War of Kings: Warriors

War of Kings #1.1

by C.B. Cebulski, Christos Gage, Jay Faerber

Chris Powell gets a new lease on life as the ascension of Darkhawk begins! But when his past comes back to haunt him and new information about his amulet and its legacy are violently brought to light, Darkhawk realizes he may have to face a much darker destiny that he ever realized.

Collecting: War of Kings: Darkhawk #1-2, War of Kings: Ascension #1-4, War of Kings: Savage Sword of Skaar, and War of Kings: Warriors #1-2.

Genres: Comics, Marvel, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, X Men, Science Fiction

248 pages, Paperback

First published June 16, 2010

Reviews

[Judith Groen · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was kind of a 50/50 kind of liking the book. I liked the Darkhawk story, I never ever read anything about him before, and this seemed very interesting. I also liked the story about Gladiator and Crystal. The rest I did not care about at all. The story about Liliandre had different artwork and I disliked it, what made it hard to like the story. The rest of the artwork was very well done.

[violetDelights · Rating 3 out of 5]

★★★☆☆☆☆
It’s tough to review this entirely. The darkhawk stuff is actually pretty good and ties in into war of Kings pretty well. I would be interested in reading more darkhawk stuff in the future. But the other four stories included are pretty unnecessary and boring.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 3 out of 5]

The "Darkhawk" story that leads things off is a nice connection to the cosmic field that I suspect wasn't there before and would have been neater for an older Darkhawk fan [6/10]. The "Ascension" story that follows is thin and mostly a teaser, but has some good moments [6/10]. Although I'm happy to see "Sakaar" integrated into the Marvel Cosmic storyline, its story is unfortunately just a dull fight that *might* be a setup for the main storyline [4/10]. Moving on to the shorts: the Gladiator story offers very nice background [7/10]; the Blastaar story is mostly dull [5/10]; the Crystal story would have been a nice spotlight on the character if it weren't so hackneyed; and the Lilandra story is a bit obvious, but does a good job of showing what makes her strong [6/10]. Though there's some decent stuff in this volume, the overall result is kind of mediocre.

[Rocky Sunico · Rating 3 out of 5]

This companion book for the War of Kings event is an interesting collection of one-shots and limited-run mini-series that makes it feel like an anthology collection of cosmic-level Marvel stories. Most of the book focuses on Darkhawk and the whole "Fraternity of Raptors" thing, which I totally forgot was born out of this storyline. Sure, it's quite the radical spin on the Darkhawk mythos but it does make for a more compelling backstory than what we got before. Darkhawk always felt like one of those weird artifacts of the '90s that didn't quite grow up well with the rest of the Marvel Universe.

The other stuff provides interesting insight into some of the major players in this event without actually needing to cover key parts of the story. But you won't necessarily like all of them or even most of them. The story quality is pretty weird.

[Scott Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. War of Kings tie-ins all randomly thrown together--a Darkhawk story (with a totally random new origin for the crystal that allows DH to suddenly become a cosmic character), a World of Skaar Story..., a Gladiator Story that was the standout as an actual quality piece of character work, and a few one off half-a-comic stories at the end about Crystal, Lilandra, and Blastaar in addition to the Gladiator short. Not really worth your time unless you're desperate for more direct War of Kings tie-in material.

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

No matter what happens, Darkhawk is not cool. It seems like writers have tried quite a few times but Darkhawk just hasn't been made interesting mostly because his character is completely ripped from others. Chris Powell is also whiny and uninteresting. The best part of this book was the first look into past of Gladiator and his role in the universe. Other stories involving Blaastar or Gorgon just seemed unnecessary. The art overall was good but this collection was mostly filler.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume has a couple of short stories about different characters, I particularly liked the Crystal one. The main storyline involves Darkhawk, and that is really good. It turns the idea of Darkhawk on its head, and I really want to know what happens next. Oh, and Gladiator is only in one story so don't buy this just because of him. A really good read.

[Jeffrey Jelmeland · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the Darkhawk portion of the book and wish that there was more of the story in the book instead of stories of other characters that I couldn't care less about.