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Sunday 17 September 2017

Death of Hawkman Review (Marc Andreyko, Aaron Lopresti)


At a time when DC looked at most of its line and said “Rebirth”, they looked at one character and one character only - Hawkman - and said “DEATH!”. And y’know what? This is why they’ve been selling gangbusters this past year-and-change, because DC suddenly know what the people want. The only Hawkman comic I was ever going to read would be one where they iced this motherfucker! 

Why the hate? Let me answer that with another question: did you ever read New 52 Savage Hawkman? First of all, if you didn’t, DON’T, and I’m sorry if, like me, you did and hope you got over the trauma of that nightmarish experience - it was most comics readers’ own private Vietnam! Especially if you ended up reading both volumes of that title, the second of which was even more dire, written by Rob “Let’s Put A Gun On That Sword!” Liefeld. 

But at least now we get closure - now we get to see the hairy-shouldered winged caveman mace aficionado, arguably the worst superhero DC has (and they have a raft of shit superheroes), eat it once and for all! 

Don’t do it. Really. Even to see Hawkman die. I mean, it’s appropriately bad because it’s a Hawkman book (could it have been anything else?) but still. It stiiiinks! 

Death of Hawkman is a crap buddy-cop movie starring Hawkman and Adam Strange. Who? Just some dude with a gun. Together they’ve gotta defeat Despero. Who? Just some demon-looking dude. Why? Nth metal. Throw in some Green Lanterns for no reason and you can wrap a bow on this turd! 

Probably because it’s the only memorable storyline featuring Hawkman, the Rann-Thanagar War is brought up again - they’re two neighbouring worlds who get along about as well as Jews and Muslims in the Middle East do! Writer Marc Andreyko attempts some kind of story about a conspiracy to reignite hostilities and Hawkman/Adam Strange gotta stop them but it’s never once interesting to read. 

Most of the book focuses on boring Adam Strange and his even more boring wife while Despero hams it up as the cackling villain. Snooze. But at least DC deliver on the title: Hawkman does die - HOORAY! Except there’s rumours Scott Snyder’s gonna bring him back. Fuck’s sake… we can’t ever have nice things, can we?! 

If you’re wondering whether a comic can kill you or not, give Death of Hawkman a shot; otherwise I’d say there’s never been a more ignorable comic ever published before than this one.

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