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Sunday, November 30, 2008

Hawkman (Vol.3) #15 - Dec. 1994

sgComics Weekend Aquaman teams-up with the Winged Wonder, Hawkman!

I thought since we had Aquaman guesting in The Flash yesterday, we'd continue with that theme today and talk about issue #15 of the third series of Hawkman, where the Sea King made another guest appearance.

I admit this right up front--once Tony Isabella's mid-80s Hawkman series ended, I sort of fell out of the habit of following the character, and once the whole Hawkworld thing started I had no idea who Hawkman was at any given point, and eventually I just totally gave up.

Which is too bad, since I always liked the Hawks, and enjoyed reading their solo stories. I liked the dynamic between Carter and Shayera (who contributed to my things for redheads, so thanks for that, Mrs. Hall) and the sci-fi elements inherent in the strip were fun.

So I have no idea who the Hawkman in this comic is...is it Carter Hall? Aquaman seems to know him (as we'll see in a moment), but he doesn't look, dress, or act like the Hawkman I know (can you help me out here, Luke?)

With that said, let's get into this issue and see what we make of it.

First off, it opens really, really, really grimly--with some guy who has a small boy chained up in some sort of dungeon. He has some sort of superpower, since his hand starts to glow, and--off-panel, thankfully--seems to reach into the crying kid's chest and pull out his heart! Holy crap, what the hell's going on here?

The guy sees that someone is swimming towards where he is--we can make out from the shape its Aquaman--and he leaves to greet him.

Meanwhile, in some sewer pipe is Hawkman:

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Hawkman escapes a bunch of automated death traps and follows the pipe all the way out into the Pacific Ocean. In the distance, he sees a small island, and figures that's where his prey is.

He gets attacked by a bunch of mechanical, electrified flying fish, but his handy mace (always Hawkman's coolest weapon, IMO) takes care of them. He's then grabbed by a giant mechanical sea-lobster, which was always the weapon of choice of Aquaman's old foe, The Scavenger.

He manages to smash it, too, and heads back for the island. Waiting for him there
:
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Hawkman tells Aquaman his friend Mort, formerly the Scavenger and now reformed, is a criminal. Aquaman insists he has indeed reformed, but Hawkman isn't interested in talking.

He flies off, but Aquaman grabs him, and they plunge into the ocean. Aquaman begins forcing Hawkman to the bottom, but he tosses a grenade which sends them both onto the beach:
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...the entire beach is Aquaman's weapon!

Hawkman manages to pin Aquaman long enough to tell him what he knows, courtesy of Oracle. Turns out an online pedophile ring is in operation, and Oracle discovered the name of one of the participants, who goes by the name "Barracuda.":

Via some investigating, Oracle learns that this Barracuda, who has been kidnapping kids, doing unspeakable things to them and then selling the tapes to others, is, in reality, the man who was formerly The Scavenger, a guy named Mort.

Later, Hawkman and Aquaman walk into Mort's chamber of horrors, and he doesn't even bother to deny what he's done. He reveals that, like how Hawkman is infused with the spirit of hawk, he is infused by the animal spirit of a barracuda, which gives him these extraordinary powers.

Aquaman, enraged, pins Mort to a wall with his harpoon, but Mort uses some sort of mental telepathy to knock Aquaman off his feet onto the ground. He then tries it on Hawkman, but:
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Hawkman finds a cache of video tapes in Mort's home, and smashes and burns them to a crisp.

He then picks up Aquaman and they head out:
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...the end.


Okay...I'm not sure how I feel about this story. I think, had I known that this was what it was about, I would not have decided to profile it at all. I had never read the issue before, so when I saw that Aquaman guest-starred in an issue of Hawkman, I picked it up on eBay.

But I have many misgivings about this story. First off, it takes a character that Aquaman (Vol.3) writer Shaun McLaughlin used in a sweet, upbeat way (in the final issue of the series) and completely upends it, turning from a reformed criminal looking for a new lease on life into a pedophile. Yikes. Probably a good thing destiny didn't lead me toward writing comic books, I don't know how I'd feel if someone took a character I made an effort to humanize and turned him into the worst kind of unspeakable monster.

Second, and this is just my feeling on this--I simply don't think any world that features a man that can shrink to sub-atomic size, a man that gets super powers when he gets possessed by a magical helmet, or a detective chimp should be a universe that also has pedophilia. Or rape, or incest, or any number of the myriad horrors that is part of what we call civilization.

I applaud writer William Messner-Loebs for trying to tackle an important real-life problem, but I feel like its never appropriate to mix these two worlds. The DCU ain't the real world, it never will be. (I felt the same way when I read Identity Crisis) And to me, the two don't mix well. The first page especially is so gruesome and horrifying that having electronic killer flying fish in the same book...

Plus, Aquaman is really kinda useless here. He's wrong about Mort, and even though he has amazing powers of mental telepathy, doesn't sense something amiss even though there's a dead boy in the next room. All he does is slow Hawkman down, then when he does come around, Mort takes him out and Hawkman gets to do all the fun revenge stuff (and destroy evidence, thanks for that, pal).

Although while I think the art in this issue (by Steve Lieber and Curt Schoultz) is very strong, overall
I didn't think this was one of Aquaman's finer moments. The whole thing left me feeling kinda uneasy.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Second, and this is just my feeling on this--I simply don't think any world that features a man that can shrink to sub-atomic size, a man that gets super powers when he gets possessed by a magical helmet, or a detective chimp should be a universe that also has pedophilia. Or rape, or incest, or any number of the myriad horrors that is part of what we call civilization."

My sentiments exactly, Rob. That is something that I believe very strongly. The world of comics should be a world better than our own, one which inspires, not horrifies. It should be infused with that wonder with which we once looked at the world, and adding in the worst of humanity's efforts runs counter to such a world.

This is a story I strongly dislike for all of the reasons you mentioned. I think it stands as an excellent example of the grim-for-gritty-sake stories that were the rage for a while. It highlights the fallacy that just because a story has sex or violence in it (especially twisted forms thereof) it is mature. True maturity is a product of narrative depth and strength of character, not such horrors as this.

Anonymous said...

Dittos, Rob. (On Identity Crisis, too.)

Laura gives this book a dismal rating on website too as I remember, for similar reasons.

Plaidstallions said...

I'm with you on that Rob, not the kind of thing I want to see in my comics. It's entirely too repulsive for my tastes and reeks of exploitation.

I hate Identity Crisis too. Doctor Light made some sort of Viagra joke in a recent book, I am done with DC.

rob! said...

i should be clear, its not that i think these kinds of topics don't belong in comics, or even superhero comics.

i think you can use superheroes to present dicey topics like this (Andrew Vachss wrote a novel about Batman fighting a pedophile ring that i thought was excellent), but i feel strongly that the mainstream DC universe--which this book is in--should steer clear of stuff like this.

i think if DC and/or Loebs had wanted to do a special series where Hawkman gets involved with a case like this, there'd be a way of separating it--via price-point and format--to aim it at older readers who knew what they were getting.

but i believe, and will always believe, that the average mainstream superhero comic from Marvel or DC should be appropriate for the average teen or pre-teen. and any book that opens with a crying child having his heart ripped out by a pedophile is really not that.

(to say nothing of taking a character one writer made pains to humanize and then doing a 180 like this. yuckety yuck yuck.)

Diabolu Frank said...

"i think if DC and/or Loebs had wanted to do a special series where Hawkman gets involved with a case like this, there'd be a way of separating it--via price-point and format--to aim it at older readers who knew what they were getting."

I was buying this series at the time, and had similar misgivings about the despicable turn from that nice Aquaman story. However, as I recall, the book was at a higher-than-average price point, and I don't believe it had newsstand distribution after the first few issues. I think DC made some money distributing that gold foil cover #1, then abandoned the series to the direct market. Given the level of violence in the series, though, it might as well have had a "Mature Readers" advisory.

Finally, William Messner-Loebs is a humanistic writer who never should have been involved with the '90s Hawkman, Wonder Woman or Thor reboots. The industry turned nasty, and Messner-Loebs tried to ride it out, which unfortunately led to misfires like this story.

Anonymous said...

I should clarify that I don't mean that comics, as an artform are incapable or inappropriate to handle topics like this, like Rob I mean that mainstream superhero worlds shouldn't.

Doug said...

Having spoken with Bill on this topic (among others for the Hawkman Companion), it wasn't as though Bill really wanted to make Hawkman hardcore and edgy. Rather, he was guided that way bythe market and by his editor.

At this time, DC had some young gun editors out to change the world. Or at least their vision of it.

Bill mentioned that quite frequently, the script he turned in was not the script that finally saw print.

TO answer your question, Rob, the Hawkman shown herein is the Hawkworld Katar Hol (in body, at least partially) after the Zero Hour "streamlining" of the Hawkman mythos. Carter had been absorbed by Katar, as had all incarnations of Hawkman during the great struggle with the Hawkgod.

At this point, Katar is living in Carter Hall's old Chicago-based Aerie and tracking down avatars. A fine story concept, muddled with too many cooks trying to write THEIR take on Hawkman.

Anonymous said...

The ONLY good thing about this story in my humble opinion is that Aquaman still had his classic orange and green suit even though he had a hook and a beard. That was a look that worked for me more than the "sling" type uniform he wore for the majority of Peter David's run. (Time-wise, that puts this story squarely in-between Aquaman nos 0 and 3, right?)

The Irredeemable Shag said...

I was thinking similarly to Russell in trying to place this story. If I recall, there was an extremely small window where Aquaman was still wearing the orange costume and had the harpoon. I want to say they squeezed the Zero Hour mini-series in this time period also. I'd have to go back and look, but I wonder if PAD left any time between issues to allow for these other appearances.

Just playing comics continuity dork over here. Sorry.

The Irredeemable Shag
http://onceuponageek.com