Hawkman #16 Review

Shadow Hunt

Written By: Robert Venditti

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

Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: September 11, 2019

With the help of Richard Swift, The Shade, we're about to head into the Shadowlands with Hawkman to watch our Winged Warrior take on Shadow Thief, who not only has become super-charged with Lex Luthor's offer of a new shadow vest, but who has also stolen both The Shade and Hawkman's shadows.  Now, that might not feel like anything bigger than a Peter Pan problem, but with those shadows Carl Sands is able to know what our duo are doing and where they are at all times and Carter Hall once to put a stop to that nonsense once and for all....... not to mention give Shadow Thief a piece of his mind..... and his mace.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

For this issue of Hawkman we move onto the Shadowlands, which for the most part doesn't do much besides for show you that Carter's being affected by possibly not having his shadow or something deeper since he's regained most of his memories from his past life, which shows a more Savage Hawkman than we've seen in this book....... or at least the idea of one.  The thing that really sucks though is that at the beginning of this issue we see a past Carter Hall and a younger Shade teaming up for the first time against Gentleman Ghost, where our hero sees something more in The Shade than the once villain ever saw in himself and it's this part of the story that really shines in my mind, where we don't only have a great adventure for our hero, but also see him go above and beyond to offer Richard Swift a second chance at making something of himself beyond his villainous persona....... and I say that this really sucks because I just wanted more of that because everything about that little flashback was something I would have gladly taken over the progression of our story because of how much fun it seemed like it could have been.  

That being said, our progression in the Shadowlands is nothing to scoff at either, but it just didn't have the hopeful feel that I wanted after reading that flashback because what we got was a weakened Shade and a Hawkman that was just out for blood........ or shadow blood..... Carl Sands better protect himself.  The craziest part of this issue though is that we see Carter's mace acting weirder than usual in that it's doing more than just coming back to him when he calls for it and I'm wondering if we're ever going to get an explanation about any of this because while Carter seemed amazed when his mace first returned to him so many issues ago, there was never any real progression in learning about why it was acting the way it was and I'm left wondering if that's ever going to be explained as we move forward.

All in all, this story continues to be enjoyable, while slowly revealing snippets of what's to come.  Like I said though, I would have loved a full issue of Shade and Carter teaming up decades ago, but I'm happy with what we got, with  seeing the fear in Shadow Thief's face as Hawkman's aggression rose and he got closer to the villain.  Sadly, I'm still not on board with Pat Olliffe's art here.  I mean, it does it's job, but comes off a little too plain and undefined at times and just doesn't convey the action or the backgrounds as much as I would like.  

Bits and Pieces:

While the trip to the Shadowlands wasn't as exciting as I would have hoped, there's a great flashback this issue that got me excited, while we also saw something strange affecting our hero throughout this story that seems interesting.  I still want more from the art, but all in all Hawkman is still an enjoyable read.

7/10