Review: The Savage Hawkman Vol. 1- Darkness Rising

Quick Summary

Pros: Almost every storyline in the book is exciting and engaging. The exploration of Hawkman as a character is wonderful and really piques the reader’s interest in reading more. The artwork looks beautiful and pairs well with the story.

Cons: The Morphicius storyline ends rather suddenly.

Overall: This is a solid beginning to a new DC Comics series. In it, readers will encounter a number of villains, who will ensure an adequate level of suspense and excitement is maintained until Hawkman is able to deal with them. Meanwhile, a look into who Hawkman is as a person and as a hero provides the book with a personal touch and is sure to get readers invested in the series. Overall, this is an optimistic beginning for a series that has a lot of potential.

Story

The Savage Hawkman Vol. 1: Darkness Rising, by Tony S. Daniel, was not really what I expected. Instead of getting the cruel and sadistic Hawkman that I expected to see, I was treated to a Hawkman burdened by his own powers and uncertain of his place as a hero. This leads to an interesting personal journey that has plenty of potential to play out in the future. However, he isn’t just struggling with personal drama the whole time, as there are three separate and engaging battles throughout the book as well. All of this comes together to create a wonderful start to a brand new Hawkman series.

(spoilers start here)

The first half of this book starts out with a focus on Carter Hall’s powers and role as a hero. The very beginning of the book sees him abandoning his wings in order to begin living a normal life, free from the pain and suffering inherent to heroism. However, the Nth Metal in his wings has other plans and fuses with his body, imbuing him with new powers and abilities. Both these new powers and this strange outlook on life are interesting and continue beyond the first half of the book and into the rest of the collection as well. This bit of exposition is the collection’s biggest positive and left me interested in to seeing how Carter will grow as the series progresses.

The first half of this book also sees Hawkman take on newly introduced villain, Morphicius. This alien menace is incredibly powerful and almost bests Hawkman at more than a few moments. Their fight is engaging and dramatic right up until the end, where it kind of falls apart. Hawkman beats Morphicius by basically throwing him in a freezer for a moment, after learning that cold is his Achilles’ Heel. The ending comes about so suddenly and with so little fanfare that I ended up feeling quite disappointed, especially considering the degree of set up this villain received. The ride to the end is still enjoyable but is marred by the final few pages.

The second half of the book is mostly focused on the reintroduction of longtime Hawkman villain, the Gentleman Ghost. Though not as initially entertaining as the first arc, this is still a good storyline with plenty of suspense and intrigue. My only complaint with this portion of the story is Hawkman’s out-of-character actions regarding his retrieval of the Mortis Orb. For the most part though, this is an average storyline that shows off Hawkman’s ability to be a hero.

The book’s final chapter is a brief showdown against villains stemming from Hawkman’s encounter with Morphicius. Though the focus appears to be on the fight itself, this portion of the book is mostly a return to Carter’s self exploration. Hints of Carter’s personal trauma and inner darkness are peppered through this chapter and build up anticipation for future storylines. This look into Carter’s character is the best part of the book as a whole and ends up being the best way to conclude the book and leave the reader wanting more.

(spoilers end here)

Art

Philip Tan’s soft pencils and inks paired with Sunny Gho’s light colors are not what I expected from a series with the word “savage” in the title. On its own, this art is striking and beautiful, but didn’t seem to really match the title of the book very well. However, after reading a bit of the story, I began to appreciate it more and more. This is not a book focused completely on bone-crunching battles and ridiculous fight sequences, though there are plenty of these as well. This is a book focused on the pain Carter Hall is going through in being the hero that he is. In this way, the artwork becomes a great reflection of the book’s main theme and helps elaborate on concepts introduced in the story. Plus, the entire work simply looks beautiful by itself and is definitely higher than average quality in regards to visuals.

Continuity

The Savage Hawkman Vol. 1: Darkness Rising starts the Savage Hawkman New 52 series. This means that this is the first volume in a brand new continuity, so there are not many references to previous books or specific character histories. This makes it a great starting point for new fans.

The story here is continued in The Savage Hawkman Vol. 2: Wanted (Review).

This volume also references one other comic book, detailed below:

• A hero named Static appears in this volume. Though nothing specific about his current adventures is referenced, readers interested in learning more about him can read Static Shock Vol. 1: Supercharged.