Fresh from the pages of the JSA's The Return of Hawkman, the winged warrior and his lifetimes-spanning companion, Hawkgirl, move their base of operations to St. Roch (a New Orleans clone) to pursue the 10-years-past murder of Hawkgirl's parents.

But this book isn't about that. Kendra Saunders (the latest incarnation of Hawkgirl) will have to wait for her answers in a later volume, as the action of this one takes the pair of heroes to India and dimensions beyond.

The main story of Endless Flight provides an Indiana Jones-style adventure as competing factions strive for the fabled Third Eye of Shiva. Of course, neither party is prepared for the dimensional gateway that flings some of them to a reality where the descendants of Shiva -- some humanoid in appearance, others elephantine in the manner of Ganesha -- battle for supremacy. Of course, Hawkman is always hard-pressed to resist a good fight, particularly when one group tries to enslave the other.

The second storyline involves a killer on the loose in St. Roch; although he kills with green arrows, it's not Green Arrow, and the Emerald Archer (who has never gotten along with Hawkman very well) is on the scene to clear his name and catch the real culprit.

Woven through the storylines are various subplots that will provide grist for future tales. There's the St. Roch museum the Hawks hope to save from the greed of a private collector. There's a ghost. There's a villain with ties to ancient Egypt who, like the Hawks, has been reborn countless times. And, most interestingly of all, there's the fabled romance between Hawkman and Hawkgirl; while Carter Hall remembers their past lives and still loves his once and future wife, Kendra was reborn this time without those memories, and she's resisting the pull of fate.

It's always hard to get a new series off the ground, but this first collection from Hawkman proves this one's off to a great start.

by Tom Knapp
Rambles.NET
17 February 2007