Although THE SAVAGE HAWKMAN is definitely a bit more readable now than it was before last month’s creative team switch, I still find this take falls well short of what I want out of this series.

The art’s good, no doubt there. Hawkman’s got a complicated design (as do some of his villains in this issue), and generally these details are handled admirably, considering the amount of action and so on. It’s a very competent style, though, without being a terribly striking one.

The plot is ho-hum, though worlds better than the convoluted opening arc of this series; at the end of the day, I’d rather have an action-adventure story with a no-frills by-the-numbers plot than an action story which is completely indecipherable. But little about the writing makes me want to come back: Carter is completely…I’m not even sure of a word for him. He’s practically a non-character in a lot of ways, despite the amount of narrating he does.

This is a better series now for the new team being on it, but it still just disappoints. There’s a lot of untapped potential for this character, even this incarnation of the character, and what we’re getting is an armored, winged badass. I don’t have anything against badasses, but this particular badass has no meat on his bones.