DARKHAWK
Real Name: Christopher Powell
First Appearance: Darkhawk (Vol. 1) #1, March 1991
Powers: Chris Powell was a teenager who found an amulet in an abandoned amusement park which enabled him to access a Darkhawk android body, from the Darkhawk Ship in the dimension known as Null Space. The Ship holds six Darkhawks at once, each held in stasis on a different platform known as a Perch. Powell's amulet was a recreation of another one, and thus originally it was one of two amulets linked to a single hawk. By holding the amulet and concentrating, Chris transpositions his body and mind with the Darkhawk. In a flash of energy, the android and Chris's body exchange places, with him going to the Perch and the Darkhawk appearing wherever he was a moment before. At the same time, Chris's mind is transferred into the cerebral-net of the Darkhawk body, which is capable of supporting a host consciousness. As Darkhawk, Chris possessed Class 10 strength, superhuman speed, agility, endurance, reflexes, and resilience. His optic sensors included telescopic, infrared and night vision capabilities. The amulet, which fused itself onto the Darkhawk's chest during the transformation, acted as a power source and was capable of focusing energy. It could fire concussive blasts or shape a tangible disk of energy, which could be projected out a varying distance from Darkhawk's body. It was most commonly used as a shield, but could also be a battering ram or pin people or objects against a wall or floor. He had a claw cable mounted on one wrist which had a three-pronged claw that rested on the back of his hand. Darkhawk could extend the telescopic hooks to make it into a Wolverine-style claw weapon, or fire the entire claw as a wire-guided grappling hook. By tapping his arms to his sides, Darkhawk could unsheathe his retractable glider wings. Initially, Darkhawk could not truly fly, and relied on his claw cable to get him airborne then glided on air currents. During a trip through time, however, Darkhawk spontaneously developed the power of true flight. The unique temporal lag between Null Space and other dimensions enabled Chris to make use of a "fast healing trick" for his android body. If Darkhawk was injured in any way, Chris could tap the amulet and revert to his human self, then immediately tap the amulet again and transform into a fully healed Darkhawk. This worked because the Darkhawk Ship maintained and repaired the androids on their Perches, and the temporal displacement between "there" and "here" enabled the Ship to fully complete any repairs before a relative second passed for Chris.
During the Amulet Quest event, Darkhawk's amulet was realigned to link with a new prototype Darkhawk body. This new body was stronger, faster, and better armored than the original. It still had wings, but was capable of self-propelled flight without them. In place of the old claw-cable, each arm had a spear point which could be extended by more than a foot for melee combat or fired off as a grappling cable similar to his original weapon. The amulet could now create a full body transparent force field to protect Darkhawk, and projected Darkforce energy as concussive blasts. By merging the force field and the Darkforce, Chris could generate an enormous "dark hawk" projection around his body. He also now had thermoscopic eye beams, the ability to become invisible at will, and the power to remotely summon weapons and technology from the Darkhawk Ship to himself. However, he was also split into two independent but identical consciousnesses: One inhabiting his human body, the other inhabiting the Darkhawk. This put an end to the "fast healing trick", and so Darkhawk was given the ability to summon a large energy pod at will. By climbing inside of it, the pod's energy would slowly work to regenerate and repair and damages to his android form. By the end of his first reign as Darkhawk, Chris and Darkhawk were re-merged back into a single being. Since that time, Darkhawk has apparently reverted back to his original android body and powers. Somehow, his amulet also enabled more than one Darkhawk to be summoned at once, when Phil Urich stole than amulet and became Darkhawk, and then Chris touched it to become another Darkhawk and fight the thief.
Darkhawk's abilities have changed considerably since he learned the true nature of his powers. Powell is actually heir to the amulet of one of the last surviving members of the Fraternity of Raptors, a league of armored warriors who committed acts of sabotage, counter-intelligence, kidnapping and assassination in the name of the Great Purpose. The Great Purpose is revealed to the Raptors through the Datasong, a streaming of accumulated memories and information dating back through the Fraternity's several millennia of existence. Everything a Raptor learns or gains access to is shared by all others through the Null Source. The Datasong not only provides extensive knowledge on a variety of subjects, it also uses psycho-historical variables to chart the future and predict upcoming events, and the actions the Fraternity of Raptors need to take in order to assure specific outcomes. This is the Great Purpose. The Fraternity of Raptors fell into disarray six thousand years ago, long before humanity reached the stars. As a result, Chris Powell is actually incompatible with the amulet he wields, and has not been able to tap the Datasong or the full scope of his armor's abilities. The "events" he experienced with Evilhawk and the origins of his armor were actually a hallucination created by his mind attempting to properly interpret the Datasong.
The amulets of the Fraternity of Raptors are far less benevolent than Powell had been led to believe. When functioning properly, the amulet latches onto a host body, casting it into a crystal cage inside the Null Source at the Tree of Shadows. The host is then used as a living power source for the Raptor, whose consciousness and armor materialize in place of the host in the real world. The bonded "partner" is nothing more than a battery to the Raptor, held eternally in captivity while the Raptor operates in their place. Chris Powell's amulet was linked to a Raptor named Razor, but his human incompatibility kept Razor's personality from becoming dominant, allowing Powell to wield the Raptor's armor and some of the powers himself as Darkhawk. This new concept explains how Chris spontaneously developed the power of flight previously, created his second armor, and even manifested more than one armor at once with Phil Urich.
In his present state, Darkhawk's "default armor" is much stronger than before. The suit possesses greater levels of superhuman strength, durability, and at least Mach 4 atmospheric flight. Darkhawk can survive for extended periods of time in the vacuum of space, and mechanically open personal stargates for faster-than-light travel across the galaxy. His claw cable has a new feature: It can be nano-reconfigured into a Scout-hawk, a remote-flying bird drone that can transmit sensory data back to Darkhawk's visor for reconnaissance. The Scout-hawk can also visually display its findings for others to see. Darkhawk can generate a disguise skin, a holographic cloaking field that can hide his true appearance behind a false identity. Besides the basic features, Darkhawk can reconfigure his suit to summon variant armor designs. The conversion can be as simple as selecting different kinds of ordinance to morph his hands into, but more extreme reconfigurations actually call upon different armors. The Heavy Duty suit gives Darkhawk significantly increased physical power, boosting his strength and durability with exoskeletal components. The Carbon-fiber Lightweight suit does the reverse, reducing his strength and weapon systems to make him non-metallic and highly agile and maneuverable. The Rescue suit has front-mounted spotlights on his chest and an advanced sensor array. Darkhawk has augmented his firepower several times by calling on the Strike Suit, Warflight suit, or Heavy Weapons armor. The armor looks similar each time, so its unclear if these are different combat armors with individual weapons or ordinance, or just different names for the same basic armor enhancement. With full firepower, Darkhawk has access to lasers, particle beams, and micro-munition assaults which release a cluster of highly explosive ammunition.
For a time, Chris Powell's amulet lost it's power, and he later regained his abilities under different circumstances. Razor had learned from Chris's example and became an apostate to the Fraternity of Raptors, severing from the Tree of Shadows and (in doing so) breaking his connection to Chris and the amulet. Events conspired to bond the two of them again, but with an altered status quo. Because Razor was separate from the Tree, it was no longer possible for he and Chris to exchange points in space. Rather, the amulet recorded a blueprint of each user and stored it during transformation. This meant Chris's human body was physically destroyed and rewritten into the Darkhawk body when he changed, then rebuilt from a stored file when he reversed the effect. The Darkhawk he became during this period was generally more powerful than before, but the amulet only had so much "storage memory" and so, in order to maintain the blueprint of Chris, it could not allow Darkhawk to reconfigure into the previous stored body designs.
More history of the Tree of Shadows was revealed. It was created when the Elder of the Universe known as the Gardener planted in the exotic soil of the Darkforce Dimension. The Tree bloomed into Null Space, where it was fought over by ancient Shi'ar and Skrull. Raptor Prime was born when an avian race Shi'ar connected with the amulet-seeds of the Tree, gaining not only great power but also reconfiguration abilities to match its enemies, the Skrulls. The Fraternity of Raptors was eventually born from an attempt to suborn and control the Tree of Shadows to a particular end. As the Shi'ar both worship and fear the Phoenix Force, the Fraternity was created in the image of Ratha'kon, the Hawk-God of the cosmic pantheon who was the Phoenix's opposite. While the Phoenix represented chaos in its ties to unbridled life and evolution, the Hawk-God lived to impose order. The Fraternity of Raptors "tamed" the freestyle shape-changing of the Tree's original Raptors, creating mechanoids that harnessed the reconfiguration for specific, pre-approved combat designs.
These revelations explain how Darkhawk regained his own power of reconfiguration, Together, he and Razor threw off the strictures imposed on the amulets by the Fraternity. Darkhawk's Raptor body could now alter in size and strength, becoming a mobile and occupied battle mech, produce various new forms of technology and weapons outside of existed combat forms, and so on.
For a time, Chris Powell's amulet lost it's power, and he later regained his abilities under different circumstances. Razor had learned from Chris's example and became an apostate to the Fraternity of Raptors, severing from the Tree of Shadows and (in doing so) breaking his connection to Chris and the amulet. Events conspired to bond the two of them again, but with an altered status quo. Because Razor was separate from the Tree, it was no longer possible for he and Chris to exchange points in space. Rather, the amulet recorded a blueprint of each user and stored it during transformation. This meant Chris's human body was physically destroyed and rewritten into the Darkhawk body when he changed, then rebuilt from a stored file when he reversed the effect. The Darkhawk he became during this period was generally more powerful than before, but the amulet only had so much "storage memory" and so, in order to maintain the blueprint of Chris, it could not allow Darkhawk to reconfigure into the previous stored body designs.
More history of the Tree of Shadows was revealed. It was created when the Elder of the Universe known as the Gardener planted in the exotic soil of the Darkforce Dimension. The Tree bloomed into Null Space, where it was fought over by ancient Shi'ar and Skrull. Raptor Prime was born when an avian race Shi'ar connected with the amulet-seeds of the Tree, gaining not only great power but also reconfiguration abilities to match its enemies, the Skrulls. The Fraternity of Raptors was eventually born from an attempt to suborn and control the Tree of Shadows to a particular end. As the Shi'ar both worship and fear the Phoenix Force, the Fraternity was created in the image of Ratha'kon, the Hawk-God of the cosmic pantheon who was the Phoenix's opposite. While the Phoenix represented chaos in its ties to unbridled life and evolution, the Hawk-God lived to impose order. The Fraternity of Raptors "tamed" the freestyle shape-changing of the Tree's original Raptors, creating mechanoids that harnessed the reconfiguration for specific, pre-approved combat designs.
These revelations explain how Darkhawk regained his own power of reconfiguration, Together, he and Razor threw off the strictures imposed on the amulets by the Fraternity. Darkhawk's Raptor body could now alter in size and strength, becoming a mobile and occupied battle mech, produce various new forms of technology and weapons outside of existed combat forms, and so on.
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