The Savage Hawkman #2

Hawkman #2 begins with the most confusing 8 page fight I've yet to read. That's almost half of the comic spent on Hawkman spouting 'I'm tougher than you' bravado while THOOOOM and BAM and BOOOM fill panels when something seems to hit something else. That means nearly half the comic book has just been wasted on learning the Black Oil creature can control the Nth Metal it sucked out of Carter Hall better than Carter Hall can control it. I think.



The page before this, Morphicius punched or blasted Hawkman into some cars. The next panel shows Hawkman's fist punching up through the ground. Because I guess after hitting the cars he was buried underground. After he pops up, he says, "If you're so tough, why are you hiding from me?"

Really? The thing just kicked your ass across the parking lot (they were just inside the page before). And now because you lost sight of it after being buried you assume it's hiding from you? Well, it wasn't because the page I posted above is what happens next.

Try to follow along. It drops down on Hawkman in panel one. In panel two, something blows up. Or has his back broken. In the third panel, Hawkman is now face to face with the thing that just dropped on his back and fucked him up pretty badly. He starts to narrate something about the thing kissing him and there is a sudden THOOOM. I don't know what happened. What happened? Did Hawkman get kissed? It looks like possibly something (Hawkman?) got knocked across the panel. But then in the last panel, there they are face to face again.

None of the other pages make any more sense. At one point, there is a a BA-DOOOM sound and Hawkman somehow comes to the conclusion that it was a failed teleportation by Morphicius.

I've read a lot of comics in my life and this may be the poorest layout for a fight scene ever. Yes, EVAR! And that's including whatever Darkseid did to the Justice League at the end of Issue #4.

When it's finally over, Morphicius leaves Hawkman in the wreckage still alive.


Totes.

Why don't these super hardcore villains start killing heroes already? This is making me think that Blood Rose isn't going to pull the trigger on Green Arrow next issue!

After the battle, things don't stop being confusing. We get introduced to Hogarth Kane and his Non Lethal Alternative Studies program. He receives a phone call from somebody informing him that the Black Oil or Morphicius is loose. This phone call must have come from one of Carter Hall's fellow alien archaeologists. So either the fat guy or the black guy or the woman guy is a big fat traitor!

That's not too confusing. But when the Vexaphon arrives to put a stop to the Xenusian, calling himself Waker and subduing him off-panel to bring him to Non Lethal Alternative Studies Headquarters only to be killed by Hogarth's assistant while Morphicius lies dying in the lab infected by the Nth Metal so that Hogarth can bring about the Extinction Virus, it gets a little muddled somewhere.


Even when he's simply transforming, I get lost! Who's the bastard?!

I can't imagine how anybody is supposed to remember any of this stuff month to month!