Marvel Legends: Darkhawk

 Strange to think nowadays, when each Marvel movie breaks box office records set by the previous Marvel movie, but in the early portion of the 1990’s, comics were hitting something of a low point in terms of general public interest. Large, earth-shaking events were happening, new characters were being introduced in runs like Maximum Carnage, and legacy characters from companies like DC and Marvel were being pushed in all kinds of relatively unheard of situations, like The Death of Superman. Publishers like DC and Marvel did what almost always works during times of slumping: they introduced a slew of new characters with their own books and cool, xtreme 90’s appearances. Some of them stuck around, some of them did not. Some of them were kinda dumb, and some were pretty cool. An example of the latter is Darkhawk.

Darkhawk is human Christopher Powell who, as usually seems to be the case, stumbles upon an amulet that allows him to remote mind-operate a cyborg, which is Darkhawk. Hey, look, in the 90’s, we were xtreme, and we didn’t follow your rules or belong to your system, ok, and we sure as hell didn’t need super serum-enhanced super soldiers or guys who made flying suits out of iron: we did our own thing, our own totally unique thing. So Darkhawk is kind of a robot Shazam, and had his own title for a couple of years that I have memories of flipping through at Windy City Comics, a store that was across the street from my high school. In honesty, I was never that big of a fan of the title, and a whole lot of those 90’s characters are little more than memories for me, but I always loved Darkhawks’ look.

The Marvel Legends buck is a good one, but is essentially the same buck for every figure in the series. There are different ones, like the Star Wars Black Series, but Legends figures aren’t as clandestine in their reuse of bodies. Larger or shorter or female characters get different bodies, as do characters that are unique or unable to use the “standard” body. Darkhawk uses the “standard” buck, which is slender and muscular and absolutely loaded with joints. Double jointed knees, double jointed elbows, hips and a waist, an ab crunch, wrists and ankles, a ball jointed neck, and usually, although not always the most useful, ankle rockers. All of these mean that Darkhawk is immensely posable, and the slender limbs really allow him to exploit these joints. The new feature is the ab crunch, which lets the figure bend at the waist, not enough to touch its toes or anything, but enough to sort of curl over himself and, in this specific figures’ case, look a little more menacing with the quadruple wings splayed out cape-ishly (i.e., like a cape. –mr). The arms and legs are pretty thin, and they feel slight in hand, something that is a general quality of Legends figures, although some more so than others. But despite the thin and fragile feeling, the limbs are sturdy and durable. The below the knee sections do tend to bend a little if weight is placed on them: Darkhawk was in a box for our move earlier this year, and remained there for quite a while afterwards until he was dug out and put on a shelf, and the plastic of the knees did bend slightly under the weight of whatever else was in the box. Star Wars Black Series figures face this issue as well. But, like the Black Series figures, a little time standing up and the knees were good and straight as new once more, without any indication of lasting bends.

This softish plastic also appears in Darkhawks’ claw, three thin talons, similar to those of Wolverine, on his right wrist. These talons are softer plastic than the rest of the figure, probably for safety reasons, and they never quite aren’t at least a little bent. Better to bend a little than break, and the bends are not so severe that they can’t be dealt with.

Darkhawk has four small wings attached to his arms. They are not connected to each other, or to the torso of the figure, so there are many poses the figure can take that look weak due to the wings not being continuous or attached. If the wings attached to the torso, the figure would be unable to move its arms; but if they were detachable, the figure would be able to stand or move its arms without the interrupted look of these winglets. There is a 4” version of the character from several years ago that has removable wing pieces, and it’s not really certain which approach is the better, more successful one. Certainly this Darkhawk could have dealt with removable wings, as it does not come with any other pieces or changeable accessories, so the permanent wings are not a parts count-related decision. Overall, the attached but not continuous wings are not a figure-ruining element or anything, but it feels like they could have been done differently or better, and that a different approach would have made the total figure better.

Normally, a head sculpt can make a huge difference on a figure, and while Darkhawks’ head sculpt looks great, it’s sort of a Transformer head: smoothly robot-helmety with a red visor and a crest pointing backwards over the top. It’s a good design, but also pretty 90’s generic, nothing that hasn’t been seen before, really.

Whoa, atmospheric.

Darkhawk does not come with what seems like the usual allotment of Marvel Legends accessories: usually extra hands or some type of effect part or a weapon. These accessories offer versatility and options for the figures, but Darkhawk is one of those figures that is apparently intended to sell based on its look. As a line, Marvel Legends generally includes these types of characters, the background dudes or someone that you remember from back in the day, but isn’t a Somebody, alongside fan favorites and standards. In the same vein as Star Wars toy lines, it’s not uncommon for each Wave to contain at least one major Avenger or X-Man, as well as a Darkhawk. Darkhawk is a good look, really, but isn’t a major player, and doesn’t come with parts to warrant having to have him. His look is good and solid, but not anything exceptional or noteworthy, but he is a quality figure. Even his colors support this: dark blue and silver, how unique; yet totally competent and well done.

Halloween is coming, so . . .

The Coffins’ interest was purely nostalgia-driven, and it’s not even a fond nostalgia for the character so much as it’s a nostalgia for that odd 1990’s era of comic book characters that appeared to challenge legacy characters via their xtremity and then just as quickly vanished. Darkhawk filled in on a number of Marvel teams over the years, and was a good background character several times as well, the kind of “hey, it’s ­­­________" that you notice in a particularly crowded or active splash page; wrong company I know, but the sort of splash page that seems like it shows up in every issue of Green Lantern to show off all the different zaney species that compose the Corps. Darkhawk feels like a strange inclusion in the Marvel Legends line, but not the strangest or even most obscure by far. 100% an “as needed” figure, he’s absolutely inessential. But, he does throw back to a different time in comics and in the lives of comic fans of a certain age, and that made him a necessary get for the Coffin.