Death of Hawkman #2 Review and *SPOILERS*

War Torn

Written By: Marc Andreyko
Art By: Aaron Lopresti, Livesay, Blond, Josh Reed
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: November 2, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Rann got a little less nice looking in the previous issue to this series, when Sardath and Alanna witnessed two Thanagarians show up and pull a suicide bomber act, starting up what appears to be a whole new Rann/Thanagar war.  Now, I'm all about Hawkman and got excited as hell when starting this series last month, but damn did we get a whole lot of Adam Strange instead.  I guess, we need to build up to an actual story, especially one where Hawkman and Adam Strange team-up, I just hope that we start getting a little savage with this issue because I've been seriously Hawkman deprived.  Let's jump into to this issue and see what our two heroes will do to try and stop things before they escalate, but since we started out seeing them beat to hell in what already appears to be all out war, I don't know how well that will go.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Hawkman being savage as fuck against an enemy on Thanagar and by the complete verbal reaming that his police Captain gives him after the fact, it seems that this isn't a one time incident and Katar's days of being a peace keeper might be in jeopardy........... especially because he's too busy thinking about himself being a great hero on Earth and how here he's just a public servant with his hands tied behind his back with red tape.  So with his talking to, Katar huffs off to go get himself a drink.......... and some nighttime companionship.  

While Hawkman is possibly throwing his career down the toilet, Adam Strange is finding out what the hell went down on Rann while he was away and how Alanna's father Sardath died during the attack.  Yeah, Alanna is pissed beyond belief to the point where she doesn't want to hear anything out of Adam if it doesn't have to do with destroying Thanagar so when our hero finds out that someone was targeting specific points on Earth with the zeta-beam, like we saw in the previous issue, it leads Adam to believe that there's more here than meets the eye........... especially when someone impersonates him and zetas off into a distant part of the galaxy.  Adam doesn't become privy to the information, but we all get to see that Despero is this mysterious individual and from his monologues, it appears that he's not done with Rann or Thanagar.  

In the end, with Alanna wanting nothing but blood as retribution for the death of her father, Adam Strange tries to get to the bottom of what's actually going on and zeta beams himself to Katar's home to see if his old friend can be of assistance, but since Katar had just been busy....... getting busy, all Adam gets is an eye full of why Hawkman's so savage as this issue closes.

That's it for this issue of Death of Hawkman and while I was happy to get some Hawkman in this issue and a savage one at that........ it was just a little too savage, especially since that's all we really get of the character.  Just a grunting, brutal figure who doesn't seem to have any kind of characteristic beyond that..... Speaking of, Alanna, grief stricken or not came off pretty damn savage as well, placing Adam Strange as our only rational figure in this issue.  I'm still interested in this mini series, but I hope to get more out of the characters as the series progresses because while I don't mind Adam Strange, I'm just not here for him.  The art in this issue, like the last one was fantastic though and I love just looking at this book and seeing the bright vibrant colors.  This is certainly a mixed bag with how slow this story seems to be, especially since we're in the beginning of a war, but this is still an enjoyable issue that gets me excited for what's to come.

Bits and Pieces:

This issue of Death of Hawkman does deliver in giving us some Hawkman action, but the character we wound up with just seemed really one dimensional and lacked in any kind of characteristic that went beyond grunting and beating the shit out of people.  Yeah, that's the basic Hawkman, but I just expected more, but luckily I wasn't let down by the art because it remained excellent throughout and while I didn't quite get the character work that I was looking for, I did find myself enjoying this issue and look forward to the next.

7/10