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| Gallery | |
 Real Name | Christopher Powell [1] |
| Current Alias | Darkhawk |
| Aliases | Chris Powell, Bucket-Head, Edge-Man, Powell |
| Relatives | Mike Powell (father);
Grace Powell (mother);
Jon Powell and Jason Powell (brothers); |
| Affiliation | formerly Excelsior, New Warriors, Avengers West Coast (reservist), Secret Defenders (founder),Fraternity of Raptors (host),Project Pegasus |
| Base Of Operations | Los Angeles, California; formerly New York City andAvengers Compound |
| Status | |
| Alignment | Good |
| Identity | Secret Identity |
| Citizenship | American |
| Marital Status | Single |
| Occupation | Adventurer, former security guard at Project Pegasus |
| Characteristics[2] | |
| Gender | Male |
| Height | 5' 9" ; 6'1" (as Darkhawk) |
| Weight | 150 lbs (68 kg) ; 180 lbs (as Darkhawk) |
| Eyes | Brown (unrevealed as Darkhawk) |
| Hair | Brown (unrevealed as Darkhawk) |
| Origin | |
| Origin | Chris discovered a mysterious amulet which transforms him into the armored vigilante Darkhawk. |
| Universe | Earth-616 |
| Place of Birth | Queens, New York |
| Creators | Tom DeFalco, Mike Manley |
| First Appearance | |
| Darkhawk #1 | |
HistoryEdit
My name is Chris Powell. I'm Darkhawk. And everything I thought I understood...just changed. 
- -- Darkhawk src
Cover to Darkhawk #25
Chris Powell was the teenage son of Mike Powell, a cop, and Grace Powell, a District Attorney. Following his younger twin brothers, Jon and Jason, to the abandoned amusement park across from his home, Chris discovered his father taking a bribe from mob boss Phillipe Bazin.
While trying to escape with his brothers from Bazin's henchmen, Chris discovered an amulet that transposed him into the Darkhawk armor. When his father disappeared after Chris saw him, he swore to use the Darkhawk armor as an "Edge against crime."
Darkhawk's powers included a force blast which emanated from the amulet on his chest, a force shield from the same amulet, a claw cable which could serve as both a Wolverine-like claw, and a grapple cable, glider wings and later flight capability, enhanced vision and strength, and an image underneath the Darkhawk helmet which served to frighten and distract his enemies.
He often teamed up with Spider-Man. As a sometime member of the New Warriors, he befriended Speedball,Nova, and later, Turbo.
He developed quite a roster of enemies: he would fight villains such as Hobgoblin, Tombstone, Venom, andLodestone, a magnetically-powered villain developed by Bazin. He also fought against some who would later ally with him, such as Portal, a teleporting mutant who killed another Darkhawk and stole parts of his armor, Savage Steel, the armor created by the secret police cabal that Chris' dad had been a member of, and Damek, a mercenary sent from the future to kill Darkhawk.
Chris learned that his armor was actually an autonomously existing android armor, one of five commissioned by an alien mob lord named Dargin Bokk, being held in a sentient space ship, Osch, in Null Space. When Chris grasped the amulet, it actually caused his body to switch places with that of the Darkhawk body, although his mind remained in control of the 'replacement' body.
After helping them several times, Darkhawk was brought aboard the Avengers West Coast as a reserve member, but saw little action with them after becoming a member, because they were dissolved shortly thereafter. Nonetheless, he did at least start a lasting friendship with Spider-Woman.
Later, Chris and Darkhawk actually split into two separate entities, with the armor being updated into the "2.0" form, as it was informally known. This advanced form of armor gave Darkhawk new powers, such as the ability to form a force shield encasing his body, an actual "Hawk" construct (a gigantic force-field shaped like a hawk), and the ability to summon weapons from Osch. Darhawk 2.0 and Chris re-merged, with the prospect of no longer needing to use the amulet in order to switch bodies.
Loners
Chris joined a self-help group of ex-teenage-super-heroes, the Loners, who admitted to being addicted to their powers. Members include: Turbo,the Green Goblin IV, Richochet, Spider-Woman III, and Lightspeed. He made an enemy of Nekra, a woman who seemed to be held prisoner by manufacturers of MGH.
In a divergent timeline, he was the de facto leader of the unofficial League of Losers[3].
Fraternity of Raptors
The being known as Talon came to Earth, and offered to teach Chris how to control his amulet. They went to the Negative Zone to fight Annihilus. There, Chris bonded fully with his amulet. This allowed him to learn that the Fraternity of Raptors that Talon represented was evil and that the Fraternity had created the amulets. Evilhawk had been a hallucination caused by his mind, which had been unable to process all the information the Amulet gave him. The Raptor known as Razor took over Chris' body and assassinated Lilandra.
Later he fought Gyre another member of the Fraternity of Raptors that had been recruited as a pawn of the Sphinx. Darkhawk, Nova, Black Bolt,Mr. Fantastic and Namorita defeated the Sphinx and his pawns. Darkhawk was able to separate Gyre from his Kree host by using the same technique Talon used to separate Chris from Darkhawk and bring back Razor.
Avengers Arena
Arcade kidnapped Chris and fifteen teenage heroes and brought them to Murderworld, a secluded island where no one could find them, and forced them to fight each other to the death, and only the last man standing within thirty days would be allowed to leave.[4] One night, he was attacked and had his amulet removed, leaving his fate unknown.[5] His amulet would get passed around by others locked in Murderworld.[6]
Chris was later shown in a coma-like state in a strange tank along with the deceased heroes, where Arcade appeared to be healing him. Waking up, he located Arcade and knocked him out. He later reclaimed his amulet and was among the survivors of the battle.
Powers and AbilitiesEdit
Powers
None
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Abilities
Skilled Combatant: Chris is skilled in Kendo and an unidentified branch of Karate.
Strength level
Superhuman
ParaphernaliaEdit
Equipment
- Darkhawk Amulet:
- Consciousness Transfer: Chris can transfer his consciousness into an alien android while at the same time, switch the robotic body's place with that of his own body wherever he is at any time.
- Darkhawk Android: The Darkhawk Android is advanced Shi'ar technology allowing the host numerous superhuman capabilities:
- Superhuman Strength: He can bench press 2 tons.
- Superhuman Speed
- Superhuman Durability: Darkhawk is superhumanly durable; he is capable of shrugging off physical impacts, energy blasts, and most artillery fire.
- Superhuman Agility
- Superhuman Reflexes
- Flight: The retractable glider wings under his arms allow him to glide on air currents. Darkhawk can also fly at speeds that let him fly from New York to California in only a matter of hours.
- Self Repair: Even major injuries to his Darkhawk body can be repaired by switching back to his human form.
- Superhuman Vision: Darkhawk has telescopic and infra-red vision.
- Force Field: Chris can utilize a circular wafer-thin force field.
- Concussion Blasts: He can fire blasts of destructive dark energy from the amulet on his chest.
Formerly
- Avengers Identicard
Transportation
Formerly Avengers Quinjet
NotesEdit
- Darkhawk has made two TV appearances on the Fantastic Four animated series. He appeared alongside Justice and Speedball in "To Battle a Living Planet," and with Justice in "Doomsday."
- He has also appeared in the pages of What the--? Marvel's humor comic, as Darkgeek.
TriviaEdit
- Darkhawk's armor and appearance has been a continued source of debate amongst Marvel "True-Believers." After his series was canceled, his new appearances often reverted back to the original Darkhawk armor. As of his Excelsior appearances, he is in "DH 1.0" form, although he had appeared a few times as DH 2.0 prior to this.
- It has been a misunderstanding amongst many readers and fans of Darkhawk that he was aware of his status as a hero within the Marvel 2099 universe, in which he is known as "The Powell," one of the "most powerful, and feared, heroes in the universe." This wasn't Earth-928 (or Marvel 2099), it was a similar cyberpunk dystopia world within Chronopolis. This was resolved by DeFalco himself within the letter columns in one of the final issues of the ongoing series.
