DCU Comic Book Reviews

HAWKMAN #16

The Thanagarian, Part Two

August 2003

Written by Geoff Johns

Pencils by Rags Morales

Inks by Michael Bair

Cover by John Watson

Synopsis

Carter Hall (aka Hawkman) does not believe that Katar Hol (aka Hawkman) is alive.  Katar believes Shayera Thal (aka Hawkwoman) has abandoned him for the Carter and Kendra Saunders (aka Hawkgirl).  Shayera thinks Katar is possessed by the hawk avatar.  before he flies away, Katar blames Carter.  After he leaves, Kendra takes Katar’s mace to the police station to check for fingerprints.  At Stonechat Museum, Carter gives Shayera Katar’s old weapon and namesake:  the katar.  Shayera then goes to the zoo to meet with Buddy Baker (aka Animal Man) about the hawk avatar.  Meanwhile, Kendra returns to Stonechat to tell Carter that the prints came back negative; whoever it was, it was not Katar.  At the zoo, Buddy tells Sahyera that the only way to remove the avatar is to kill Katar, who arrives at that very moment, angry at Shayera.  All he wanted was a way home.  Shayera realizes that “Katar” is really the shape-shifting criminal, Byth.  

Review

“We were reincarnated, right.  Green Arrow.  Superman.  Half the damn Justice Society.  They’ve all died and come back.  What makes you think the Thanagarian couldn’t?”

One of the pet peeves I have regarding comics, well, regarding a lot of forms of entertainment be it television or film, but comics tends to annoy the most with this, is the use of physical fighting in the place of an actual conversation.  As you can quite imagine, the first several pages of the issue irritated me to no end.  Other than to up the action quota for the issue, there was no reason as far I could determine, why any of the Hawks should have been fighting.  What they should have been doing is sitting down at a nice restaurant, order a nice wine, and then discussing what had happened.  To resort to using fists was lame.  think about it:  Katar claims Shayera switched sides and then hits Carter.  Later, Katar claims it was all Carter’s fault.  So Carter hits him.  With his mace.  And when Shayera stops the fight, what does Katar do?  Run away.  Yeah, that makes sense.  I guess that is my biggest problem with this issue, is that it does not make much sense to me, which is compounded by delving into the hawks past, which is convoluted and messy without anyone actually attempting to make sense of it all.  There is one more part to the story and then maybe Johns can get away from the hawks history and try to make some new history, if you get my meaning. 

While I liked the idea of Kendra going to the police to get the prints off the mace, I have to wonder, what idiot leaves behind a weapon like that?  By the time I go to the end with the mace seemingly coming to life in Carter’s hands, I realized that it was probably dropped on purpose, but for a couple of pages I was shaking my head wondering how stupid this all seems. 

What the hell does the “peacock” line supposed to mean?-- MRB

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