DCU Comic Book Reviews

HAWKGIRL #63

Gotham In Flames!

June 2007

Written by Walter Simonson

Pencils by Renato Arlem

Inks by Renato Arlem

Cover by Howard Chaykin

Synopsis

In Gotham City, Batman and Hawkgirl are at the museum trying to find any piece of information Kendra can gather on the canopic jar connected to Hath-Set that she found in St. Roch.  Elsewhere in Gotham, random people are being mind-controlled and sent to the museum.  When batman goes to investigate, he is swarmed by the mass of people and he becomes enslaved by the appearance of the Black Bird.  In the confusion and hysteria, a fire is started.  Hawkgirl smells smoke and goes to investigate.  When she realizes that Batman has been enslaved by Hath-Set, she breaks him free of the mind control in time to save the others.  Hawkgirl also realizes that Hath-Set is making sure she doesn’t find what she is looking for.  However, Batman is able to track down a file, which gives her the lead she needs.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

I will damn this book with faint praise by saying that this issue is about as good as most of the Hawkgirl issues written by Simonson.  In other words, there are some good bits here and there that shows Simonson has some interesting ideas about Hawkgirl and where he wants to take her as a character, but for whatever reason a lot of the material just falls flat on the page.  One could argue that this issue is a prime example of decompressions since the two biggest events (the mind control and the file leading her to Metropolis should not take 22 pages to explain to the reader.  And while I do not disagree with that feeling, I would argue that this issue should’ve been a good time to strengthen the Batman-Hawkgirl relationship, especially considering they are now teammates in the Justice League.  But that doesn’t really happen here.  Hell, it takes several pages just for Batman to appear on the same page as Hawkgirl.  The mind control of Batman and Hawkgirl were nice scenes, but I think it would’ve been nice to see them working together to save the people rather than just fast forwarding to the arrival of the fire department.  So as you can see, Simonson has some good ideas, but the execution just not seem to be there and it has become a recurrent theme for Hawkgirl.  If something doesn’t change soon, this title might just get canceled. 

I think it is a mistake to have Batman become the narrator in the Hawkgirl book.  It would work if Simonson were attempting to offer some insight from Batman’s point of view, but we don’t get that here.  I think that Simonson chose Batman simply for the scene where he was taken control by zombies and the narrative boxes were empty.  It actually is a fun little moment, but I don’t think it justifies taking the point of view character away from the title character.

 

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