DC Comics reviews for week of 10/5/16 – Superman #8, Batman #8

Death of Hawkman #1

While the title doesn’t sound promising for DC’s Winged Wonder, this six-issue miniseries gets off to a very encouraging start.

Despite the title, it’s actually Adam Strange who gets the bulk of the attention this issue. Strange is helping a badly wounded Hawkman through a battlefield. They have a brief respite from the conflict and writer Marc Andreyko has Strange reflect on his present situation.

If Hawkman doesn’t survive the miniseries, Andreyko makes a strong bid for being the best choice to headline an Adam Strange series. Strange has always been categorized more as a special guest star kind of hero. Entertaining for a brief Justice League team-up, but not capable of carrying his own title. Andreyko makes Strange more an avatar for readers; completely underwhelmed by his life and happy for the escape to the planet Raan.

All isn’t well at Raan though. A surprise attack looks to kickoff a war and the Zeta Beam fails to teleport him to his wife. It did appear at locations familiar to most DC readers leading to a fun Justice League cameo.

Aaron Lopresti is one of the more underrated artists in the DC stable. His layouts are consistently clean, he doesn’t skimp on detailed backdrops and his character expressions are solid. That’s complimented by Blond’s vibrant color choices. I only wish the cover didn’t tip the identity of the series’ likely villain.

This was a nice re-introduction to one of DC’s forgotten gems. It wasn’t stuffed with action, but solid character building. Plenty of time to go heavy on the action later.

Rating: 8 out of 10