Saturday, July 29, 2006
Comic Art
Last week we started our look at "The Defenders" and the many obscure characters that have been a part of that unteam. I thought we'd start with Nighthawk. Here's a brief history and here the the official Marvel index to the several incarnations of the character.I have to be honest here, I remember the character - visually - but I had to look up information on his history, incarnations, the whole nine yards. Trust me, when I don't remember, you are talking deep second stringer.
As I have said before, it's the look that matters and depicted here is the original, classic look, later looks got, as comics in general have, darker and darker.
As is true for many character, he started as a bad guy, but got enough of a fan following that they had to develop him as a good guy, which is also part of the reason characters like him end up with such a mess for a back story, they are invented as hero fodder (Especially this guy, the Squadron Sinister, which is where he got his start, has never been much but some barely veiled references to the Justice League for the Avengers to routinely ruin in a bit of comic bravado.) that end up capturing readers imaginations just enough.So what is it that gets readers attention? Given how little story was devoted to the guy, you have to think it's the look. Two things make this guy very distinguishable that I like.
The first is the wing-like cape. I like winged superheroes, and this guy is like the best of both, capes and wings.The second distinctive element is the mask and those things coming off the eyes, they just look good. Both elements were maintained in the second incarnation, though muted to attain the requisite "darkness."
I have included this photo here because any character that has achieved enough fan base to warrant an action figure has achieved something, but alas, aside from teaming up with people, I'd be hard pressed to know what this guy did accomplish - except look cool.
Related Tags: comics, comic books, comic art, Nighthawk, Defenders
