Hawkman #20 Review

Call In The Cavalry

Written By: Robert Venditti

Art By: Fernando Pasarin, Oclair Albert, Danny Miki, Jeremy Cox, Starkings & Comicraft

Cover Price: $3.99

Release Date: January 8, 2020

Hawkman hasn't been himself lately since the Batman Who Laughs went and infected him and now it's up to Hawkwoman to stop her former love and hopefully bring him back to normal...... or at least beat the hell out of him until he stops saying that he's Sky Tyrant from Earth-3.  Either way, our infected story continues here as Sky Tyrant plans on using a journal from his previous lives to find a way to end as much life as possible and with that, continue his reincarnation cycle forever.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

As we saw at the end of the last issue, when Sky Tyrant fled from Hawkwoman to his spaceship it looked like he planned on unleashing some terrible threat that was tied to what to me felt like some mysterious "Black Journal", but we discover here....... or at least I did, that the Black Journal is just Carter Hall's journal of his past lives that we've seen in previous issues and it's with this journal that Sky Tyrant will then go and find a weapon that seems to have been created from a Rannian past life.  That's right folks, like we got in the first twelve issues of this series, it seems that we're back to a scavenger hunt story, only this time it's the evil Hawkman that will make the journey.......... I hate scavenger hunt stories.

That being said, there's a lot of catch up here for readers, where we hear again the Sky Tyrant's motivations about why he wants to kill everyone he can, but we also get to see how and when the Batman Who Laughs infected our Winged Warrior, I just wish we actually got to see the story that was presented here in the flashback because it just seems like Hawkman fighting crime in Midway City and that's something I desperately want to see from this book, but at least there's an explanation about the infection finally and why it took so long to affect our hero.  Also we continue to see how Hawkwoman plans on helping Carter out of his infected jam and that solution involves The Atom and Adam Strange so this team up seems really cool, especially for where we see The Atom at in this issue and this aspect to the story actually gets me pretty excited...... I just wish that we didn't meander so much and that everything didn't feel like a big mystery because I'd like to know what Sky Tyrant and Carter Hall of the mind are talking about when it comes to this so-called key and weapon that he's trying to get.  

All in all, the art in this issue is the best it's been in months and I love what Fernando Pasarin has brought to this book.  I just wish that the story was a bit clearer because Sky Tyrant is keeping his intentions pretty hush-hush..... you know, beyond just killing everyone and I hope that this scavenger hunt to get this weapon doesn't go on and on because we had enough of that at the beginning of this run and it never makes for an interesting read in my mind, not to mention that the continuous use of Carter's past lives are getting more ridiculous with each inclusion.  Hopefully with the addition of The Atom and Adam Strange to this story, they can stop this from happening and also lead to some pretty fun interactions.

Bits and Pieces:

While I love the art this issue, the story is seeming kind of weak to get us to the Sky Tyrant's plans.  Thankfully though, we do get some guest stars to this story that have me really interested and I'm happy that we finally have an answer to when and how Carter Hall was infected by the Batman Who Laughs, I just wish that it felt like more was accomplished with each issue because things always seem to be moving super slow each month.

6.3/10