Welcome to another edition of our new series From Comics To Cinema where we discuss the impact comics old, current, or future could have on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. As you’ll notice, this week’s From Comics to Cinema post is a day late, and for that, we apologize. Things were a bit hectic yesterday, but we’re back on track with a fun piece by one of our newer writers.
Don’t ask me why, but when it comes to comics, Darkhawk has been one of my favorite characters. So when news broke earlier this week of Marvel reportedly shopping a New Warriors show around to major television networks, I was a bit happy inside.
As a teenager in Queens, Chris Powell witnessed his father, a police officer, accepting a bribe from a crime boss at an abandoned amusement park. In a state of anger and panic, Powell stumbled across an amulet that when worn, allowed him to switch places with a powerful android that his mind controlled.
Through the original 50-issue run from 1991-1995, Darkhawk ended up going head to head with some of the same villains as Spider-Man and Daredevil, current members of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Coincidentally enough, Darkhawk often collaborated with, or was a member of, two groups of superheroes that have been talked about a lot recently: the New Warriors and the Runaways.
With various different incarnations, much like any other superhero group, the New Warriors debuted in The Mighty Thor #411. Created by Tom DeFalco in 1989, the original New Warriors lineup included Nova, Namorita, Marvel Boy, Firestar, Night Thrasher, and Speedball. Throughout the original run, additional heroes joined the New Warriors ranks, including Darkhawk, Dagger, Rage, and Turbo.
The news surrounding the potential New Warriors TV series, which Marvel and ABC are currently shopping around, comes after yet another surprising TV show announcement earlier this month. It was announced rather recently that Marvel also has a Runaways series in development at Hulu. With both of these projects in development, of sorts, we have ourselves two great opportunities to see a live-action Darkhawk.
Team affiliations aside, let’s dig a little deeper.
One of the things that originally attracted me to the MCU was the fact that all of the properties were connected. However, over the past two years with the addition of new properties, including a Netflix “sub-universe”, everything is seeming less and less connected with each other.
Conveniently enough, many of Marvel’s superhero characters are based in a real geographical location: New York City. Everyone’s favorite web-slinger is from the Big Apple, the Sanctum Sanctorum is located at 177A Bleecker Street in New York’s Greenwich Village, and all of the Netflix properties are each based in a different borough.
With so many different characters popping up in one city, it can’t be too long before they all start finding out about each other, right? I think the folks at Marvel laid some groundwork to address that issue in Captain America: Civil War as Tony Stark certainly didn’t have any troubles not only finding Spider-Man but Spider-Man’s true identity. Coincidentally after his original comic run ended, Darkhawk often had cameos in both Iron Man and Avengers titles.
It’s also worth mentioning that earlier this year, Marvel confirmed that a live-action Cloak & Dagger series would be airing in 2017 on ABC’s Freeform channel, formerly branded as ABC Family. As previously mentioned, Dagger, also known as Tandy Bowen, was a collaborator with the New Warriors. Dagger, as well as her partner Cloak, have also appeared alongside the Runaways.
Now that we’ve established a connection between Cloak & Dagger and Runaways, what can connect those two shows to the rest of the MCU? Enter Darkhawk and the New Warriors.
In closing, I feel that if there are more characters in a show, it allows more opportunities for potential crossovers to happen with other shoes. Look at DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. There we have a show with a large group of heroes each and every episode, and personally, I feel it works. With many different characters having participated in the New Warriors at same point throughout their superhero careers, I feel a New Warriors show would be a natural fit to tie the whole universe back together.
