Hawk and Dove #7

What a surprise! A guy with an eyepatch because drawing a symmetrical face with two eyes is too hard!

Before I start reading the comic, I'd like to point out that last issue, the art and writing were credited only to Rob Liefeld. He had a colorist and that was all. This issue, the cover once again simply says Rob Liefeld. But the title page says, "Pencils: Rob Liefeld with Marat Mychaels" and "Inks: Liefeld, Adelso Corona, and Jacob Bear." So this issue is far from just being done by Liefeld. I don't know why he has so much pull that he keeps the other artists that help out with the issue off the cover.

This is how Liefeld draws women in clothing. He draws a naked woman without nipples and then draws lines to show where the clothing goes. He also draws some weird shit going on in her midsection.

The weirdest part about this opening page is that the narration boxes are in the voice of an omniscient narrator. Or maybe the weirdest part is the look on the blue shirted guy's face. Or perhaps the weirdest part is the angry guy at the table between the guy's legs. No, no. The weirdest part is definitely that Dawn's open hand looks good! Now, the wrist looks a bit swollen or broken. But you can't have everything! At least not when Liefeld's drawing. Maybe you can have everything in other situations. Like ordering everything off the McDonald's value menu.

The angry guy in the background is, of course, Hank Hall. You know! Hawk! I didn't want to assume that it was him because I haven't seen him without his mask for quite awhile now. That's because faces are hard to draw when you leave the mask off, remember? And I didn't really recognize Dawn either except the narrator told me it was Dawn dancing like she dances every night. Which probably causes Hank to get into a fight every night!

Yeah, dude! Gross! She only fucks intangible guys!

After playtime, Hank punches out a mirror.

Hank drags Dawn out of the nightclub and tells her she's out of control. Man, you're really out of control when Hawk tells you you're out of control! Hank points out that Dawn has been acting wild because she's trying not to deal with her breakup from Deadman. Dawn's rebuttal is, "Nuh uh!" There might be more to it but I'm distracted by one constant thought: "How did Rob Liefeld become such a popular artist?"

Broken hand and weird butt to head to torso to legs ratio.

I was going to post a couple of other pictures from the same page but my cat walked across the comic as it was being scanned and screwed up the images. What a jerk! And I'm too lazy to do the same work twice!

Dawn and Hank don't fight for long before they make up and proclaim that they really care about each other and maybe they should go get some chicken and waffles and then...

"Hank! You big jerk! Ruining our moment by being harpooned!"

Hank and Dawn instantly transform by yelling, "Hawk!" and "Dove!" respectively. Which brings up a question! Does there need to be intent for them to transform? Or will Hank transform any time he says, "Hawk"? What if he says, "Do you guys want to go to the Omaha convention center?" Will that trigger a transformation? Or is it less about the word and more about just willing themselves to transform with the word being a kind of mantra or focal point?

One thing I have to praise Liefeld for is doing the omniscient narrator thing. I bet he's such a big shot in the office that nobody had the heart to tell him that DC isn't doing that anymore. The two editors on this book probably went straight to Dan DiDio and complained that Rob was doing that Omnishit again. And DiDio probably said, "Just leave Rob alone. He's making his deadlines. Don't rock the rock star's boat!" And now Rob gets to do whatever he wants!

The guy who harpooned Hawk is the guy from the cover! Who is he? Who knows! Just the Villain of the Month, I suppose. But he does know an awful lot about Hawk and Dove. He even knows that Dove has yet to fully recover from her battle with Condor and that Condor's poison is still in her. Dove was poisoned?

Dove gets bundled up in a net and Hawk attacks Hunter. Hunter acts smug and tells Hawk all about his clothing and that time he lost his eye to learn everything he needed about the Great Hunt! So he's a Batman type but with an eyepatch. I guess that makes him Deathstroke! During the fight, Hawk is slightly wounded.

Liefeld is cheating! He's just doing that to make Hawk's hand easier to draw!

Hunter also steals some of Dove's hair calling them feathers while referring to Hawk as an elephant and his finger as his tusks. He also keeps narrating his own fight and telling Hawk and Dove what they'll do and how he'll get away. And then he's kicked in the back of the head by a third party. The wild party! No, no. This party:

The wildly dysmorphic party!

This woman claims to be a Xyra, a follower of Hawk and a servant of Horus. The Hunter is a follower of D'yak, a group who oppose Hawk. Hawk and Dove have no idea what she's talking about. Between Condor and Swan and Xyra and Hunter, a shitload of people know a hell of a lot more about Hawk and Dove then they even know.

Dawn Granger is confused by all of this.

And Hank Hall looks like my friend Soy Rakelson (name still changed to protect his naivete).

Hawk and Dove go with this Xyra woman to a safe house to recuperate before Hunter returns with the totems needed to kill them. The totems he'll create from the pieces he stole from them. Hunter heads back to talk with some crazy priest who claims a prophecy states that "the Hawk will ultimately kill the Dove." Well, that's a stupid prophecy. And an extra stupid picture to end the issue.

I'm going to work out until I develop a giant muscle right in the crook of my elbow!

Even with assistants, the art in this issue was particularly bad from the cover with the boring blank bubbly background to a wide number of panels which seem half-finished. The backgrounds in half of the comic was that same bubbly greenish background as the cover. If Liefeld decided to draw a background, it was usually just a couple of lines to show some angles in the room or maybe a lightswitch on a bare wall.

Last issue, the art may not have been much better but at least the story was good. This issue contains just a lot of crazy new revelations that may or may not have anything to do with the stuff Condor revealed previously. I'm guessing it'll be different. I think Liefeld should have spent a few more pages on Hank and Dawn's relationship and cut out a few fight scenes. That may have made the issue a little bit better than mediocre. As it stands, it's just decent enough to not drop the rank it just gained. Hawk and Dove remains steady.