DC Comics
The Savage Hawkman #3
By Hervé St-Louis
November 27, 2011 - 17:29

DC Comics
Writer(s): Tony Salvador Daniel
Penciller(s): Philip Tan
Inker(s): Philip Tan
Colourist(s): Sunny Gho
Letterer(s): Travis Lanham
Cover Artist(s): Philip Tan
$2.99 US
Rating: T



hawkman003.jpg
Hawkman follows the trail of Morphicius and intends to stop him. But the captured alien villain escapes from his own attackers and preps for a fight against Hawkman. Will Hawkman succeed in defeating this villain?

Sometimes, I complain about comic book writers that use old stories over and over again instead of innovating and bringing new ideas to the table. But sometimes, a connection to the past or at least something less radical is needed. Hawkman as a series is in trouble and this will likely be my last issues unless DC Comics intervenes and changes the creative team. It’s too bad because I have always been a hardcore fan of Hawkman and I just can’t support this title.

It doesn’t make sense. The plot is dispersed all over the place and has no logic. I feel like I’ve read parts of it in previous issues, but I don’t know. Then, there is the transformation of Hawkman into a fake Wolverine with claws and nth metal inside his body. I have no affinity for this Carter Hall. I really don’t care about him. I’m not sure what he’s doing in this book either. Hawkman has been as a character through so much crap over the years that seeing this creative team destroy the character even more is painful to watch. Here was an opportunity to try something fresh and new with a character beloved by many. Instead, the weird direction this series is taking only promises one thing – that someone else will try to reboot Hawkman in a few years.

I don’t mind the lack of Shiera or the end of the emphasis on the reincarnation and the Egyptian and Thanagarian roots of the character. I don’t mind the new supporting characters. I don’t even mind the nth metal being within Hawkman’s body. But what I do mind is the nonsense happening with Morphicius. The creative team need to get over this storyline quickly and move on to something else or this title won’t survive another year.

I don’t like the Philip Tan’s work. It’s way to confusing. What exactly is happening on page eight? What is the woman doing to Morphicius? To say that Tan is a weak storyteller is an overstatement. He just can’t put a series of images in a sequence that makes sense for a reader to follow. I have no clue about what’s happening most of the time. And the text captions don’t help either. As for the colouring by Gho, the colours are nice, but he buries Tan’s work in dark tones and makes visual that are already hard to decipher impossible to comprehend.


Rating: 5/10

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