Review: Hawkworld trade paperback (DC Comics)

Another book that caught my interest as I've been updating the DC Universe Trade Paperback Timeline is Timothy Truman's Hawkworld. Just the sheer mention of this book sends shivers down the spine of anyone who values DC Comics continuity -- as this Comics Alliance cartoon wonderfully demonstrates, Hawkworld catalyzed the sheet implosion of Hawkman's history to such an extent that it's still not fixed twenty years later. So my question -- was it worth it? Resoundingly, yes.
[Contains spoilers]

To explain further, Hawkworld represents an ad hoc reboot of DC Comics's Hawkman continuity. Earth-born Carter Hall and his wife Shiera fought as the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl; at the start of the Silver Age, DC reintroduced a more science-fiction based Thangarian Hawkman and Hawkwoman, Katar and Shayera Hol. That Hawkman made appearances through to a few years after Crisis on Infinite Earths, when DC updated that Hawkman's origins Hawkworld. So popular was Hawkworld that DC decided to continue the story in the present continuity, requiring some heavy lifting to explain the Silver Age Hawkman's appearances between Crisis and Hawkworld. This has lead to a general confusion over which Hawkman is which that continues to this day.

If one ignores that confusion and just takes Hawkworld as a story on its own, it's a mighty fine story. Truman's art is beautiful, giving depth to both the dirty Thanagarian slums and also the excesses of the Thangarian towers; he draws dozens of alien races and perfectly expresses beauty, fear, anger, and sorrow on humanoid and alien faces alike.

Hawkworld might serve as a model for current storytellers in that it contains a number of scenes of startling violence, but none of it feels out of place or gratuitous. Even as Truman's main character is one of DC Comics's superheroic icons, Truman is unafraid to let Katar Hol sin in any number of ways -- we watch Katar worn down by the corruption around him until he starts taking drugs, and later commits a bloody murder in a misguided attempt to escape from prison. All the while, the reader understands Katar's nobility and how circumstances have brought him to these actions, and one can't help be moved throughout.

And this is letting alone that halfway through the story, Truman actually kills Shayera Thal, whom the reader expects would become the new Hawkwoman. Personally I thought it was a trick, and that the identity of the ending's mysterious figure was too obvious, but Truman concludes with a number of twists I never saw coming. Even if you had some experience with Katar Hol and Shayera Thal later on in the Hawkworld series, trust me when I saw you don't know everything until you've seen how they came together in the original Hawkworld miniseries.

Granted I imagine DC Comics pretty much wants to sweep this period of Hawman history under the rug, how ever entertaining it is, in favor of what I believe is a clearer Hawkman continuity post-Blackest Night. But among collections I'd like to see -- and maybe this is one for DC's digital comics intiative -- is a collection of the "Escape from Thanagar" storyline, Hawkworld #22-25, which tried to put a cap on Hawkworld's continuity problems by converting the original Silver Age Hawkman to a Thanagarian spy named Fel Andar. This is not, granted, the cleanest continuity patch ever, but it's a story that offers a re-explanation of some earlier stories and also guest-stars Amanda Waller and the Justice League International, so hey -- sounds like a party to me. But I'm not holding my breath ...

[Includes introduction by editor Mike Gold]

Thinking back on it, in what limited issues of Hawkworld that I've read outside the collected original miniseries -- couple of annuals, couple of crossovers -- I find Katar Hol and Shayera Thal much more interesting than Carter and Shiera Hall. The latter, I'm guessing, is what I'm stuck with, but if DC could bring the Thangarian Hawks back without destroying continuity again, I'd be all for it.

New reviews Monday, and on Wednesday at 8 pm, don't miss the Superman: Earth One live Collected Editions event. Did I mention it will be live?

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Review: Hawkgirl: Hath-Set trade paperback (DC Comics)

One of many good things about walking in to the after-Thanksgiving sale at my local comics shop was the opportunity to purchase Hawkgirl: Hath-Set at a discount given that I was none too pleased with earlier Hawkgirl volumes. Hath-Set turns out to be proof positive that there's nothing harder to come back from than a rocky start -- even as writer Walter Simonson's stories picked up in the absence of earlier artist Howard Chaykin, the third volume of Hawkgirl still sees the end of the series. Simonson offers some good characterization of the modern Hawkgirl character, especially as seen through others' eyes, but the story spins its wheels in such a way as to signal that the end is necessarily nigh.

We learn from Hawkgirl that Walt Simoson should be writing Batman. Both here and in Hawkgirl: The Maw, Simonson presents a Batman who smoothly transitions from Bruce Wayne to Batman as a kind of slick playboy James Bondian-Batman, equally at ease at a dinner party as when fighting crime, and friends with the late night janitors of the Gotham museum. This classy Batman makes for an equally classy Hawkgirl Kendra Saunders, whose fighting style Batman admires even as he's impressed by her knowledge of ancient artifacts. No more the moody twentysomething from the early pages of JSA, this Hawkgirl -- the reader sees through Batman -- holds her own, and does so with a flair reminiscent of Barbara Gordon's days as Batgirl.

Indeed, Simonson -- and Brad Meltzer before him, in the pages of Justice League -- accepts that this new incarnation has been around ten years now (hard to believe), and it's time to stop treating her like a newly arrived stranger. Most of Geoff Johns' run on Hawkman presented Kendra in Hawkman's shadow, but lately she's in the Justice League, calls Batman and Superman "Bruce" and "Clark," and gives each kisses on the cheek to thank them for their help. This is a necessary change, I think; in the absence of resurrecting Shiera Hall (though Simonson does that briefly here, too), who was herself a cornerstone of the Justice League, it makes little sense to treat Kendra like a new character that no one knows. In that way, I enjoyed seeing Simoson plant Hawkgirl firmly in the center of the DC Universe (much as Peter Tomasi did recently in Nightwing: Freefall).

The six issues of Hawkgirl: Hath-Set, however, run about three issues too long. First, there's a two-parter in the beginning that pits Hawkgirl against the Female Furies and an Apokolyptian weapon; the lead-in to this in Hawkgirl: Hawkman Returns was considerably more interesting, and in the end nothing changes and everything goes back in its place. Perhaps the only benefit is reading Simonson writing the New Gods again, if only for a moment.

Second, the culminating battle between Hawkgirl and Hath-Set goes on at least one issue too long. Hawkgirl and the mummified Hath-Set spend nearly an entire issue standing in place, jabbing one another with swords, and trading insults; then they go on to do it again in the next issue. Simonson writes for the monthly reader and not the collection -- as perhaps he should -- with the effect that the narrated setting of time and place repeats itself rather unnecessarily seemingly in mid-scene. There's nothing bad here, per se, but just a sense of dragging that usually foretells a series about to be cancelled.

Surely one could argue that the cancellation of Hawkgirl (and Manhunter, and Birds of Prey) portends bad things for female-led comics in the DC Universe. That might be true, but rather I think Hawkgirl just started on the wrong foot and could never quite right itself. Pity that Simonson couldn't make more of a statement at the end of the book; the story ends with no real closure on Hawkman and Hawkgirl's relationships, likely to leave it open for the next writer to play with. This might've at least given the Hawkgirl series a place in history, if nothing else.

[Contains full covers]

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Review: Hawkgirl: Hawkman Returns trade paperback (DC Comics)

With all due respect, it's not much of a feat to say that Hawkgirl: Hawkman Returns is not as bad as the nightmarishly poor Hawkgirl: The Maw. But in comparison to some books I've read lately like Booster Gold and Green Lantern: The Sinestro Corps War, Hawkgirl: Hawkman Returns seems hardly worth your hard-earned cash. There's some nice art here by writer Walt Simonson, Joe Bennett, and Renato Arlem especially, and the story isn't egregiously bad -- but neither does it ever get off the ground in a meaningful way.

The main difficulty with the book is that the plot never quite raises itself above good guys-fight-bad guys, though this is likely as much Simonson's fault as it is DC Comics's very loosely defined Rann/Thanagar War. Even having read Rann/Thanagar War, it was very unclear to me what Blackfire had to gain by keeping the war going on; aren't here "people," whom we never actually see here, dead as of Final Night?

Similarly, I found it hard to believe that Thanagar is still in danger, a year after 52, because of a mistake the Green Lantern Corps made and didn't fix. It doesn't help that Simonson completely mangles Blackfire's origin, often treats Hawkman as if he's native Thanagarian, and that it's impossible to tell the Thangarians from the Rannians through most of the story. That leaves just the fighting, and while Simonson and company draw some nice action sequences, there's not much more here than standard fare.

To be sure, any book that centers on the female lead pining away for the male lead to return seems somewhat destined for trouble (I've lately been thinking this might be why the last two seasons of The X-Files bombed). Hawkgirl, simultaneously wishing Hawkman would return and also cursing him for leaving, isn't terribly interesting, and it only reinforces the reader's sense that Hawkman is the real protagonist in this tale. Simonson fails to make Hawkgirl Kenda Saunders interesting in her own right -- she mostly mopes around and thinks about finding a direction for herself -- and as such the scenes without Hawkman feel simply like passing time.

The one bright spot, perhaps, is the last issue, with the aforementioned art by Renato Arlem. Arlem has a detailed style that shines especially in the New Orleans-inspired backgrounds of St. Roch, and it gives some sorely needed atmosphere to the comic. Simonson returns in the last chapter returns to the Egyptian Hath-Set plot begun by Geoff Johns, adding a bit of Apokoliptian technology to the mix. It was only here that I felt the trade began to pick up (amidst another tired Hawkman/Hawkgirl break-up scene), and this plot plus Arlem's art might almost be enough for me to pick up the final Hawkgirl trade before this series' cancellation (see discussion on the cancellation with Graeme McMillan at Newsarama). Almost.

[Contains full covers]

On now perhaps to some Batman, and then maybe Justice Society. Be there!

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