REVIEW: Darkhawk #7

Well, readers, it was a tough call this week. Diving into a longbox produced two candidates for today's review:

1979s Fantastic Four #209, 1st appearance of fan-favorite HERBIE, wherein the FF pal around with the Champions of Xandar and seek out the World Eater, Galactus! All while Skrull treachery is afoot...

The other choice was 1991s Darkhawk #7, wherein the titular crimefighter busts up some drug dealers or something.

Sorry, everyone...

Writer: Danny Fingeroth
Breakdowns: Mike Manley
Finishes: Ricardo Villagran
Review: Will Dubbeld

Hoo, boy. Darkhawk, huh?
I'm not exactly sure why I collected this book, but I'm sure it's because it was the new hotness at its premiere. I can understand why I collected Sleepwalker.
It was rad as hell. That's why I collected Sleepwalker.
Darkhawk on the other hand was somewhat less than rad, but for some reason or another I have the first 25 or so issues of this nonsense. However long it took for a foil cover to pop up...

I didn't really refresh my memory on the Darkhawk series before diving into this issue. I remember he was a teenager who found a MYSTERIOUS AMULET that enabled him to transform into a black-clad, cable-clawed agent of justice and at some point in the series Tombstone ripped out his heart.
Okay, THAT was rad.
Other than that I was almost going in a cold read with this issue. Nuggets of Darkhawk that were lodged in the ol' memory banks reappeared as I read on. His legal-eagle mother, younger twin brothers, etc. Darkhawk really fell into that early-mid '90s trope of a late-teens/early 20s white male thrust into mysterious power. Danny Ketch, Rick Sheridan, Chris Powell, 30% of the New Warriors...


Anyway, Darkhawk spends a majority of this issue tussling with a pack of drug dealers and poring over his missing fathers' journal. There's some obligatory romantic tension between Darkhawk in his civilian identity as Chris Powell and girlfriend, Cheryl. Stereotypical superhero relationship problems that, quite frankly, Spider-Man did better 20 years prior.

In a standout piece of writing, the star of the show is Chris' friend, Steve Rubino. This kid, lemmie tell ya...
Danny Fingeroth did a bang-up job in making the archetypal nerd buddy sidekick here. Steve is a shaggy-haired, bespectacled kid with freckles or a horrendous case of acne, and an unabashed fan of classical music.
Who always wears headphones.
And not the subtle Walkman-style Star Lord headphones, we're talkin' big ol' earmuff Beats by Dre headphones.
He wears these things everywhere. He wears them to karate class, for crying out loud.
A karate class he attended only as a means to get Chris and Cheryl to a Mozart festival.
Because he's a nerd for classical music, you guys.
Get it?

His slavish devotion to classical music is his undoing as later in the issue his, "blamed classical music blasting", (Darkhawk's words...) makes him unaware of a fracas nearby and he gets gunned down by stray bullets.
Okay, Darkhawk and these drug dealers were having a streetfight involving automatic weapons and A BAZOOKA and this kid didn't hear anything?
I mean, hitting a character with a plot stick is fine, but Jesus...

Oh, and Steve's nickname?
Headset.

This fuckin' book...

One of the standout sections of the book for me is an interlude involving a new villainess called Lodestone. She appears to have your basic magnetism powerset and is controlled via brain implants by our mustache-twisting criminal mastermind, Mr. Bazin.
Lodestone has nifty powers, a fairly slick character design, and absolutely could have appeared polybagged in an annual with her own trading card.
Collectors Item!

This book is kinda pathetic. Perhaps it was just geared to younger readers, but it is some by-the-numbers 1990s Marvel monkeyshines. The art is mediocre, the characters are almost too soap operatic, and the overarching plot seems like it probably moves along at a torturous crawl.
On the bright side, I'm curious to pull out the rest of my old Darkhawk books and comb through 'em.
If nothing else to see Tombstone yank his heart out...

Darkhawk appearances are pretty sparse these days. He was in the Loners book about recovering teen vigilantes and he suffered a Hail Mary attempt to make the character relevant by shoehorning some ancient Shi'ar order of assassins into his origin.
Other than that, he was in that Battle Royale comic pitting all manner of teen heroes against one another in a fight to the death.

Now THAT comic was rad.

Darkhawk made it 50 issues before cancellation.
Sleepwalker was canned after issue 33.
There's no justice in the damn universe, I swear...