Hawkman is the cold puddle of congealed cat sick on the rug of the superhero world.
Savage Hawkman was one of the worst titles in the New 52, his appearances in New 52 JLA were the diarrhoea frosting on a turd cake and Death of Hawkman, far from being pleasing for seeing the bastard killed off (not to mention disappointing as he’s clearly survived that “death”), was one of the crummiest books of 2017.
So I was surprised to see his latest fartacular outing was garnering some pretty decent praise – and a little wary. Really – could this really be an actually decent Hawkman comic? And I was right – it’s not – but it’s shockingly not without its merits.
Robert Venditti writes a surprisingly not-totally-hateable Hawkman – he’s, at best, an indifferently bland character – and Bryan Hitch’s art is fine; it’s nothing you won’t have seen before from him, if you’re familiar with his style, but it remains skilfully slick. I liked the unusually hairy (feathery?) T-Rex design – I think that syncs up to the current scientific view of what that creature actually resembled.
The story is that Hawkman/Carter Hall wants to figure out why he keeps reincarnating. Carter is basically a crap Indiana Jones but I liked the idea that he’s exploring his inner world rather than just the outer – that’s an interesting angle of approach. Or so I thought because Venditti just has Carter explore the outer world in this book instead! Hmm.
Hawkman’s rather nebulous quest has him meeting past and future selves through various gubbinz – his Ancient Egyptian persona, his Thanagarian self – which each time descends into a tedious punch-up. I guess it makes sense with his Ancient Egyptian self because that persona was told to look out for a winged demon through some prophecy and neither speak the other’s language, but the other times come off as contrived, generic superhero fluff.
And speaking of contrived, generic superhero fluff, Hawkman has a vision of the end of the world where giant winged monsters destroy Earth – and only he can stop them! Uh huh. Edge. Of. My. Sea… zzz… I mean, “Deathbringers” – is that really the best they could come up with? I was equally bored with Hawkman’s dull adventure with Ray Palmer, the Atom, as they fought tree and rock monsters. Maybe if I was ten years old this unimaginative and derivative nonsense might hold my attention but I’m well past that age now.
I really liked a lot of Venditti’s early work on Valiant’s XO Manowar so it’s a shame he’s not been able to be as successful with his DC output. Far from being the shock standout in the Hawkman canon, Awakening is simply another stinker from the ultimate superhero stinkbomb.
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