Steve Ditko created Hawk and Dove at the turn of an age. This marked a transition not just from the brighter and fantasy-based silver age to the darker and more-politicised bronze age, but also in the general current affairs of the United States. 1968 will forever be regarded as a year of infamy – a year of division in which politics was infested by Vietnam, civil unrest, the decay of trust in politicians, assassinations, and a divisive presidential election which unleashed a generation of conservatism on America for the following quarter-of-a-century. That divide – with terrible casualties not just in South-East Asia, but also on American soil with the deaths of Martin Luthor King Jr and Robert F. Kennedy – was never resolved, and in some respects the country remains split over the issues the USA was faced with it in that consequential year. The hot topic of the year, Vietnam, was an issue that was difficult to be indifferent towards, and it led to hundreds of student protests across the nation, with many against the conflict met with violent opposition by those who backed the war. Hawk and Dove was created based on that divide within student communities on university campuses – with the corny superheroic names of these two brothers signifying two differing stances on foreign affairs. Hank Hall – the older brother – was a patriotic and brash hawk, unquestionably pro-war. Meanwhile, Don Hall – the youngest – was a cautious, almost-wimpy, dove, and one who would never stray from idealism and peace. This was no doubt a familiar concept to many Americans during the late-1960s, and while Steve Ditko delivered three tales of the Hawk and Dove well enough – despite clearly being in the Hawk camp of the debate rather than taking a more proper impartial view – it didn’t seem to be a long-lasting concept that would hook readers permanently.
When I reviewed Ditko’s three issues (published in Showcase 75, and then Hawk and Dove (vol 1) 1-2) two years ago, I described the concept as “gimmicky”. Perhaps that is too strong a word, but it’s true enough to suggest that the idea ran out of steam quickly. With that considered, how could a revised and updated Hawk and Dove series perform well in the late-1980s, an era whereby the United States was more sure of itself due to the confidence of Reagan, the escape from stagflation, and the slow oncoming victory in the Cold War against a Soviet Union crumbling and seeing the light of liberal democracy? Could Hawk and Dove still work?
Hawk and Dove (vol 2) 1-5 was published from October 1988 to February 1989. Written by Karl and Barbara Kesel, the miniseries unleashed – for good or ill – Rob Liefeld into mainstream comic book art, with Karl Kesel inking the then-novice penciller. It is perhaps thanks to Liefeld that this miniseries hasn’t been completely forgotten – but I feel there is more to it than simply how the penciller is and the quality of his work. This miniseries was reprinted in Hawk and Dove: Ghosts and Demons, a name which doesn’t really link much to the plot…
By 1988, Steve Ditko had left the mainstream of comic books; meanwhile Steve Skeates had left the creative arts altogether to take up bartending. So, who was to bring back Hawk and Dove? The answer seemed to lay with the Kesels – Karl, usually an inker, and Barbara, a DC editor who had written several back-ups and specials. Together, they launched the five-issue miniseries of Hawk and Dove (vol 2) with artist Rob Liefeld – himself only in his early-20s when, after pencilling some samples and a few one-off stories, was offered this miniseries. So, with some fresh and newish talent, Hawk and Dove (vol 2) 1 begins loudly with a villain. On the hunt for Hawk, a brutish foe named Kestrel murders an innocent on his bloody quest for the hard-headed hero. As opening pages go, it certainly creates a strong impression and serves as a good hook, even if the art instantly may not be to everyone’s taste – more on that later. The first issue sets the scene of Hank Hall’s life – still Hawk and still as dramatic as ever, this hero is a reckless one who the law somehow has enough patience with. His brashness and arrogant attitude can, at first, be an area of entertainment, but it becomes dull after a while. We witness Hank’s life as a student and his failure at finding success in joining the university sports teams, along with his awkwardness with women, and his predictably boring friendships with fellow students. The Kesels create a world for Hank which is laced with failure and a wish to do better, but it’s delivered with such dryness due mostly due to dialogue delivered in granite-like paragraphs. When there is too much dialogue full of nothing interesting or terrible attempts to create a personality or relationship between characters, then it really bogs down a story – right from the beginning, this is a major problem for Hawk and Dove (vol 2). The Kesels fail to create a decent cast of characters because they are dull personalities, with the men obsessed by only sport and dating, and women only cracking jokes at Hank’s expense. The humour just fails to be funny because the scripting lacks much punchiness or colour to electrify it. And disregarding the dialogue, although it’s impossible to do, the contents of Hank’s life focused on here are incorrect. Surely, the spotlight should be on his grief. In the final issues of Crisis on Infinite Earths – that 12-issue miniseries which radically transformed the Multiverse and the lives of those within it – Dove died. With Don Hall dead, Hawk lacks a brother and there is clearly a lot of grief there. Sadly, the story barely scratches the surface of this emotion, and it would have added so much more to Hank Hall’s character if that had been explored. With Don gone, Hank’s life is a misery – until a shock lands when, one night, Hawk is fighting crime only to find a new Dove on the street…
With a new miniseries and a dead Dove, a new sidekick was always expected, but this incarnation is very different from Don Hall’s version. Not only is Dove a woman, but she is a fighter, and a good one at that. During Ditko and Skeates’s run, Dove rarely took part in any physical battles and always calmly berated his brother for using his fits too much. With Hawk and Dove (vol 2) 2, Hawk meets his new partner and he's not happy an inch. Hawk is furious that a stranger has stolen the heroic identity of his brother, but Dove easily outsmarts him and escapes. This would have been a perfect opportunity for Hawk’s inner-grief to be explored, but it is another missed opportunity. Throughout, the Kesels write Hawk to be far from intelligent, almost stupid beyond believability. While it may be an attempt to add humour, it doesn’t really ingratiate the protagonist with the readers. The mystery of Dove and who she really is stands as the big mystery of the story, and throughout it’s teased that Hank’s boring friends may be this new hero. Either way, this part of the plot doesn’t become truly interesting until the last issue. What stands out before then is the story’s villain.
In the run-up to Hawk and Dove (vol 2) 3, Kestrel’s attempts to win the attention of Hawk succeed – without thinking, the villain kills 70 people in a restaurant. Before long, he kidnaps Hank Hill and discovers the true identity of Hawk. This leads, perhaps predictably, to much of the rest of the miniseries being a collection of fight scenes. Kestrel proves to be a match for Hawk, and then Dove arrives to put an end to round one. Requiring more strength to beat Hawk, Kestrel enlists the help of Shadowblade.
This obnoxious muscular dude is a forerunner to the typical Image Comics villains of the nineties – with bad hair, leather, the lot. His dialogue is even worse than any other character in the series, with much of it cringeworthy and woeful to read. Kestrel gives him some powers which just make him into an even more unbearable character – and with the ending of Hawk and Dove (vol 2) 4, the villain dies thanks to Kestrel’s changes enforced on his body. Thank goodness such a villain doesn’t survive this miniseries!
With Hawk and Dove (vol 2) 4, we begin to notice a change in the relationship between Hawk and Dove. Frostiness from Hawk towards Dove gives way to tolerance, but this new version of Dove does raise some questions. While Hawk remains as sturdy and arrogant as ever, the new Dove is less militant and extreme in pacifism. Still looking out for civilians and innocents, Dove fights even better than Hawk, and she doesn’t even pipe up a word when Hawk – in the fourth issue – arms himself to the teeth with countless guns to take out Shadowblade. At times, it’s almost impossible to recognise this second incarnation as anything like Don Hall’s variant. With this new Dove, there is no sense of politics or division in Hawk and Dove any longer - one is just an extremer version of the other. It does raise a question to what the point of the duo now is, but perhaps that is better answered in the ongoing series that followed. Regardless, at the end of the penultimate issue, Dove reveals to Hawk her true identity – a friend of Hank’s named Dawn, she was his third suspect for who could be behind the mask – an admittedly funny moment. But the mystery remains – why is she Dove?
Hawk and Dove (vol 2) 5 spends just five pages exploring the backstory of Dawn, and how she became Dove. During Crisis on Infinite Earths, Dawn’s mother, a diplomat, was taken hostage by a mad conspiracy theorist who aimed to destroy London’s Whitehall with a bomb. Helpless, Dawn suddenly entered the same trippy and exotic corridor of green and black created by Steve Ditko back in the sixties where Hawk and Don Hall had found themselves. Like them, she received these strange powers and became Dove. It was all the making of her good luck, while simultaneously, Don dies, and the Dove mantle must be passed on. The new Dove’s origin story is a decent one, mainly because of its randomness, and it’s nothing too embarrassing, such as the emergence of a new sibling of Hank’s. However, it probably should have been explored more or possibly earlier in the story – the revelation surrounding Dove is revealed too late. Still, I like how even after this, Hawk is very cautious about her, and it takes for the series’ conclusion for the two to really get on. As for the rest of the issue, it’s about Kestrel. Too much mystery has been encapsulating him for far too long. Too many questions about who he really is, who his overseers are, and what he wants with Hawk are left unanswered for too long. The final issue reveals that with a duel with more long groans of dialogue. Created by the Lords of Chaos, Kestrel both wants to destroy Hawk, and become his partner. It doesn’t take Einstein to see the lack of logic there – Hawk notices in a second. There remains a real lack of clarity over Kestrel and his real goals – whatever they are and for what purposes, the Kesels fail to reveal it here. After a disappointing fight of little consequence, the heroes leave Kestrel with some kind of truce – one that I suppose doesn’t last long as DC granted Hawk and Dove an ongoing series a few months later. By that logic, you can say that this miniseries is a prequel to the following monthly issues, but I feel like more needed to be revealed regardless of that.
Although more revelations and details would have been ideal, I feel that even they wouldn’t have extinguished that concrete mood of blandness that is present throughout this series. Structurally, it’s very ordinary – the heroes fight some villains, get beaten at first, but then return to fight back. It’s too boring and basic for its structure or plotting to really shine. That is by no means unfailing a negative, especially if the characters and relationships within the tale are excellent. But that is not the case. Despite huge changes to his life, Hawk doesn’t really develop as a character, while the new Dove – in spite of an interesting backstory – isn’t given as much time in the spotlight as expected. Kestrel has vengeance and violence on his side, but his vagueness becomes tiresome. As for Shadowblade, the less said about him the better. The problem is that the series is saddled with dull plotting and characters but mixed with incomprehensible and embarrassing dialogue. The cast cannot be enjoyed since the words are pretty unreadable. In some respects, Hawk and Dove (vol 2) is a dangerous sign of the direction that some comic books were headed as the dark age progressed – with his macho-men, big bosoms, and angry protagonists – but in other ways, it’s just frightfully dull and mediocre.
Throughout both reading this miniseries and writing this review, two things have surprised me. Firstly, I haven’t mentioned Rob Liefeld very much. And secondly, I was shocked by how inoffensive his art was. That latter surprise may partially be because I have become so numb to his dreadful pencilling, but it’s also due to the quality of his artwork here not being truly awful. Early judges of his work believe – and I agree – that his real strength lay in storytelling. Throughout, it’s difficult to deny that he creates a visually dramatic story that adds a certain level of flair and electricity into a dull plot. However, it’s the details and anatomy where Liefeld most clearly fails. His sense of anatomy is far from accurate, nor is it exaggerated in a way which comic books often contain. It’s just unrealistic and all-over-the-place. But it’s not anything close to the depths of that awful Captain America promotional poster Liefeld drew which even the mildest of comic book fans will recognise from memory (and it’s a piece of artwork which, in last November, sold for $132,000). It does look like fan-art and is far from professional, but it’s not as terrible as I feared. Karl Kesel’s inking style is pretty flat and uninspiring. Nonetheless, the drama is there, even if the finishes are lacking terribly.
VERDICT
Overall, Hawk and Dove (vol 2) may resurrect and revamp an iconic Ditko concept, but it’s pretty mediocre. Lacking the creativity of Skeates and Ditko, the Kesels deliver a pretty ordinary story and fill it out with dull characters and dreadful dialogue. It lacks many of the political connotations of the original run - after all, the late-1980s were a different time, but I feel like something was lost by not linking this new version to political attitudes. Liefeld’s art works dramatically but falls short in terms of detail. The ongoing series which followed lasted for 28 issues, so for readers this miniseries must have done something right. What? It’s hard to say frankly. Perhaps – given the fate of Hawk and Dove and their cruciality for 1994’s Zero Hour: A Crisis in Time – it’s an important series to read, but I think I’ll forgo that pleasure…
Next Week: Batman: Dark Knight, Dark City (Batman 452-454, Detective Comics 629-633). Written by Peter Milligan, with art by Kieron Dwyer, Jim Aparo, Tom Mandrake, Dennis Janke, Mike DeCarlo, and Steve Leialoha.
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