The last issue of War of Kings: Ascension came out a while ago now, so this post is a little delayed. I was contacting an artist by the name of “GuyverC” on DeviantArt to do up a Darkhawk commission. The artist had a knack for doing Guyver armors and gundam characters, so I thought: How appropriate–I should ask for a version of Darkhawk closer to his latest designs (shown above)! So I did.

It wasn’t surprising to me when he called out the newest Darkhawk armor designs being based (even remotely) on the ZGMF-X13A Providence Gundam. He provided a link to an image and I couldn’t help seeing the over-whelming similarities. He sure knew his gundam!

This once again brought to mind something that concerned me about Ascension. I mean, I LOVED the fact that Marvel retconned an explanation for why the armor kept changing through the last 15 or so years. That was cool. My concern was for HOW it might change. In theory the suit will now change into whatever Chris Powell feels he needs based on the scenarios he gets himself into. I mean “hulking” out Darkhawk Guyver-style is cool and all… but I’m afraid it’ll just drop poor Darkhawk into the domain of gimmicky americanime.

Not that americanime is bad… just: Is there a place for its influence in modern Marvel continuity? As a design direction? As a conceptual direction? Can the style mix freely with non-anime storytelling? Just thoughts running through my head.