Issue 8 of Hawk and Dove, the series swan song, was not a suprise. Issue 1 was one of the worst comics I have ever read in my 40 years of reading, but the quality didn’t stay that way. The book was very good at it’s best, and uneven throughout even with Liefeld’s energetic but confusing art.
When I read issue 8 was to be the last I hoped that it would be sent off in a big way, that the energy that was just below the surface would finally come shining bright. Instead we got more of the faults that have damned this series, and we also get the feeling DC gave up on the series before it had a chance to really go anywhere.
The scripting waws not horrendous, workmanlike to the t. The art by Liefeld and Marat Mychaels looked like extreme studios era image comics at their most abrasive.The pages with Hawk fighting ninjas looked like a very bad art swipe from Frank Miller’s run on Daredevil. I am stabbing in the dark here and will say the lifeless art this issue may be on the shoulder of Mychaels, as the artwork overall was lifeless and boring. As loathe as I am to say it, and as much as I enjoy these characters, this series will not be missed.