Hawkman #18 Review

Sky Tyrant's In Flight, Afternoon Affright

Written By: Robert Venditti

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

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: November 13, 2019

Moving forward with the Secret Six of the Batman Who Laugh's infection, we now see Carter Hall taking on some really interesting fashion choices......... which the infection somehow causes and the once high and mighty Hawkman will have to deal with the fact that for someone who usually is saving lives in order to complete his endless reincarnations, he now only wants to kill.  Let's jump into this issue and see if this brings about any rules or anything that makes sense with this whole infection nonsense or if it will continue on like the rest, where any goes and nobody really has any idea what they're writing about.  Let's check it out.

We start this issue out on Earth-3, which just seems to be the most popular place for writers right now, but at least this makes sense in that we're seeing one of Carter's previous lives, where he was Sky Tyrant.  In this flashback we see him killed by the good versions of some of his most iconic villains, which makes me sad that we've only really gotten Shadow Thief so far and it doesn't seem like we're going to get any normal superhero vs. super villain type stories any time soon.  

So anyway........ this infection doesn't make much sense to me.  The Batman Who Laughs must have infected Hawkman at some point and now that infection means that he's reverted back to a former life persona of the Sky Tyrant, who just wants to kill, while Carter Hall looks on as a figment of this monster's imagination, who struggles for control over his own body.  It really ends up feeling like the ghost of Peter Parker when Doc Ock originally took over Spider-Man's body in the Superior Spider-Man...... but enough of that Marvel nonsense.  So yeah, no rules to the infection, not much of a story to this issue beyond letting us know that Sky Tyrant is the Earth-3 version of Hawkman, which is kind of cool........ just not for this story.

All in all, while I haven't been minding Pat Olliffe's artwork since he came on this book, I think that this issue might be his worst because nothing really feels like it was finished being drawn or was slapped together last minute.  It just wasn't a great looking issue and that doesn't do anybody any favors since the story was really lackluster as well and doesn't really jive with the rest of the Infected stories going on right now........ (not that any of those really work well together either).  All in all, I love the idea of a Sky Tyrant, but I just wish we could have gotten him in a different way...... you know, one that makes sense and I really wish that this issue had more going on for it than just trying to get excitement from Earth-3 and having a really interesting cliffhanger.

Bits and Pieces:

While this issue might have a cliffhanger that will get Hawkman fans really into what's to come next, the rest was just kind of nothing.  The infected angle doesn't really play out all that well and doesn't make much sense and ultimately, we only really move about a block away from where our title character started this issue.  I wish Hawkman would start soaring again, but with stories and art like this, it seems like that's something that's not going to happen.

4.5/10