DCU Comic Book Reviews

HAWKGIRL #56

We Who Are About To Die...

November 2006

Written by Walter Simonson

Pencils by Howard Chaykin

Inks by Howard Chaykin

Cover by Howard Chaykin

Synopsis

At the St. Roch museum, Hawkgirl decides to investigate the basement, which is the location of one of her first nightmares.  Meanwhile, outside the museum, Khimaera continues her march to find and kill Hawkgirl.  Not far behind her is Roderic Christopher.  Elsewhere, the police realize they have been led astray by Khimaera.  Lieutenant Doucette tells his squad to get over the museum.  In the basement, Khimaera has caught up to Hawkgirl.  In the middle of the fight, Roderic shows up with a gun.  However, suddenly the walls to the basement open up to reveal the Maw, Khimaera’s master.  The Maw wants Kendra who is a double spirit, infused by the Egyptian princess.  The Maw also recognizes that Roderic (infused with the life of Hath-Set) is a double spirit and demands Khimaera send him into the Maw.  As Khimaera and Roderic fight, Hawkgirl pushes both of them into the Maw, who takes them and then goes after Hawkgirl.  With the help of Lieutenant Doucette, they are able to destroy it. Later, Kendra and Doucette visits Lieutenant Andrew Grubbs aunt to give her the news of her nephew’s death.  She tells Hawkgirl to make Andy proud. 

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

Sometimes when a storyline ends, there is a sense of relief.  All of the bottled up moments and dangers and cliffhangers finally get resolved as the bad guy gets caught and the good guy saves the day.  That is when it is good.  Sometimes when a storyline ends, there is a different sense of relief.  All of the bad moments, ugly characterizations, and stupid twists finally get finished as we hope and pray the next story or the next artist will provide something better.  That is when it is bad.  And then there is this storyline within the pages of Hawkgirl.  At the end, there was no sense of relief, either good or bad.  Just a sense that this is the end of the story for this month and next month will be another beginning.  Frankly, since the One Year Later switch, this book has neither been truly good not has it been truly bad.  Some may argue that it is bad and certainly I will be one of the first to say that the art does the story no favors and the story does not really help the art.  But I think that is really the problem.  Comic books are the marriage between words and pictures and for whatever reason there is a disconnect; and the end result is that the entire book is lackluster, failing to really engage either happy feelings or pissed off feelings.  It is there.  Apathy in telling a story is bad.  It means the artist is not connecting to the reader and as such there is no incentive to continue to read.  I would not be at all surprised if Hawkgirl has slowly been losing readers.

The most interesting aspect of this story and somewhat of an afterthought almost is that Hath-Set has been killed.  According to the Hawks mythos, it is Hath-Set who is destined to kill the Hawks in each lifetime.  Since the beginning of this series, Roderic has been not only the main antagonist but also the spirit of Hath-Set.  Does this mean that someone new will become Hath-Set or will this part of the Hawks mythos disappear?  Normally I could hazard a guess, but as I said, the death of Roderic (and indeed his inclusion in the story at all) seems like an afterthought, that I am not sure which direction the book is going to go.  This could get interesting.

 

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