While I was intrigued by this series largely on the merits of Geoff Johns and Rags Morales and the character of Hawkman, I certainly wasn't put off by the co-writing by James Robinson, who created one of the more interesting super-hero series in the 90s, Starman. This issue of Hawkman, Robinson flies solo (no pun intended) with a "Past Lives" story that is reminiscent of his "Times Past" Starman tales but with some important differences. As always with Robinson, the narration is a little flowery and overwritten, but the characterization is solid. And the artwork is flat-out gorgeous, worth the price of the book all by itself.
It was made clear in the Hawkman Secret Files last week that Johns and Robinson are taking a fairly revisionist approach to Hawkman, having to ignore or delete copious amounts of continuity. They've had to rebuild the protagonist's backstory from the tattered remnants of about three huge continuity mishaps, and that has left them with a lot of blank spaces in the past. For Hawkman's identity, they've chosen to focus on the nature of his reincarnation, which gives them plenty of room to explore things like his past lives. This is the kind of thing Robinson excels at, and while it tends to set up continuity traps for future writers and may not be exactly what Hawkman readers are looking for, I'm excited by the possibilities.
The first of these "Past Lives" takes place in one of my favorite under-used comics genres, the wild west, and Robinson pulls out a couple of reasonably obscure DC characters and reinvents them, just as he often did with Starman. Mixing John Wayne flicks with Hepburn and Tracy films, Robinson tells a story of romance, justice and action that is a lot of fun. In a single issue, he sets up a believable chemistry between his two leads (helped along by their destined love, which is what makes this a Hawkman story at all) and tells a story that exists as its own entity but also points toward future developments in Hawkman's life. It is very close to the "Times Past" formula, and Robinson's love of the concepts of reincarnation and legacies both heroic and villainous seem to suit the book very well. Some may find the style a little repetitive, too much like shoe-horning Starman into Hawkman, but I think that given the focus the creators have taken on Hawkman's many lives, it's a clever tactic.
What really sold me on this issue, though, more than solid characterization and some interesting hints about the future of the title, was the artwork. I've been a fan of Rags Morales's work on this title already, and he does some of the most amazing action choreography in comics right now, as well as some of the most detailed characters and backgrounds to be found. Having Tim Truman ink the pencils was a stroke of genius, however, as it gives the work a look that absolutely fits the western genre. The clothes, the setting and the guns all look like they belong in a western, and the action sequences are so good they could be framed. I particularly enjoyed Cinnamon's first gunslinging appearance in the issue.
For Hawkman fans, this issue is something of a rest, an issue that mostly contains a little bit of foreshadowing about Hawkman's new home and his enemies. However, even those who aren't Hawkman fans but who enjoy a good western should pick up this issue, as Robinson, Morales, Truman and the rest serve up a classic western story in comic-book form.
