Issue(s): Darkhawk #30
Cover Date: Aug 93
Title: "This evil unleashed"
Credits:
Danny Fingeroth - Writer
Anthony Williams - Penciler
Ian Akin - Inker
John Lewandowski - Assistant Editor
Nel Yomtov - Editor

Review/plot:
Darkhawk signed up for this crossover to remind people that his book was still being published (sorry, Darkhawk, but you've appeared enough in New Warriors, West Coast Avengers, and Secret Defenders that people know you exist. That's not the problem.). But now he's (quite understandably) bored of all the sitting around, so he decides to go off on his own for a while.

He bumps into Spider-Woman on his way out of Avengers Mansion. I think it's interesting that Darkhawk and Spider-Woman have a "relationship" that's been acknowledged in multiple books. I put relationship in quotes because i don't mean to imply anything romantic about it. They're an unlikely pair considering the age difference (which Spider-Woman may not know about) but that makes it an interesting friendship.

This takes place after the Goddess has removed everyone's criminal tendencies, and the book shows us a few non-super characters being affected by that in addition to the Beetle. Which is something of a surprise since he's never appeared in this book before or since.

One character not affected by the Goddess is Broderick Bazin (son of the crimelord and brother to Darkhawk's semi-love interest, Allegra). He's not affected because he's not evil, just insane.

As bad as that is, even worse is the fact that all of the evil that the Goddess has removed from mankind has apparently been shunted to the Bermuda Triangle, where it becomes concentrated in human form.

Ok, that seems like a major flaw in the Goddess' plan.

Darkhawk concludes a histrionic fight with his mom...

...and then gets into a fight with (per the cover) "Pureheart - the Ultimate Evil".

Darkhawk senses that Pureheart is pure evil, and that its goal is to destroy all the heroes waiting at Avengers Mansion. Darkhawk tries to stop it, but Pureheart just drains his energy. Darkhawk is reduced to taking off his helmet to try to scare Pureheart with his mysteriously scary face, but Pureheart just laughs at him - actually growing a face just to do so.

So Darkhawk does the old 'if someone is draining your energy, give them all your energy to overload them' trick, which works. Pureheart dissipates, claiming that it will be back (which it won't).

It's crazy how seemingly unsupervised these tie-ins were. If the Goddess' actions were causing the creation of a creature that embodied all the evil on Earth (and yet could be relatively easily defeated by Darkhawk), you'd think that would be worth mentioning in the core series.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This takes place after Infinity Crusade #2.

References:

• "Here I am again, getting ready to try to save the world with a bunch of costumed clowns". See Infinity Crusade #1 and Infinity Crusade #2 for details.

Crossover: Infinity Crusade

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A