[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writer: Robert Venditti
Artists: Bryan Hitch, Andrew Currie, Daniel Henriques & Andy Owens
Colors: Jeremiah Skipper
Letters: Starkings & Comicraft
Summary
On a distant world, a statue of local hero Gold Hawk sits in the center of a crowd looking up at giant aliens that have visited their world. These giants look as if they are giant mecha Hawkmen. Before the crowd can determine who, these visitors are, the giant aliens destroy the cities of the planet.
Meanwhile, Hawkman has been teleported through time and space and now finds himself in the past on Thanagar. He is now being pursued by Katar Hol, his former self in a previous life.
Hawkman tries to reason with Katar Hol, but Hol believes Hawkman is the shape-changer Byth. Just as Hawkman seems to be getting through to Katar, Hawkman sees Shayera and Katar Hol is forced to make a quick decision.
Positives
What can I say? I love archeology, history and mythology so I like the Carter Hall Hawkman. But I have also always loved science fiction as well and that’s what defines the Katar Hol Hawkman. Ive always liked the idea of Thanagar and of Hawkman being part of a police force. So, this issue is really great for me because I get to see both Hawkmen meet each other.
It’s also great to see Shayera, or Hawkgirl. With the revelation that Hawkman is reborn, not only on Earth, but on other planets as well and across a much older timeline than first believed, it wasn’t clear if Hawkgirl did as well. Her backstory still hasn’t been tackled yet, but it is a safe assumption that her story is similar and with her appearing in this issue, we may very well find out more about her very soon.
Negatives
As is such with the entire series so far, it is difficult to find many negatives with this book. But knowing how violent Thanagar can be and how tough the Hawkmen are, Katar Hol became a little too trusting of Hawkman too quickly. He went from thinking Hawkman was an evil shape-shifter to willingly relinquish his artifact in such a short time it felt like a bit of a stretch. But to be fair, this progressed the story in a timely manner and with only one more issue left in the arc, it’s reasonable to understand why Venditti took this approach.
Another negative would be how little we got to see of this world. I’ve always been partial to the Katar Hol version of Hawkman and to see him actually interact with Carter Hall is really exciting. I would love to see an entire arc dedicated to the two of them somehow joining forces.
Verdict
It was great to see Katar Hol meet Carter Hall and the Deathbringers are becoming more and more intriguing. I look forward to seeing how that arc plays out. This issue moved the story forward, but if readers are just jumping on this title, reading this issue could confuse them. Especially considering how confusing the Hawkman mythos was previously to this title. But Venditti is cleaning up that mythos in a very compelling and exciting storyline, so I would suggest to any of those readers to definitely go back and read the first three issues.
