If only Carter wasn’t so dense sometimes.
Creative Staff:
Story: Robert Venditti
Art: Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie
Colors: Alex Sinclair, Jeremiah Shipper
Letterer: Starkings & Comicraft
What They Say:
It’s Hawkman vs. Hall in the brawl for all of Thanagar! Having just teleported across the galaxy, Earthman Carter Hall squares off against Thanagarian space cop Katar Hol in an all-Hawkman slugfest. Katar provides the next piece of the puzzle in Carter’s quest to unlock the secrets of his own past—an alien artifact that immediately zooms him back to Earth. While puzzling out the space doohickey’s purpose, Carter finds himself whisked away once again, only to come face to face with an old Justice League teammate.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With the way Hawkman has been utilized since his creation oh so many decades ago and having read so many books with him in it, it’s never going to make sense. My mind is always going to try and make these connections, remember things from other books, and so forth. Robert Venditti is, however, having a blast in trying to bridge some of this to tell a cohesive story and I’m loving every minute of it. With Hitch and Currie on the artwork, the team has a great installment here that focuses on Thanagar and some of the bigger threats that are incoming, making this a very appealing installment. The Thanagarian version has always been my favorite, what with some great prestige releases previously, and getting to touch on that even a little bit here is a delight.
Carter’s arrival in Thanagar is one that has quickly lead to a fight and chase as Katar simply views him as a newly arrived threat and his cop instincts kick in. Visually, it’s a great sequence as they race all over before moving further up to expose us to more of what Thanagar is like at this time, which is definitely intriguing across the board. But it’s this miscalculation that gets Carter as his memories are now reinforced by the reality in front of him and he had forgotten just how beautiful it all was. So having Katar crash right into him and begin a good downward thrash through traffic, Fifth Element style, is perfect. The two men definitely know how to tangle and having Carter in the position of not being able to really fight all out because he understands the rules of time travel is priceless.
Thankfully, the two actually get some time to talk once Carter makes it clear to Katar that he’s not Byth, someone who disguised himself as Katar ages ago. It’s amusing to go through some of Katar’s childhood as they do here but it’s the in that lets Katar realize that Carter may be on the up and up, and that his visions of the Deathbrings may mean more than he realized. The cold open to the book gave us a flash of that event happening elsewhere with people dying and that’s starting to firm up the larger implications of everything going on. It’s a delight to watch as the two do hash things out, but it all goes south when Shayera arrives – poor Carter – and it’s not long before he’s back on Earth and grappling with all that he’s learned while healing. Setting us up for the next adventure in the microverse is certainly going to be a plus as that area is always a lot of fun to play with.
In Summary:
Hawkman continues to be excellent. While it is playing somewhat episodic at the moment with the story as it revisits various areas, they’re great touching stones on the range of what the property has been through over the decades and is a fun way to kind of connect it all. Venditti is definitely having fun here because it doesn’t limit what he gets to write while the art team isn’t working on just the same settings issue after issue. Making sure you get the other uniforms right may be a task but it’s one that just makes the book all the more enjoyable. This is a lot of fun and has me wanting to pull out my old Katar books.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: DC Comics via DC Universe
Release Date: September 12th, 2018
MSRP: $3.99
