On topic: Never liked Darkhawk but you what you wrote about him makes him sound a bit more interesting to me (but not much…). But I liked some of your entries. And Terror Inc was an awesome concept in the 90s. Anybody who says differently apparently just doesn’t know much about the character. The recent Marvel MAX Terror Inc book was great.

It was the other way around, actually.

Kind of like watching ’80s movies and ridiculing the sweater-dresses, skinny ties and side-ponytails.

And while Chris Powell and Darkhawk are two separate physical entities, Chris’ mind controls them both, unlike Rick and Marv.

It’s not the same concept as Rick Jones/Captain Marvel, Darkhawk wasn’t actually a dark or gritty hero, the *Silver* Age was the “let’s try something new” era (The Bronze Age was mostly “let’s try something slightly different,” aside from what Kirby was doing, obviously), and it’s the “era” we’re currently in that’s “let’s do everything the same.”

Yes, the 90’s was characterized by “shocking events” and “grittization” and “mullets,” but there were plenty of good little books that were ignored in favor of the uproar over the more newsworthy/upsetting stuff. Darkhawk, Sleepwalker, and Terror were never going to win any Eisners, but they were great in their own way.

You must try to be more open-minded. I bet you’d actually love Sleepwalker and Darkhawk, because they’re just like the Bronze Age stuff you’re promoting. It’s fine superhero storytelling.”

Well Bill. I have to confess that I was never interested in reading Darkhawk. My comparison to the Rick Jones/Captain Marvel thing was because you wrote that Chis Powell’s power was actually to swith place with an alien warrior… Isn’t this what Rick Jones did when he used his bracers (Darkhawk a ring?) to switch place with Captain Marvel an alien (Kree) warrior????

Also, The Silver Age was mainly the second wind of the superhero style of comics. DC rebooted their old Golden Age heroes and Marvel launched a new wave of superheroes. Period. It was a very important era of superhero comics.

The Golden Age and Atomic Age (early 50′s) were the era of variety: birth of the Romance Comics, Horror comics, Crime comics, Westerns, etc. After the Wertham thing and the coming of the comic code most of those genres disappeared. The whole comicbook industry almost went away. Then Julius Schwartz came up with revamping the Flash and other DC superheroes. Marvel’s Silver Age was basically dropping all the monster comics and going into SUperheroes after DC proved they could sell.

Silver Age = Superheroes. Basically.

And I’m not the only one who thinks the Bronze Age was THE “Try Everything” Age. You should read Michael Eury’s (who knows much more about comics than either of us) excellent essay on Bronze Age comics in the lastest Overstreet Comicbook Price Guide (page 392).

The Bronze Age saw the Comic Code giving a little breathing space vs horror themes. Marvel Bronze Age gave us Werewolf By Night, Tomb of Dracula, Monster of Frankenstein, SOn of Satan and numerous other. They tried a few new horror anthology (and the monsters mad a comeback in many reprints title). At DC, editor Joe Orlando used his EC experience to really make HOUSE OF MYSTERY and HOUSE OF SECRETS into true horror comics. They came up with Swamp THing (Marvel followed with Man-Thing).

The Bronze Age gave us the Sword And Sorcery genre in comic books. Conan, Kull, Thongor and Red Sonja at Marvel. WArlord, Starfire, Stalker and Claw at DC.

The Bronze Age us the return of the pulp heroes in comics. Doc Savage at Marvel, Shadow and Avenger (Justice Inc.) at DC.

The Bronze Age gave us the Blaxploitation comics of Black Lightning, Black Goliath, Brother Voodoo, Power Man, etc.

The Bronze Age went into the Kung-Fu craze with Shang-Chi, Richard Dragon, Iron Fist, etc.

War comics at DC went into a total change of attitude with the editorial of Joe Kubert and the “Make War no more” moto.

The Bronze Age was the birth of the graphic novel, the limited series, the many different formats (tabloids, digest, 100-pagers).

The Bronze Age gave us a new wave of artists that didn’t follow the “house style” and experimented in many different styles: Frank Brunner, Frank Miller, Mike Ploog, Michael Golden, MIke Grell, Marshall Rogers, etc.

The Bronze Age was when the comic book became relevant with the new writers like Steve Gerber, Steve Englehart, Denny O’Neil… They were the vietnam war issues the drug issues (with no code on a comic book for the first time since the 50′s in Spidey and in Green Lantern/Green Arrow).

The Bronze Age gave us weird concepts like Plop!, Howard the Duck, Bat Lash, Brother Power the Geek, Jonah Hex, etc… (I could go on)

The bronze Age was when DC put out almost half of dozen different titles with the word “WEIRD” in them. There was Weird war, weird western, weird mystery, weird sword and sorcery, gothic romance…

The Bronze Age saw the death of Gwen Stacy and Green Goblin. And everything changed after that.

First issue of the arc, I think. Midnight is in a police station kicking the crap out of everyone there. Human-form Darkhawk is there, gawking, and says something to the effect of “Man, he’s going through these cops like Tyson went through Spinks!”

Also, if you’re gonna keep this 90′s theme up beyond this week, citizens demand more Thunderstrike and/or Warlock & the Infinity Watch.

It’s not the same concept as Rick Jones/Captain Marvel, Darkhawk wasn’t actually a dark or gritty hero, the *Silver* Age was the “let’s try something new” era (The Bronze Age was mostly “let’s try something slightly different,” aside from what Kirby was doing, obviously), and it’s the “era” we’re currently in that’s “let’s do everything the same.”

Yes, the 90′s was characterized by “shocking events” and “grittization” and “mullets,” but there were plenty of good little books that were ignored in favor of the uproar over the more newsworthy/upsetting stuff. Darkhawk, Sleepwalker, and Terror were never going to win any Eisners, but they were great in their own way.

You must try to be more open-minded. I bet you’d actually love Sleepwalker and Darkhawk, because they’re just like the Bronze Age stuff you’re promoting. It’s fine superhero storytelling.

I re-read some of the series not too long ago, after meeting Danny Fingeroth at a convention, and it holds up better than you’d think. Sure, there’s way too many 90′s cliches (mullets, tenchcoats, awful villains), but the overall ideas are pretty solid. There’s touches/steals of early Spidey, Miracleman, and The Greatest American Hero. His family made for a good supporting cast. They used the Long Island/Queens location well. It even enjoyed a solid final issue.

I’m glad Kirkman and now Loners have brought Chris Powell back. Long live Darkhawk!

The 90′s certainly weren’t an era of “Lets try all sort of new stuff”. The Bronze Age was that era.

The 90′s are called the Dark Age for many reasons.
First, because the obvious Darker than ever superheroes.
It was the era of everything was a clone or a mixt of Punisher/Wolverine/Ghost Rider. Spawn was the perfect amalgam with some Spider-Man designs thrown in. Batman broken by Bane) and Superman (killed by Doomsday) were replaced with darker replacements (who knew you could get darker than the dark knight).

The 90′s were just a “Let’s just do more of the same” era. It was a glut of crappy comics with a few rare gems when you looked carefully for them (Sandman, Robinson’s Starman and a few others).

“…you want a what?”