The Salvaged Hawkman #19

Yay! This is the last of these stupid double wide covers that don't fit on my scanner!

Blockbuster is tearing Hawkman's wing off on the cover. Since Carter Hall doesn't walk around with wings, I suppose they're grown by the Nth Metal. So I suspect this is only a temporary setback for Hawkman and he'll have two wings again in no time.

My favorite ever moment with Blockbuster was when he was killed in Legends. Unless that was a different guy and a different comic book series.

Last issue, Shadow Thief stormed off in a huffy shadow and Emma pouted off in an ultimatum. It was the worst day of Hawkman's life when it comes to dealing with women. But now he's ready for a new day to dawn on the day's dawn! He's got a gig with Justice League of America and people are beginning to respect him. Sure, he's still being written by Tom DeFalco but what can you do? Some day, I'll get over being a gigantic prick to these writers and I'll only say nice things. Maybe that day is today! Instead of being mean, I'm just going to take that one stupid person's advice: "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say shitty things instead." I think Jesus said that. I'm sorry I called Jesus stupid. But you never know! It's not like The Bible printed his IQ or his standardized test results or anything.

So, Tom DeFalco! Are you ready for me to read your comic book and only say nice things? Shocking, isn't it? Any time I want to be mean, I'll just say, "_______________!"

Man, I hope this entire commentary doesn't just end up being one long underscore.

Tom DeFalco opens the comic book with a simile.

"__________________!"

Hawkman is already battling Blockbuster when the comic book begins. And Blockbuster is apparently the most powerful fucking man in the universe ever because he crushes Hawkman's Nth Metal Mace with his bare hand! I had no idea Blockbuster had such amazing power levels! He's amazing! Too bad Hawkman is inextricably drawn to this battle like a sharpened knife to an exposed throat or else he'd be able to flee like a polished spoon from a terrified narwhal.

But then Tom DeFalco decides that this is too much action for the reader to handle right off the bat, so he takes us back in time 24 hours to find out how Hawkman pissed off Blockbuster. It probably has something to do with Catwoman since Blockbuster captured Catwoman at the end of Justice League of America #3. Unless it has something to do with Emma. Or Shadow Thief. Or Hawkman's mom. I'm just throwing out any old woman now! That's not as misogynistic as it sounds!

So before Hawkman got his Nth Metal crushed by Blockbuster, he was flying around Manhattan thinking, "No way in hell I'm joining that stupid ass Justice League of America with those knob flobbers Amanda Waller and Steve Trevor!" "Knob Flobber" is a Thanagarian insult meaning a person who flobs knobs.

"Or I have to wash my hair. Or volunteer at the animal shelter. Or get my wing ripped off by Blockbuster."

Who thinks "J.L. of A."? I know it's Justice League of America but everyone just thinks of it as the JLA! Who is this guy? Some kind of alien that doesn't know the standard convention for shortening The Justice League of America? I guess I should forgive him for that. I'm still not sure if it's Batman or The Batman!

Oh wait! It's The Goddamned Batman! Whew. I knew I knew that one!

The next morning, Carter and Emma take Emma's father to Rest Haven where they meet that other guy that was strapped down and costing medical science a lot of money. Tom DeFalco seems to think that people with Alzheimer's and other memory problems simply say "ahhh" after every three or four normal words. He probably learned that from his great research he's done on the disease. I hope they find a cure for Alzheimer's Disease soon. It's just so depressing to watch great minds descend into a constant state of inserting "ahhh" into every sentence. So sad.

Emma's father isn't too lost in his dementia to remember his doctor's name and to seek him out on his own while Emma and Carter remain outside with the other looney tunes patient.

Why does he throw the posable artist model into the trash? Is that a metaphor for tossing out all past medical knowledge in favor of bullshit and mumbo-jumbo?

Emma's father decides to stay overnight with the Nazi Dr. Phayne. Also there is an old covered well on Rest Haven's property that might become important later because it was drawn in the foreground of a long shot. Maybe that's just me being overly influence by Ringu.

After dumping off the old man at Rest Haven, Carter and Emma go home to Carter's apartment so he can thought bubble "JLA" correctly and then have a relationship talk with her. Dump her, Carter! Dump her now!

Or take a dump on her. Whatever. I'm not here to judge.

But before Carter can tell Emma that he chooses the half of the ultimatum that gives him his freedom, Emma's dad calls and interrupts. He may have Alzheimer's but he knows a screwy place when he checks himself into one and spends a number of hours there listening to the other patient scream his head off. While he's on the phone, he stumbles into Dr. Phayne's lab where he's treating Mark, the young man that says "ahhh" all of the time.

This is what happens when you let people with dementia have free reign to stumble around your hospital. Well, this and little cups of ketchup for dipping Doritos in stashed under all the beds.

Because they heard a "SKRASHH" and a "PWA-DA-QWOOOM" over the phone, Carter detects that something is wrong! He transforms into Hawkman and flies off to Rest Haven! Of course he has to take Emma with him. Again.

When Hawkman arrives at Rest Haven, he finds Professor Ziegler, Emma's dad, transformed into Blockbuster! Or a Blockbuster like-a-look, anyway. I guess it doesn't really matter. Apparently a lot of people can be Blockbuster! They just have to stumble into the right Alzheimer's Experimental Treatment Lab and smash everything in sight. That's because the experimental treatment used Steroids. And everybody knows that Steroids makes you super muscular if you shower in them. Perhaps lightning struck at the same time. That's a reasonable explanation for the transformation.

Except Mark is the one that really turned into Blockbuster! He's about ten times bigger than Emma's dad and Emma's dad has probably already forgotten that he was a raging lunatic monster and gone to lie down. But now Mark...ahhh...is attacking Hawkman who...ahhh...has been drawn to this...ahhh...battle like a frigid fork...ahhh...to an overheated casserole.

During the battle, Emma accidentally gets knocked out by her father and Hawkman gets one wing ripped off. Now he matches my Super Powers Hawkman Action Figure from the 80s which lost a wing when I drove The Batmobile off the back porch with Hawkman riding shotgun! I was just ahead of my time!

But then the real battle begins: Blockbuster versus Blockbuster!

How does the real Blockbuster fit in to all of this?

And then the covered well comes into play as Hawkman is tossed to the bottom of it! Score: Master Comic Book Reader: 1016. DC Comics: 24. And that's being charitable!

The Salvaged Hawkman #19 Rating: No change. "____________________________!"

The Savage Hawkman #17

I was wondering where DC was going to stick DeFalco after kicking him off of Superboy. This seems appropriate. What harm can he do here? I actually think he'll make it better!

Hey! Did you see that caption?! I think I actually sort of gave Tom DeFalco a compliment! I haven't liked anything he's done on Superboy (every issue is basically the same issue anyway) and his Legion Lost was horrible. But he did a middling job on his guest stint on Nightwing although he turned Batgirl into a raving lunatic. And I think a bad writer that can sometimes do a mediocre job is just what The Savage Hawkman needs!

Plus I hope it's funny! Why does Hawkman have to be all savage and angry all the time?

The first page is some nonsense about a bunch of thieves that don't understand gambling who blow themselves up. I'm sure it's tied into the Shadow Thief somehow. Like maybe he gave them the bomb to crack the safe knowing it would kill them and then he slips in and steals the money as a shadow. But it's the second page that really gets things moving! Because look at this! It's lighthearted with Emma's dad joking around with her!

Oh ha ha! He didn't even notice they were gone! What a joker!

And then Tom DeFalco makes me feel bad.

Fuck me! Way to kill the lighthearted aspect!

If the Professor has Alzheimer's, does that mean he has no idea why this hot woman is rubbing her tits all over him? Do you think he's pressing an erection against his daughter's thigh here? Not only does this disease rob a person of their humanity, it also has to embarrass the fuck out of them too? At least he's still mostly himself and wants to talk about evidence he's found that the Sumerians were actually an advanced civilization. Or more advanced. I have a feeling he means with alien technology and cosmic doohickeys.

But then it's Hawkman that begins to exhibit signs of mental degradation.

The inevitable mix-up between the Narration Box voice and the Thought Bubble voice!

Emma kicks Carter out so she can spend some time alone with her father. Also so she can spend some time away from Hawkman.

Meanwhile in the slums of Manhattan, The Shadow Thief is extracting information from some drunk nobody. I guess she wasn't involved in the heist gone wrong but she's trying to find out who was behind it. So maybe one of her family members or a love interest was killed in the explosion and she wants revenge. Revenge is a big theme in The Savage Hawkman!

The man behind the explosive was...Xerxes! Oh whew! I was hoping we hadn't seen the last of him!

Xerxes' men were all killed by Hawkman in Issue #10. Or maybe killed. It's hard to tell sometimes and Liefeld didn't name any of them. So Ironsides might be a new character or he might be Tic Tac Foe (trademark E!TACT!). I don't think he's Nipslip but I'd love for Nipslip to return as well!

Having been ditched by Emma, Carter wanders back to his old apartment. He finds everything has been repaired and his neighbor, the guy that looked like Ekuar from Elfquest but with a mohawk, has been holding his keys for him! The landlord assumed his lack of maintenance caused a gas leak which caused an explosion and he fixed the place up in the hopes that Carter wouldn't sue. So Tom DeFalco figured out a way to return the comic book to a place right around before Liefeld and Tieri shat all over it. Of course it was hard to differentiate their shit from Tony Daniels' shit. But if I were forced to make a choice, I'd probably do what DeFalco is doing here and try to move things back to where they were in Tony Daniels' run. This is no longer The Savage Hawkman! It's Tom DeFalco's The Salvaged Hawkman!

Next DeFalco spends a page on introducing the Shadow Thief.

Well that doesn't clear up anything! She must be tearing the shadow skin from her vagina in that final panel.

Hawkman's Nth metal now reacts to Thanagarian devices being activated within his vicinity. It changes him into Hawkman and a seemingly (somewhat) different personality. Perhaps DeFalco is going to try to make sense of the seventeen issues of sticky mess that came before this? I know this is issue #17! I can do math! There was a Zero Issue, remember!?

Hmm. This actually gives Issue #1 some context.

If Carter Hall's personality is affected by the change into Hawkman, he may have been trying to destroy the armor because he was afraid of what he was becoming. Perhaps when he first escaped to Earth, he took on a human persona to try to escape paying for his "crimes" on Thanagar. It's possible he even used some kind of technology to forget his real identity of Katar Hol. But the Nth metal was slowly drawing out his real identity every time he wore it, possibly making him angrier and angrier. Perhaps he killed someone the night before he tried to burn the suit! Desperate and afraid, he drove out to the forest, drunk and scared. He burned the suit hoping to be rid of the confusion it engendered in him. Instead he and the suit became one! Ever since then, his memories were beginning to come back. He began investigating the Nth metal to try and combine the disparate wisps of memory floating to the surface of his mind. While doing so, he must have dropped clues at libraries and research centers that were picked up on by mercenaries like Xerxes who were searching for the mysterious Nth metal. His encounter with Xerxes alerted even more people like Pike who was searching for him because of his crimes on Thanagar. And then when he encountered Shayera, his memories completely came back and he realized how he had been living a false life. It kind of falls apart after that when he lets Shayera go and then begins hunting her again. But maybe he didn't realize he had a bunch of questions he wanted to ask until after he sent her off into space. L'esprit de l'escalier, sort of. In a way.

Now that The Savage Hawkman makes sense, maybe it'll be entertaining! And if Tom DeFalco didn't mean for all the stuff in that last paragraph to be true, I'm giving it to him for free so that he can use it to make it all true, no questions asked!

The Nth metal leads Hawkman to the deal going bad between Xerxes and the gang leader. Shadow Thief is also there for an as yet unknown reason. But when Hawkman begins battling Ironsides, I learn his true identity!

Yes! It is Tic Tac Foe! See the X and O on his back?! I think the best Tic Tac Foe can hope for is a Cat's Game.

During the fight, Shadow Thief reveals that she fights extraterrestrial threats. While Hawkman was alone and flying to the fight, he also declared to himself that he has sworn to protect his adopted world from all threats terrestrial and galactic. So I think he and Shadow Thief are going to get along and hunt monsters and no-goodniks just like Amanda Waller reported to Steve Trevor in Justice League of America. Boom! Hawkman rebooted!

Because Xerxes primed one of the Thanagarian bombs, he tosses it amidst some others and escapes with Tic Tac Foe. Shadow Thief and Hawkman disappear into whatever Shadow Realm Shadow Thief utilizes to move about secretly as the gang member's yacht explodes.

The Savage Hawkman #17 Rating: +1 Ranking. This comic book still wasn't very good. But it's so much better than it was! And it actually reboots Hawkman logically where I can Fanboy Rationalize the rest of the series into fitting into this new version of Hawkman. Plus raising it one Rank isn't going to do anything because that raises it to Spot #51 with no comic book beneath it. That slot will be filled by Constantine this month and I really don't think it's going to debut at #52! So, enjoy a non #52 Ranking for as long as it lasts, Hawkman!

The Savage Hawkman #16

Everyone stand up and applaud! THE CONCLUSION!

In celebration of the end of one of the most poorly written and poorly put together plots I've read in my 25 years of reading comic books (and I read DC Challenge, dammit!), I am writing a poem in place of the usual commentary. Before you begin reading, please pour yourself a glass of wine, or fix a nice tumbler of scotch or pop open a forty. Relax. And even though I know you were expecting a lot of swearing and dick jokes, please enjoy this presentation of high brow literature.

Hawkman:Wanted:Conclusion
Part:The:First
Torture!

AAAHHHHH!
The Hawkman screams.
AAAHHHHH! AAAHHHHH!



As if flying overhead,
(as opposed to strapped into no-strap hovering holo-manacles)
it cries its cry of crying:
AAAHHHHH! AAAHHHHH!



Shayera's lips move
But the words disappear like seagulls diving into a foetid bay
Searching for sustenance but only finding
AAAHHHHH! AAAHHHHH!


Shut the fuck up, Hawkman! I'm trying to fucking recite poetry here!

Grim torture and death
Delivered by buzzed beach going teens
Simply looking to fornicate drunkenly.

"Why doth the Hawkman scream its scream?"
The inexplicably repentant Shayera asks
As she searches her mind for the appropriate cliché
Responses.

Expected turns of phrase which satisfy no one
Except Frank Tieri who cashes his paycheck for a job done.

It is now the screaming of the Hawkgirl
Filling the empty spaces within panels.
"How could you do this to me, Corsar?"
"How could you lie to me, Corsar?"
"How could you do this to your people, Corsar?"

The answer? Obvious.
(To the five loyal readers of The Savage Hawkman,
Who have seen the same plot played out over and over
As if Frank Tieri and Rob Liefeld knew the definition of
"Theme" or "Motif" or "Literary Device")
The answer screamed the scream of the half-hawkman, Corsar
amidst the screams already screamingly scrummed:

AAAHHHHH! AAAHHHHH! AAAHHHHH!
HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?
THE NTH METAL! THE NTH METAL! THE NTH METAL!



Screaming replaced by choking
Choking. Choking. Choking.
Great Ixthultu, the CHOKING!
Corsar chokes off Shayera's screams.
Hawkman chokes off Corsar's screams.
The great multi-armed beast
(from who fucking knows where)
Chokes off Hakwman's screams.

Comcast chokes off my poetry calling to scream about
Who knows what since I tell them,
"Fuck. Off. If I want something, I'll call you."
Did Walt Whitman have to deal with these kinds of distractions?
Or were his distractions merely of the half-naked young men at play on the beach variety?

Part:The:Second
THRAXAS!

great old ones!
gods of thanagar!
gods!
living among hawk-people!
or just long-lived ancient ancestors?

THRAXAS be he THRAXAS we see THRAXAS me pee

great old ones!
out of the machine!
to solve the problems!
of all hawk-kind!
his voice!
like screams!

but more rational and well thought out and in a cadence that is really quite lovely, actually.

great old ones!
hold answers!
"teleport the nth metal!
out of meek young one!
into other meek young one!
voila!"

Part:The:Third
Shayera!

"Excuse me but that sounds dangerous."

Part:The:Fourth
A Picture of a Flying Ship!



Part:The:Fifth
What happened to Deathstroke and Pike!

It doesn't matter!
Frank Tieri teaches us that life is messy.
Answers are the rarest thing in life.
Do not wonder if Deathstroke ever replaced
Pike's gum.
Turn your mind away from things you can't know,
Things you will never know,
Things that were not meant for you.

If you could survive this long not knowing what
Happened to Poison Ivy in Birds of Prey,
You can live with never knowing if Deathstroke
Ever found Pike again.

Part:The:Sixth
Birds Rule!

The war behind it all continues!
Thanagar versus Daemonite versus Czarnian!
Except the Czarnians are all dead.
So why hasn't someone told Emperor Corsar?
Or told Writer Frank Tieri?
Or told Editor Harvey Richards?


When did the moon gets its own fucking moon?

Corsar prepares his Flock to Nest upon the Earth!
Eagle in Tinasha! CHECK!
Hummingbird in Pakistan! CHECK!
Iron Dragon in Alaska! CHECK!
(Iron Dragon? Did Frank Tieri run out of birds after thinking up two?
At least it's still a flying, if fictional, animal.)
Magma on Heard Island. CHECK!
(That doesn't make any sense at all for the Flock theme)
Nigel in the Andes. CHECK!
(Oh for fuck's sake! You're not even trying now!)

The next plot is foreshadowed,
If The Savage Hawkman makes it past Issue #17.

Part:The:Seventh
Hawkgirl Saves The Day!

AHHHH!
AHHHHHH!
AHHHHHH!
AHHHHHHH!

BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!

RUUUUMBLE!

SPLOOSH!

CLICK!

Shayera--NO!

Shayera...
...no...

The Savage Hawkman #16 Rating: No change. It was a stupid ending to a stupid story that never should have taken place because the end of the issue before Hawkman:Wanted began, Hawkman had Pike and Xerxes and Hawkgirl captured. But he let them go and then immediately regretted letting them go because he began hunting Hawkgirl to get answers. So thanks for leaving this title in such a fucking mess, Liefeld! I'll blame you simply because DC kept putting your name on the cover and also why not?

And just because some of you might actually be curious as to how this mess ended, I'll explain Part:The:Seventh. The screaming was Hawkman and Corsar getting the Nth Metal transfer. The booms were because Shayera sabotaged the equipment. The rumble was because the Aerie was heading into the sun. The sploosh was one of Hawkgirl's bodyguards exploding. The click was Shayera shoving Hawkman and Emma into an escape pod. The rest was Hawkman's reaction to his greatest love that he only just remembered sacrificing herself to save him. And then the ship was seen falling into the sun even though the sun was super far away as seen in the panel I scanned with Corsar checking up on The Flock.