Reviews: Hawkman

HAWKMAN (DC, 1989; softcover)

Collects the Hawkman stories from The Brave and the Bold Nos. 34-36, 42-44 (cover dates March, 1961- November, 1962)

I love DC's Chronicles line of trade paperbacks. Aside from the stray issue of Batman as a small child, this is how I got started on Batman comic books. Then the Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman and Flash ones came out. I bought them all because I like to see how characters got their start, and they collect everything in chronological order by publication date. I ended up ditching the Green Lantern line for the Omnibus and the Wonder Woman line for the Archives (all gathering dust in my backlog, to be reviewed in 2012/2013). Along the way I wondered about DC's "other" iconic character, Hawkman. I thought that he was cool in the SuperFriends cartoon as a kid and was thinking that I would pick up a Chronicles trade paperback if they ever released one. One day I was out gallivanting around various comic book stores and stumbled across this old school trade, with Hawkman's earliest appearances and clocking in at 160 pages...just like a Chronicles trade! I was ecstatic.

The comparisons end there, though, because for starters this trade is a ripoff compared to my beloved Chronicles trades. While the paper is a nicer stock, the cover price on this book is $20, which is more than the current line (priced at $15-18). Even more appalling is the fact that they priced this book at the higher price over 20 years ago! Chronicles trades feature all of the covers in their correct place before each story, but not this book. DC has never had any rhyme or reason when it comes to cover placement in their trades. Some have them in the back of the book, some don't feature them at all. Here we get them 2 per page, 4 covers in all. The problem is that this book reprints 6 issues. The icing on the cake is that one of the 4 covers featured is to issue 45, which is not even reprinted in this book!

I love the faulty science and the charm of Silver Age comic books. DC was zany and borderline ridiculous during this era, especially when compared to their fledgling competitor, Marvel Comics. (Several issues in this book actually pre-date Fantastic Four #1, the start of the Marvel Age of Comics.) Gardner Fox writes this relaunch of his former Golden Age creation, and while I have the Golden Age Hawkman Archive, I have not read it yet. He really expands upon the character in a logical manner, first supplying Hawkman's origin and then the origin of his home planet Thanagar. Joe Kubert handles the artwork, and his artwork is serviceable for the era but is not really my cup of tea. He is sub-par when you compare him to the other heavyweights of this era, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby.

I had fun reading this but will not pursue either of the Hawkman Archives from this era for the usual reasons: Money, space, and time. I don't have enough of any of the above.