Teen Titans Spotlight #8: Hawk

Whenever I wield a flamethrower, I like to do a bit of grappling with my enemy first.

I have a theory about Fox Mulder's "I want to believe" poster which I've probably already written about and which other people have probably already written about but which is on my mind because walking through Fred Meyer today while wearing my "I want to believe" t-shirt, a guy said, "Disclosure is coming!" And my response, which I didn't say aloud, was, "You don't understand this shirt's sentiment at all!" Sure, maybe the real poster was done by a person who loved the idea of flying saucers but was too logical and rational to ever believe in them. You know, the kind of person who doesn't simply pretend the things they desire actually exist without proper evidence. There's a subtle distinction in "I want to believe" and "I don't believe." "I don't believe" is inherent in "I want to believe." But "I want to believe" speaks volumes more about the person giving the statement. "I don't believe" is a statement in gray hues without any emotion while "I want to believe" is exploding in color and firmly planted in a sense of longing and sadness. It says the world would be a more interesting place if this thing were true but the desire for that more interesting world cannot hold greater weight than the lack of evidence for that world.

Anyway, Fox Mulder obviously believes in fucking aliens (fucking there is an intensifier and not a verb although I'm fairly sure, based on the show, he also believes in hybrid human-aliens so he must believe in alien fucking). He believes in vampires and werewolves and chupacabras and government conspiracies that, back in the 90s, aren't nearly as far-out as the kinds of things regular people believe in 2019. No, Fox Mulder doesn't "want to believe" in UFOs and such. He wants to believe in God. He has a burning need to believe in God. Because while he thinks for many years that his sister was abducted by aliens or the government, he knew she it was probable that she was dead. And since he didn't believe in the afterlife or ghosts or God, he needed to believe in these other wacky things that he seemed to find evidence for everywhere. But he wouldn't need the X-files at all if he simply could believe in God. He wants to believe so that he can know his sister is in peace. The main thing Mulder can't abide is the non-existence of his little sister.

In other words, The X-Files is all about Mulder's search for God. And it's about Scully's loss of faith over time. Eventually, these statements I'm making about the show don't pan out because later seasons fucked up everything with shows written by people who obviously didn't understand the characters! The X-Files should have ended with the episode where Mulder shot himself in the head. At that point, Scully had been dying of cancer for pretty much most of the season, getting sicker and sicker. And since Mulder and Scully represented the two halves of the human psyche (logical and emotional, male and female, science and faith), the emotional side (Mulder) began to spiral into greater depths of despair and fear as the logical side (Scully) was dying. And Mulder falling so far into despair that he eventually kills himself is just further proof of his needing to believe in something more. Of course he would want to believe in life after death as he puts the gun in his mouth but, even then, he almost certainly didn't.

And that's why I hate when I'm wearing my "I want to believe" shirt and some asshat on the street says, "So just believe!" Fuck you and your inability to get the subtlety, jackass!

Now let's read about The Racist! I mean The Strawman! I mean The Hawk!

And right out of the gate! First fucking panel! Christ, Hank Hall!

This comic book is from 1987 so even though I had a gut feeling that "zipperheads" was super racist, I still had to look it up to make sure. So now my Google search history contains a search for "zipperhead"! Man, I hope I don't get gunned down in a mass shooting over the next few days! Not like anybody will be able to log onto my laptop by guessing my new super racist password!

Visually, I don't like what this panel is implying!

How long did Hank Hall carry that stupid hang glider kit around with him before some editor huffed, "Just give him fucking flight powers already!"?

I love when a comic book introduces a sexy woman and then has the main character instantly refer to her as a "kid." Way to make me feel like a pedo, comic books! I mean, I expect to feel like a pedo when reading Deathstork. But not Teen Titans Spotlight On Colon!

Two soldiers begin following Hank and the Sexy Kid but Hank knows how to deal with them! First he calls them dinks which is weird because how does he know they're a committed couple with no children? And you'll never guess what he does second! Oh, you guessed. Yeah, he punches them in the face.

Ha! I bet Hank is feeling pretty dumb about his dink comment now!

The sexy kid's name is Lupe. She works for the Queen of the Hive whom Hank has traveled to South America to see. She was a huge fan of Hawk's sneaking panel last issue so she wanted a memorable walking away panel of her own.

You would think she's running away because of the violent man comment but really she's just headed to the Jeep. I have no idea why a couple Slendermen make an appearance.

I only included the second panel in the above image to show I wasn't lying like I totally hardly ever do. She really was just heading back to the car.

Hank and Lupe drive into the jungle to meet with Arachnid, the creature composed of billions of other insects. He's waiting to give them a ride on a gigantic tick that's also probably composed of other insects. If these insects have such great powers of transformation, why can't they take the form of a limousine or a helicopter or Heidi Klum? I'm not too impressed.

Arachnid and the giant tick take Hawk and Lupe deep into some jungle ruins to relax before meeting the Queen of the Hive. Relaxing means eating dinner topless and now I regret never having relaxed with anybody in high school. Although after eating, Hank is swarmed with bugs so thankfully that regret only lasted a few seconds. I knew it was a trap, Gabrielle Ruggero! Although now that I'm remembering Gabrielle, how likely would it have been to die from bug bites?! The regret is back!

Lupe drugs Hank so that when she reveals the big surprise (that she's the queen! Surprise!), he'll be too fucked up to remember that she's a kid when he puts his face in her pleasure region.

Hank's main concern isn't that Lupe might be a little young but that he might be sticking his dick in a vagina made from cockroaches. "No homo, dude!" is probably what Hank would say when he learned his cock touched a cockroach.

"She told me she was as ancient as the first life that crawled on Earth" is no excuse for statutory rape. Better play it safe and go jerk off in a bush, Hank!

Queen Lupe tells Hank her life's story which doesn't include any proof that she's older than sixteen. I thought she would be all, "I was born within the buzzing chaos of a hornet's nest!" But instead, she's all, "My whole village was slaughtered and I followed a butterfly to safety where it taught me how to spell and rub my genitals on the soft moss of the river rocks while thinking of someone like you."

Don't worry. She's probably nine hundred and sixty-two here.

The Queen of the Hive didn't just bring Hank Hall all this way to fuck him. She also needs his help defeating a white colonialist named Toxicator. I'm not sure what his power or his plans are but who cares? You don't call yourself Toxicator because you're looking to make the world a better place.

Hank asks Lupe her age one more time and she's all, "Older than you!" So that cinches it and they fuck all night. In the morning, Lupe is all, "Um, I don't mean to be rude but could you get the fuck out of my bed and go defeat the Toxicator already?!" I bet while she was fucking Hank, she was dreaming of a mossy rock by a waterfall. Seriously, Hank doesn't seem the type of guy to care about a woman's needs.

Hank wastes valuable time putting his PVC hang glider together before finally heading off to stop the men ruining the environment. It's not the kind of thing he usually cares about but he got some action out of it and now feels slightly obligated to give a shit. What a hero.

On his way to talk to the lead man behind the deforestation, the rest of the man's crew begins shooting at him. It's a good thing because now he knows he can be as rough as he wants! It would have looked bad if Hank just showed up and started punching a guy in the face without getting his side of things. Maybe the Queen of the Hive just doesn't want the white man discovering her nuclear testing facility!

Apparently nobody on the board of the Comics Code Authority could speak Mexican Spanish.

Just like any good Californian, I've always known the phrase "Chinga tu madre" to mean fuck your mother. I've also never put any thought to the phrase than that. Apparently, it's got a lot more subtlety and nuance that I've been ignorant about. And used in this context, where a guy just yells "Chinga!", I can see why maybe it wouldn't offend (especially to some East Coast editor who didn't grow up with the phrase "chinga tu madre" and was just working from an English-to-Spanish dictionary). Or maybe they just didn't care? I certainly don't! Or maybe the person who reviewed this issue let it go because they were working on The Flash and the memo in the background reads, "Buy The Flash by us guys!"

The Toxicator interrupts Hawk's interrogation of this guy who is probably just a secretary. He looks exactly like the rejected G.I. Joe action figure you'd expect him to look like. He and Hawk talk mercenary trade secrets for a bit until The Toxicator is reminded that he's getting paid a lot of money to protect this deforestation company. At that moment, he shoots Hank in the face with his super-soaker full of what I'm assuming are toxic chemicals.

One of the guard's speeches is translated with a note that it's translated from the Portuguese which is when I realize this is taking place in Brazil. Whoops! That also explains the "chinga" thing although in Portuguese, "chingar" means "to scold." So I don't know if it totally explains it! Sometimes when a guy crashes through my front window causing me to shit my pants, I yell, "Scold!"

I should have know they were in Brazil since the first panel says Hank is landing at an airfield in "Matto Grosso." But since it's spelled incorrectly, I can pretend that I thought it was just a made up place!

Hank's lungs are now full of something called u-cyclotron so he has to escape on the giant tick. To revive, he has to suckle at Lupe's breast. Man, I really wasn't paying enough attention to this comic book in 1987! I could have told Gabrielle that my lungs were full of u-cyclotron and there was only one remedy!

"So, uh ... cough cough ... Gabrielle. Um, I've got a weird ... cough cough ... request?" "Who the fuck are you, nerd?"

Oh yeah. That's totally how that would have went down. My regrets are many but not hitting on Gabrielle Ruggero definitely isn't one of them. You gotta remember your limits!

Hank comes up with a new plan after tripping balls off of Lupe's breast milk. He tells her to gather all the bees together and make sure they drink deeply of her titty juice. Then he has them sting all of the invaders so that they're out of their minds from the hallucinations. At that point, it's just a simple matter of telling them he's God and that they really need to change their ways. Being backwards Brazilian Catholics full of Portuguese and Native superstitions as opposed to logical white oppressors, they're all, "Chinga me! Chinga me, God! Tell me what I've done wrong my entire life and fix it!"

Boom! Problem solved and Hank Hall got laid to boot!

Teen Titans Spotlight #8: Hawk Rating: B+. It's a good thing the writer clarified that Lupe was older than sixteen. I mean, she didn't offer any valid proof or anything. She just said she was! But it's not like a sixteen year old would lie about her age just because she was thirsty for some big super hero dick, right?! Also, she's completely fictional so who fucking cares?! Anyway, it was a decent story that ended rather abruptly and super weirdly (even if I lied about the breast milk which was really just rare pollen used to make healing mead). How can you go wrong with a comic book that shows an ass, uses the slur "zipperhead," and swears in another language?! I bet Comicsgaters hold this comic book up as a triumph of what the medium can produce!