Review: The Death of Hawkman

Quick Summary

Pros: The buddy cop relationship between Adam Strange and Hawkman is charming and fun to see. The story is good throughout and structured in a way that readers will never become bored or uninterested.

Cons: Mind control takes away some of the emotional edge the series could have had.

Overall: This is a great miniseries that hits all the right notes in just six issues of content. It has drama, action, and mystery, all packed up into a concise story. Above all, it stars two exceedingly interesting characters as they work on a mystery bigger than both of them. If you like buddy cop style mysteries or are a fan of either Hawkman or Adam Strange, this is the book for you.

Story

The Death of Hawkman is a rather unconventional story in terms of where it sits in the DC Universe. In addition to being generally unconnected to the rest of the DC main cast, it is also very different in terms of the story it tells. By this we mean that instead of this being a Brave and the Bold style superhero team up, this story is more akin to a buddy cop action movie. This makes it a nice separation from many superhero comics out there, while still being close enough to avoid leaving the genera completely. Overall this story is a fun adventure with a delightful cast that serves as a nice change of pace for long time comic book readers.

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This series starts out with a quick introduction to our protagonists and the plot. We learn that Adam Strange is a human who serves as a superhero when he visits the planet Rann and that Hawkman is an alien who works for the police force on Thanagar. Then we see the unravelling of a mystery, someone is tampering with events on Rann and causing Adam to be unable to teleport there. This tampering builds up to a full scale attack as two citizens of Thanagar bomb a laboratory on Rann. This mystery is the best part about the first half of the book, as it is slowly unraveled in a way that will keep readers very interested as they progress.

The terrorist attack spikes hostilities between the two planets. Adam’s wife Alanna leads her people in preparation for war, as she believes that the laboratory explosion killed her father. Adam is more suspicious and thus decides to investigate things further. He contacts his old friend Hawkman and the two start looking at matters outside of the law.

Eventually it is revealed that Despero is behind everything and that he is manipulating the planets of Rann and Thanagar into war so that he can gain access to the Nth metal mines. This is a great twist as it presents an interesting conclusion to the mystery behind the terrorist attacks and gives the heroes a tremendously powerful big bad to go up against. However, it also somewhat dims the emotions felt by some of our main characters. Adam and Alanna’s emotional struggle is reduced to a mind trick and the feelings of hostility between these two planets are greatly downplayed.

While the first half of the story was all mystery, the second half is all tactics and action. Our heroes make a full assault on Despero, who is now powered by the Nth metal itself. It seems they are fighting a losing battle until Hawkman sacrifices himself in order to kill Despero. This provides a quick resolution to the story, however it also leaves things on a cliffhanger. Despero is revealed to still be alive and Adam Strange is shown to be hurtling through some other dimension. It will be interesting to see how this story’s conclusion will affect the DC Universe going forward.

Besides the plot itself, one of the best aspects of this collection is the comradery between Adam Strange and Hawkman. The two balance each other out in a good cop/bad cop kind of way: where Hawkman is quick to violence and anger while Adam is more reserved and willing to compromise. This works out in both emotional and comical means. Overall it is something that helps this miniseries as a whole; personally I would love to see the two of them in more buddy cop style adventures like this in the future.

In addition, the story is structured spectacularly. The first half of the story is steeped in mystery, while the second half is filled with unbridled action. With a structure like this, one would assume the beginning of the story to be more relaxed and possibly boring, yet flash-forwards prevent this from being so. Readers are shown multiple flashes of Hawkman and Adam fighting enemies in the future in order to provide action and suspense in the story’s opening. This keeps readers constantly on their toes and prevents the story from going stale at any point.

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Art

Aaron Lopresti does the artwork throughout this miniseries. In general his artwork looks good and matched the tone of the series well. Characters and locations are all nice looking and have the detail one would expect. In particular, Lopresti is able to get really creative when it comes to depicting what Nth metal is capable of, as these scenes are some of the best looking in this book. Overall, the art in this series is slightly above average, it does not stand out as anything overwhelmingly special but does not have any notable flaws either.

Continuity

The Death of Hawkman is a miniseries generally unconnected to the rest of the DC Universe. Besides a few minor mentions to random storylines from earlier DC series, there is nothing that takes place directly leading into this book. Readers are free to enter this story with as much or as little knowledge of these characters as possible.

Adam Strange’s story continues from here directly into the crossover issue Adam Strange/Future Quest (Review).

This issue also references stories from other comic books, all of which are detailed below:

• Adam Strange’s involvement with the Justice League is mentioned a few times. He served on the Justice League Canada in the series Justice League United, this is collected in Justice League United Vol. 1: Justice League Canada.
• Hawkman’s Justice League involvement is also brought up. He joined the Justice League of America in Justice League of America Vol. 1: World’s Most Dangerous and become involved with the Justice League Canada in Justice League United Vol. 1: Justice League Canada.