for a new ongoing. That being said, I’m so glad that earlier this year I commissioned a bunch of artists to do Darkhawk with the freedom to be liberal in the costume design since the books in the last 15 years didn’t stay consistent either. The canon Darkhawk post-WofK of course is that he can CHOSE what armor he wants to wear on the instant and as needed based on the situation he’s in.

This pencil sketch by Sergio Curiel mixes elements from the later years of Darkhawk and even mixes a bit of the helmet design from the promo images of WofK. I’ve come to absolutely love the permanently extended wings. This piece captures more bad-assery than usual for the Chris Powell I know–not that he ISN’T a badass–I mean… Ultron… BOMB! All I’m saying. (You’d think Jeff Loeb wrote that issue of Runaways…)

Sergio’s new DeviantArt Gallery is a little sparse unfortunately but you can check out some of his clean animated line work. Luckily I still have Sergio’s old DeviantArt Gallery which is ram pack full of great stuff for you to peruse!

It’s been a while since I posted some more Darkhawk commissions so I figured I’d drop a multi-figure piece to make up for it! Indonesian artist Neige Blanc collects the League of Losers together in this team shot with a some anime influence in their designs. You can see more of Niege’s art at DeviantArt. This one took a long time to see done, but it was worth it in the end!

I was excited about Hickman’s run on Marvel Teamup when he put together a group of C-list heroes to save the world and never get recognition for it. I’m currently hunting down the entire Sleepwalker series for kicks and am now buying the Terror Inc MAX issues (which I’m not as excited about as I’d hope to be), and Speedball was my favorite New Warrior–and due to his Penance persona, it looks like this classical Speedy is out the door–at least until Marvel retcons him back ot the fun-loving bouncer!

Darkhawk being team leader made my heart sing… and to think, this Darkhawk at least in preserved in a parallel universe, untouched by current continuity’s disregard for the Darkhawk origin and personality us 30-year-olds remember from our early teens. This is one timeline-story I can only hope to see more of some day!

It’s been a while since I posted one of my Darkhawk commissions. I’ve been getting side-tracked with some new projects in development, but my devotion to wrapping up some final Darkhawk commissions was never forgotten. With War of Kings: Ascension #2 coming out last week I was reminded that I still had a couple of these to post about!

This piece comes from a Vietnamese architecture student known as “Splended River” in the art community. You can see more of splendidriver’s work over on DeviantArt.com. His animated style has a smooth dynamic line; this pieace it’s done in vector and presents a more stream-lined modern Darkhawk suit with a bit of the Peter Parker/Spider-Man acrobatic leanness.

If you can read Vietnamese head on over to Splendid River’s blog site and/or add him to Twitter! I hope to see this artist achieve a chance at comics in the future! As a bonus for being his first client to commission a piece I got a Darkhawk sketch as a bonus! This uber-fan couldn’t be happier!

War of Kings: Darkhawk #2 came out today–and of course I devoured it! I am going to try to keep this short and sweet and keep my enthusiasm down enough to actually create a “unbiased” review (if that is possible). The premise is pretty simple: Darkhawk is confronted by a new Darkhawk called Talon who is part of a Fraternity of Raptors who basically manage the balanced expansion of galactic cultures. Ya, kinda upper-brow and conceptual at this point–what is important is that there is something great and grand that Chris-Darkhawk gets called on to face and leave everything he knows and loves behind.

In this issue Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning come onboard to co-write with C.B. Cebulski. I felt it was a little heavy handed with the anger management situation that Chris Powell is dealing with and why it’s there in the first place. I enjoyed this story mechanic when it was more subdued. We discover in this issue that the anger is tied to content stored inside the armor that Chris is rejecting. It was therefore a full comic of Chris coming to this realization. There’s a bit of character closure between him and his support group friends in The Loners, his “long term girlfriend” Micky (Turbo), and his hospitalized mother and two brothers. From here on, it seems helmet head is heading to space with his new mentor Talon with a whole new destiny ahead of him.

With all my positiveness about this series in general, as well as the anticipation for War of Kings: Ascension mini-series that will also feature Darkhawk and Talon, I do have more concerns or complaints. The highest concern was with the art by Harvey Tolibao. I just had NO clue what was happening during the fight scene early in the issue with some tracker droid hunter thing. It was just fields of color. Finally as an uber-fan I have to wonder about what happened to some of Darkhawk’s previous continuity: There is mention that Talon and Darkhawk are the last surviving members of this mellenia-old fraternity–so I wonder, huh, what happened to Null Space and the creation of the five Darkhawk suits by intergalactic crime lord Dargin Bokk, otherwise known as Evilhawk? Or what about the Darkhawk that was killed in self-defense by Charles Little Sky, otherwise known as Portal, the guy who now wears his armor? There was a reference to “Null” as an expression of concern by Talon, so it’s not completely forgotten about… and the two Darkhawks–er–Raptors are heading to The Negative Zone which almost sounds like it could be the same place…

Frig… I never kept this review short–I knew this was going to happen. Conclusion: Pick up the book, support Darkhawk’s return to the main stage of the Marvel Universe. He deserves another chance is all I’m saying! I’m thinking I need to read an Abnett and Lanning take on this whole thing before making up my mind about the new direction.