Welcome back to the Society Pages, a column that looks back at the ‘modern’ history of the Justice Society of America. The main thrust of this column is to look at “JSA” and “Justice Society of America,” two ongoing series, written for most of their runs by Geoff Johns.
Today, we close the book on “Hawkgirl” before taking a hiatus until the first Friday of June. Let’s go!
Written by Walter SimonsonCover by Simonson
Illustrated by Renato Arlem and Dennis Calero
Colored by Alex Bleyaert
Lettered by Rob LeighIn this volume, Hawkman and Hawkgirl search for Hath-Set, the Egyptian priest who, like them, has been reincarnated throughout time, always finding new ways to torment them. After centuries, can they destroy Hath-Set, thus breaking the curse and freeing them to be together?
The first of two stories in this final volume is a quasi-team up between Hawkgirl and the Female Furies. The Furies are drawn to Earth after a piece of Apokoliptan tech shows up on Earth, and they want to retrieve it. Coincidentally, the weapon is in St. Roch, and it latches onto Hawkgirl. It creates a giant, mecha Hawkgirl but, instead of killing her like it does most creatures it models itself on, it simply discards her when its done. The cover to #62 shows off this MecHawkgirl nicely:
The real downfall of these issues are the oversexualization of the female characters by Renato Arlem and the clunky dialogue from Walt Simonson. Simonson, when writing the Furies, makes them not just evil/cruel, but utterly bizarre. They come from Apokolips, where there are characters of quite literally all colors. Yet, when they encounter an African American, they say “is your blood black too?” I know that Simonson is attempting to show how evil they are, but it’s a thought that would likely never cross their minds for so many reasons.
Arlem’s artwork continues to be questionable in a few aspects, whether his bizarrely teethy characters or, more importantly, the weird sexualization of any woman in the story. When Hawkgirl is being taken over by the weapon, for no good reason, he includes a panel of her butt, just because?
If the point is to show her transformation, there’s no need for that. If the point is that he just likes drawing her butt, well, do that on your own time, dude.
After regaining her strength, Hawkgirl gets some temporary new wings, presumably left over from the Apokoliptan tech, but the issue ends with that time-honored Hawk tradition, finding all the feathers and resewing the wings.
The final arc of the series focuses on Kendra’s search for Hath-Set, and I’m honestly surprised it took so long for us to get a Hath-Set story in the backhalf of this title. The story begins with Kendra visiting the Gotham museum looking for an item that will aide her in her journey. She runs into Batman, and mentions casually that his friend Mole is a horny old man, and she’s sort of ok with it?
The first two issues of this story feature Batman, Superman, and Oracle, and while all three are used fairly well, it somewhat takes away from the tone of the series. As “Hawkman”/”Hawkgirl” has gone on, the book has established a real tone and cast of characters, and every time the story moves from St. Roch, it somewhat loses its mojo. But the change of scenery is important for the final two issues, as it really pushes the Hawk’s story someplace new.
A quick note before that, however, that Dennis Calero handles the pencils for #64, and does a fantastic job. Maybe it’s because Arlem’s work is so dark, but Calero’s storytelling just jumped off the page in a different and really satisfying way. I especially enjoyed the way he drew Superman in that issue.
The endgame for the series sees Kendra, joined by Carter, in taking on Hath-Set. The battle itself does a decent job establishing some drama, but there was really only two ways this story could’ve ended: with Hath-Set winning, and essentially ending the Hawk characters ‘forever,’ or with the Hawks defeating Hath-Set and giving a fresh coat of paint to the macro Hawks story. DC went with the latter, which puts in question their future reincarnations. Every few years, this change is teased, but with all the build up to this change, it mostly works.
Continued belowThe series ends with Carter and Kendra sort of re-stating their intentions, which boils down to “maybe we can fall in love naturally?” It’s not the world’s worst idea, but Simonson adds some clunky dialogue, stuff like Kendra saying that all women should be mysterious to men. Overall, the last arc didn’t seem too rushed, but it might’ve needed another half issue to really close the book on nearly 70 issues.
Overall, “Hawkgirl” managed to refine and refocus the “Hawkman” series in an interesting way, and didn’t feel so different that it was jarring for readers of the “Hawkman” book. If the art had been better, it would’ve been a more enjoyable final chapter, but alas, we got what we got.
As mentioned before, I’ll be taking off the rest of May, before returning on June 4 with the start of “Justice Society of America!”
