Hawk and Dove #8

Their final fate? Hawk bites off his tongue and Dove breaks her hip?

The comic begins with Hawk describing to the readers what 'Going on the Offensive' means. Either he thinks the term is so profound that nobody will get it or he thinks readers of comic books don't sit on their asses watching sports in the way that non-readers of comics do. Hawk is describing the term because last issue, he and Dove were 'put on the defensive' and almost died (not really). So now they're taking the fight to the guy who almost killed them, the Hunter! And Hawk feels the best way to go about this is to dive on a bunch of swords.

I guess when you have a healing factor, you get careless.

After this, Hawk explains what a lead blocker does. No, no. He explains what the concept of the lead blocker is! I think. Anyway, he's trying to say that he's blocking for Dove and taking out the defense with his amazing offensive push. Although it just looks like he's dancing on the head of his enemies.

I'm not sure where he got the swords.

Hawk acts pretty cocky because he's got his healing factor and he's an avatar of war and he's angry while his enemies are just a couple dozen ninjas. So nobody's surprised when this happens:

Liefeld draws an awful lot of teeth.

But apparently this kind of wound is nothing to Hawk, Avatar of War and College Football Player!

But Mr. Hawk? What's a fumble? What's a turnover? Or an end zone? Or a red zone?

Despite being stabbed, Hawk manages to distract all of the ninjas so that he can score a touchdown. I guess a touchdown means allowing Dove and Xyra to sneak in to the temple of D'yak elsewhere.

Dove and Xyra encounter the Hunter while searching for the High Priest of D'yak. Plus more ninjas. Xyra fights the ninjas while Dove claims she can take down Hunter since he doesn't have the element of surprise! I guess his popping up unannounced while they thought they were being stealthy doesn't qualify as surprise.

Dove takes down Hunter easily because this is the second time she's encountered him and by comic book logic, she must win this time. But after she defeats him, the High Priest of D'yak appears and blasts her with an impotent spell!

He's a dragon man! Surprise! He devours angels! And Avatars!

While Dove is battling this dragon man and having a really, really easy time of it, she finally calls for a sword from Hawk and he delivers the killing blow. The Dragon Priest is dead and Hawk and Dove have survived another battle.

If you are magnets for this stuff, maybe you should stop being Hawk and Dove. Save everyone a lot of trouble.

And so Hawk and Dove's series comes to an end. I like that Liefeld left them on a high note. After this fight, they talk a little bit about what they've been through recently. They feel like they've really been tested and have come out stronger on the other side. They're a true partnership now and they're ready to get on with the fight, whatever that may end up being. It took eight issues to get Hawk and Dove to where they need to be to star in their own monthly series! Too bad their monthly series has just ended! But it'll be nice that when Hawk and Dove show up again, all of this prologue is out of the way. They can just get on with the story and maybe reveal a bit here and there about the War Circle and Dove's place within it. A good ending for a mostly mediocre title which had a few shining moments.

But even though I call the title mediocre, some of the other series can learn a lot from the way Hawk and Dove was put together. The writing across most of the series was sub-par. Liefeld's use of cliches and bad analogies hampers what could be some much meatier and weightier moments. But within the bad writing, there is a spark and a life to this comic book that kept me interested. It was, overall, a fun read. Perhaps some of the fun was ridiculing Liefeld's art. But even after I've made fun of his art and his writing, I can still give him the credit he deserves for putting together probably the best short story of the 8 issue run in Issue #6 with Batman and Robin. So far in the New 52, stories with good subtext are fairly hard to come by. And lo and behold, Rob Liefeld hit one out of the park. Okay, so it was a fairly short field. But it was a good issue.

A summary of the series points out some of the weird things comic book writers do. I don't know what's intentionally being set up for far future story arcs and what is just forgotten or what plot points are intentionally left behind for new story ideas. In Hawk and Dove, we started out with a Science Terrorist. Hawk and Dove defeat some of his Monsters of Mass Destruction. After that, we meet Condor and Swan who are part of a large plot to destroy the Avatars of War in the War Circle. We learn there are multiple Avatars of War, there is a thing called the War Circle (which we never find out much about), and that Dove is somehow above even the Avatars in the War Circle. She seems to have the ability to defeat foes when she's sliced open. And then we see the Science Terrorist helps Condor to escape jail but then the Science Terrorist disappears from the story altogether. Perhaps he would have come back in later stories with his efforts to rebalance Washington. Or whatever.

After Swan and Condor are destroyed, we get one shot story about stopping the Necromancer. And then a story about some God, D'yak, and his followers who are against Hawk who is an embodiment of Horus. Or something. It's just more myth to place on top of the War Circle myth. Perhaps every member of the War Circle has an avatar with solid history like Hawk. So Hawk has all this Horus stuff that explains him. And Condor would have had a history as well as Osprey. We never get to see where much of this goes, of course, but it's all there for the next Hawk and Dove run. I'm sure we'll be seeing a 4 or 6 issue mini-series somewhere down the line.

Simply because I'm glad Hawk and Dove ended on such a high note instead of going the huge unfinished business cliffhanger route or the killing or maiming one path, I'll move it up one rank before retiring it. It will forever remain as Title #39 for the New 52 All-Time Comics and their ranks. Once the new comics come out in May, I'll just add six more slots and make it the top 58. And I'll keep that system for as long as it's manageable! I already foresee problems with it but I'll try it out anyway.

So long, tiny, badly drawn Hawk and Dove! Thanks for at least always being fun to write about!