Comic Reviews by Walt

Godspawn (Conclusion): Into the Dark Aether

Script: William Messner-Loebs
Pencils: Steve Lieber
Inks: Curt Shoultz
Letters: De Guzman
Colors: Webb
Editors: Archie Goodwin & Jim Spivey
Published by: DC Comics
Cover Date: September 1994
Cover Price: $1.95

I’ve long been aware of this incarnation of Hawkman, but have yet to consciously have read any issues of Hawkworld, or this series prior to the Zero Hour tie in in this issue. I clearly recall the “merging” of the “numerous versions” of Hawkman into a singular entity, and then eventually the (Geoff Johns, I believe) Return of Hawkman story…and read a few issues of the series around Infinite Crisis. Outside of that, this is all new to me.

But I enjoyed this issue, even as I cruised through it mostly clueless…kinda recognizing some names, even if not spellings, and my imagination ran a bit wild with it (settled somewhat by scanning a Wikipedia article for some clarification on this “present” version of Hawkman). That I was interested enough to do “research” speaks volumes, as I tend to prefer NOT to “have to” in reading comics. But this being a 22-year-old comic and all, I can make the exception.

The story basically involves the current Hawkman preparing for facing a god-entity and eventually facing it, before being merged with other Hawk entities in a fashion a bit different than the scene we got in Zero Hour itself. Details didn’t stick with me, and I’m ignorant enough of supporting characters and context to do any significant/proper recap. Suffice it to say that for being admittedly “lost” I still enjoyed the issue, anticipating what it had to be leading to.

Along with tying into Zero Hour directly, this is also a concluding chapter of a multi-part story Godspawn; seemingly capping off stuff prior in readiness for the post-Zero Hour status quo.

I’m not all that familiar with the art team–off the top of my head, I’m not truly at all familiar–but I enjoyed this issue’s visuals. Nothing stood out in a negative way or threw me off…I was just reading this to read it, so all the art had to do was NOT SUCK…and it exceeded my expectations as such. This is another issue read only and specifically because of tying into Zero Hour…and that definitely piques my curiosity and interest toward (eventually, hopefully, someday) reading the series at length.

This doesn’t really seem like any one-off issue…so while it’s not a horrible read if you’re trying to read the “complete” Zero Hour, the parts that truly matter to the Event are covered in the core book, leaving this as an issue to be read to expand, or if you’re already reading this run or at LEAST are reading more than just the one issue.

I’m definitely glad I never paid full price for this, though it was not a waste of time to read. Since it expands on events touched on in Zero Hour, I definitely rank this up there as one of the “better” tie-ins. This also sticks out as a bit of an oddity from 22 years later when there’d be an entire 3-6 issue “bannered” tie-in mini-series to get things across, rather than just this issue amidst already ongoing continuity. A solid issue, worthwhile, but not worth going overly out of one’s way to acquire or read just on its own.

Filed under: 2016 posts, The '90s Revisited, Zero Hour | Tagged: 1990s, Albert De Guzman, Archie Goodwin, Comic Reviews, comics, Curt Shoultz, DC, DC Comics, Godspawn, Hawkman, Hawkworld, Jim Spivey, Steve Lieber, Webb, Willaim Messner-Loebs, Zero Hour |