Hawkman #15 Review

The Shadow Thief Is Getting Really Literal

Written By: Robert Venditti

Art By: Pat Olliffe, Tom Palmer, Jeremiah Skipper, Starkings & Comicraft

Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: August 14, 2019

If you remember last issue and I hope you do, you'll remember that the Shadow Thief all powered up after taking Lex Luthor's offer went and stole Hawkman's shadow.  Yeah, I don't know what that means, but it didn't look pleasant..... almost like Shadow Thief was stealing his soul away, but now it's up to Carter to get it back and to do that he's going to an old friend for help.  Let's jump into this issue and see what The Shade will do to help out our Winged Warrior.  Let's check it out.

I just want to start out by saying that Carter went and flew from Kenya to Opal City straight through to get to The Shade for help.  That's some damn endurance right there.  Now, I don't know how long he was out cold when he finally reached The Shade and passed out from exhaustion, but for some reason the idea of Hawkman flying for four days straight over the Atlantic just kind of blew my mind.  Beyond my own sense of wonder though, we see our hero going to Richard Swift for help to take down the Shadow Thief because now that he's all powered up and has already beaten Hawkman once, he seems to be on a crime-spree, where he's only stealing ancient artifacts as a way to rub it into Carter's face and who better to get for help than the master of shadows himself.  

The best and worst part of this book is when The Shade realizes that Carter's shadow is missing and while I love this reaction and how it pushes this issue forward, I was pissed the entire time that Carter didn't immediately bring this point up because out of everything that happened between Shadow Thief and him last issue, the idea that he had his shadow stolen by the villain came off as the most significant in my mind.  Like I said though, this realization pushes this issue forward to a really cool place, which ultimately gets The Shade fully committed to Carter's cause of taking Shadow Thief down and I can't wait to see what happens next now that these two are together.

All in all, I really enjoyed this story and love that Venditti is using Carter's history as a way for him to know a ton of people to go to throughout these stories and how perfect it seems to have The Shade show up here.  This is just the fun I've been looking forward to in this series because while the twelve issue origin of Hawkman was fine at times, I was really just waiting to get to the superhero aspect of the character and get him involved in the rest of the DCU, while also having him pitted against his rogues gallery.  I have that now and I'm enjoying so far and while the art has changed from that first year of storytelling it's still really decent, but my biggest problem from it here is how the Hawkman harness makes Carter's clothes appear or disappear....... It's just odd.  This is a fun issue overall and I can't wait to see what happens going forward.

Bits and Pieces:

We get a really cool guest star this issue to help our Winged Warrior take down the Shadow Thief, but it seems that our hero may have bit off more than he can chew now that Lex Luthor has powered up the once second rate villain.  The art is decent here and this team-up we get is really interesting and I can't wait to see where it will lead next issue.  

7.8/10