Note of Warning

Just to start of, I’d like to say that the below is not an ABSOLUTE timeline! There is no way to document an actual timeline in most commercial comics from entire “universes” like Marvel’s and DC’s.

Continuity issues will always exist. Cases like Darkhawk are more-or-less manageable because he appeared sparingly (unfortunately) in the pages of other comics during his run in the early 1990s: The New Warriors, West Coast Avengers, Amazing Spider-Man, Secret Defenders, Sleepwalker to name the prominent ones. These other titles had their own agendas and didn’t always take into consideration Darkhawk’s personal dilemmas, life-threatening quests of self-discovery and painful tribulations.

Also, there will be SPOILERS! If you don’t want stuff spoiled be sure to heed this warning ahead of time. I don’t bother worrying about what I might ruin. If you haven’t read the books, don’t ruin the experience by letting your curiosity get the better of you!

My Method of Madness

During a self-proclaimed journey to achieve “uber-fanboy guru” status with all things Darkhawk, I took it upon myself to read every issue of Darkhawk again, and every appearance as well, and track as best as possible, a theoretical timeline of all events directly tied to Darkhawk’s growth as an individual.

The way I determined certain dates are based on character references to “yesterday”, “last week”, “Sunday”, “three months ago”, etc that come up as a designator of time. Any time it said “evening”, “morning”, night” or showed a time on a watch or clock in a panel, I would designate a section of the actual day as well. Months came into the picture a little more clearly when Darkhawk appeared in Sleepwalker #17 when his radio star “boss” mentioned it “being summer”. During the origin story issues of Darkhawk (#21-#25), there was a side plot that had him dealing with possible suspension from school. This was the first major continuity glitch I had to work out the best way I could by padding the timeline with enormous time gaps.

For the most part, all these events make a certain kind of linear sense and I present it here for the uber-geeks out there with any interest to ponder how immensely complicated a teenage superhero’s life can get. How do they find the time for girlfriends, family, school and other “life” responsibilities? Well, in Darkhawk’s case, as can be seen, it’s very well near impossible… and that has ramifications that define his life and his personality. He is a hero with a constant stream of flaws and hindrances in his human life, but he doesn’t stop reaching for what he wants to believe is the RIGHT thing regardless of how his life is affected.

Post War of Kings Retcon

Update, Post War of Kings: It was mentioned that most of Darkhawk’s past might have been–or most absolutely was–made up in his head due to his human psyche battling for control of the alien Raptor armor. This kinda sucks–at least to me. At the same time, it offers quite a lot of freedom to build on the story without the baggage of the past. Am I going to retroactively fix the timeline accordingly? Hell no. For the time being this timeline exists as if every experience Chris Powell had was one legitimately tied to real time (at least in his head, even if Post-WofK is considered).

Update!

Those who have come here in the past, you will notice the TIMELINE is gone! I have migrated it to a spreadsheet system and programed cells to auto-update dates column-wide. This makes editing the timeline much easier. While re-doing it, I discovered a couple little issues and have edited them accordingly.

I’ve updated the Issue Continuity below and sectioned off the comics by Chris’s time as Darkhawk, followed by his age at the time (this is all based on conjecture but initially tied to ONE reference regarding his age in Annual #3).

Issue Continuity

The issue arrangement I’d suggest based on my “Comprehensive Timeline” is below [Red Text refer to insignificant cameos for the completists]:

Before Darkhawk (~20 Years Ago to Dawn of the Darkhawk)

Darkhawk #25 [There multiple origin flashbacks regarding Dargin Bokk and the making of the Darkhawk armours]
Darkhawk #7 [There's a flashback regarding Mike Powell before he goes missing in Darkhawk #1]
Avengers #304 [First appearance of Charles Little Sky, aka Portal] (June 1989)

Dawn of the Darkhawk (Year One) [Chris Powell, Age 15-16]

Darkhawk #1 to #5 (Mar 1991 – Jul 1991)
Amazing Spider-Man #353 to #354, “Round Robin: Sidekick’s Revenge”
Darkhawk #6 (Aug 1991)
New Warriors #14 (Aug 1991)
Darkhawk #7 to #9 (Sep 1991 – Nov 1991)
Amazing Spider-Man #355 to #358, “Round Robin: Sidekick’s Revenge” (Nov 1991 – Jan 1992)
Darkhawk #10 to #15 (Dec 1991 – May 1992)
New Warriors #22 to #25, “Nothing But The Truth” (Apr 1992-Jul 1992)
Darkhawk Annual #1, “Assault on Armor City Part 1: Search” (Jan 1992)
West Coast Avengers Annual #7, “Assault on Armor City Part 2: Locate” (Jan 1992)
Iron Man Annual Annual #13, “Assault on Armor City Part 3: Destroy” (Jan 1992)
Darkhawk Annual #1, “The Fishing Trip” (Jan 1992)
Darkhawk Annual #1, “The Cabal”, ”Deadly Foes of Darkhawk” (Jan 1992)
Darkhawk #16 to #20 (June 1992 – Oct 1992)
Sleepwalker #17 (Oct 1992)
New Warriors #32 to #34, Darkling Story Arc (Feb 1993-Apr 1993)
New Warriors Annual #3, Darkling Story Arc (Jan 1993)
Beyond! #3 (cameo) (Nov 2006)
Avengers West Coast #93 to #95, Dominicus Story Arc (Apr 1993 – Jun 1993)

Origin of the Darkhawk (Year Two) [Chris Powell, Age 16-17]

Secret Defenders #1 to #3 (Mar 1993 – May 1993)
Darkhawk Annual #2, “Who’s That Knocking on my Door” (Aug 1993)
Darkhawk #21 to #25 (Nov 1992 – Mar 1993)
Darkhawk Annual #2, “Dreamkiller”, “Taking a Stand” (Aug 1994)
Darkhawk #26 to #27 (Apr 1993 – May 1993)
Darkhawk Annual 2, “Force of Evil” (Aug 1993)
Darkhawk Annual #2, “Savage is the Night” (Aug 1993)
Darkhawk #28 to #30 (Jun 1993 – Aug 1993)
Darkhawk #31 to #42 (Sep 1993 – Aug 1994)
Darkhawk Annual #3, “Future Shock”, “Caught in the Crossfire” (Aug 1994)
Nova #6 (Jun 1994)
New Warriors #48 (Jun 1994)
Nova #7 (Jul 1994)
New Warriors #49 to #51 (Jun 1994 – Sept 1994)
Nova #10 (Oct 1994)
Darkhawk #43 to #50 (Sep 1994 – Apr 1995)
Nova #14 (Feb 1995)
Amazing Spider-Man: Friends and Enemies #1 to #4 (Jan 1995 – Apr 1995)
Darkhawk Annual #3, “Down These Mean Streets” (Aug 1994)

Delegated to Cameos (Year Three to Five)  [Chris Powell, Age 17-20]

Thunderbolts #8 (Nov 1997)
Avengers #1 to #4 (Feb 1998 – May 1998)
 Avengers #10 (Nov 1998)
Avengers #51 (Apr 2002)
Avengers Disassembled #501 to #503 (Oct 2004 t Dec 2004)

Back in Action (Year Six) [Chris Powell, Age 20-21]

Runaways #1 to #6 (Apr 2005 – Sep 2005)
Marvel Team-Up #15 to #18 (Feb 2006 – May 2006) [Splits Continuity --> Creates an Alternate-Timeline Darkhawk]
Civil War Files #1 (Sep 2006)
The Loners #1 to #6 (Jun 2007 – Nov 2007)
Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular (Sept 2007) [Cameo of Alt-Timeline League of Losers]
Nova #17 to #19 (Nov 2008 – Jan 209)
War of Kings: Darkhawk #1 to #2 (Apr 2009 – May 2009)
War of Kings: Ascension #1 to #3 (Jun 2009 – Aug 2009)
War of Kings #4 (Aug 2009)
War of Kings: Ascension #4 (Aug 2009)
Nova #30 to #32 (Dec 2009 – Feb 2010)