DCU Comic Book Reviews

HAWKMAN #1

First Impressions

May 2002

Written by Geoff Johns & James Robinson

Pencils by Rags Morales

Inks by Michael Bair

Cover by Andrew Robinson

Synopsis

With the help of the JSA, Hawkman helps save a plane.  Once its safe, Hawkman takes off without a word.  Meanwhile, Kendra Saunders (aka Hawkgirl) visits her great-uncle Speed Saunders looking for clues to her parent’s murder.  After she leaves, Speed calls Carter.  In St. Roch, Hawkgirl visits St. Roch to find information related to a telegram she found from Danny Evans to her mother and father.  The curator of the museum does not want to talk to her, until Hawkman arrives to help.  Hawkgirl resents the intrusion, but the Curator does tell her Danny Evans is currently in India.  At that moment, Danny is being watched by weird folks hired by Roderic, who receives a phone call informing him of the Hawks involvement.  Roderic orders Bloque to take care of the hawks.  On the streets of St. Roch, Bloque attacks the Hawks, but Hawkman is able to defeat them.  As they fly away, Hawkman offers to help Hawkgirl find Danny Evans.  She reluctantly agrees. 

Review

While the baggage of all the different Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s histories within the DC Universe will never (and should never) be entirely pushed aside or forgotten, I have to credit Johns and Robinson with being able to include the past without it overwhelming the storyline.  It is fairly easy to grasp that both Hawks have been reincarnated over the years, but in this current time only one remembers these past lives.  Beyond that things can get muddled (see the JSA arc that reintroduced Hawkman to the DCU), but luckily the story in this book so far hasn’t tried to make too much of a big deal of the past.  The success to this series (I think) will be the ability to create new stories without the past getting in the way.  In that vein, with Carter offering to help teach Kendra, I think the series is off to a great start.  The common theme of veteran and rookie works well regardless of the genre and there is a lot territory to mine given the hawks rich history of villains. While the title states Hawkman, I get the feeling this book may very well focus on Kendra. 

For me one of the best parts was the small bit where Carter explains some of the properties of the nth metal in their wing harnesses.  I am not too comfortable with the idea of them having biological wings, but the idea of having detachable wings is also pretty hard to swallow (do they flap and if so how do you get a harness to flap).  Yet, this small little tidbit helped to solidify that the nth metal is a powerful magic or alien technology or whatever it might be.  And in that case (to borrow a phrase) I can really believe a man can fly.  With wings.

One question:  Why doesn’t DC just put the Hawks into New Orleans?  Why do they need to make up a fictional city.  I can understand why it was done back in the 40s, but why do it now?  I don’t know the answer, just thought I ask.-- MRB

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