Hawk and Dove #1
Hawk & Dove #1 (October 1988) is the debut appearance of Dawn Granger as the new Dove, making her one of the few female leads to headline a DC title during an era when women fronting superhero books were genuinely rare. By replacing the late Don Hall with a woman who is unrelated to Hank Hall, the Kesels opened the door for a charged interpersonal dynamic—part ideological friction, part potential romance—that gave the franchise storytelling legs it had never previously had. The issue also introduces Kestrel, a Lords-of-Chaos creation who became the team's defining recurring antagonist, and it retroactively reframes the duo's Silver Age 'mysterious voice' mythology into the richer cosmological Order-versus-Chaos framework that all subsequent Hawk and Dove stories would build upon. It was additionally Rob Liefeld's breakout professional work, making the issue a document of two separate creative careers launching almost simultaneously.
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The revival originated around 1986 when Karl Kesel, then working as an inker at DC, was inking George Pérez's Crisis spread and found himself mourning the conceptual end of the Hawk and Dove team rather than the specific character of Don Hall. He realized the in-universe logic of a transferable Dove mantle could justify recasting the role as a woman, phoned Barbara Randall (his then-partner, soon wife), and the two quickly became co-writers. DC approved a five-issue miniseries and paired the Kesels with the young Rob Liefeld, for whom the assignment would serve as his industry breakthrough. The book was edited by Mike Carlin, with Renée Witterstaetter as assistant editor, and was published under the shortened title Hawk & Dove rather than the original 1968 banner The Hawk and the Dove. Notably, the characterizations of Hank and Dawn were modeled on Barbara Kesel's brother and Karl Kesel's sister, respectively, giving the leads an unusual grounding in real personality.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Dawn Granger as the second Dove (DC Universe designation: New Earth); cover-dated October 1988.
- First appearance of Kestrel, a formless chaos-entity created by Lords of Chaos M'Shulla and Gorrum, who can possess human hosts — co-created by Barbara Kesel, Karl Kesel, and Rob Liefeld.
- Don Hall (the original Dove, killed in Crisis on Infinite Earths #12, 1985) appears in this issue only in dream or vision sequences, not as a living character.
- Written by Karl Kesel and Barbara Kesel (then Barbara Randall); pencilled by Rob Liefeld; inked by Karl Kesel; colored by Glenn Whitmore; edited by Mike Carlin.
- Rob Liefeld co-designed Dawn Granger's Dove costume; a compromise with the Kesels resulted in her distinctive ponytail being visible — Liefeld's original design concealed all hair.
- This issue marks Karl Kesel's first credited writing work for DC Comics, having previously contributed only as an inker (and uncredited creative input on Suicide Squad).
- The miniseries sold out and its positive reception directly led to the launch of the ongoing Hawk & Dove Vol. 3 series in June 1989, also written by the Kesels.
- The entire five-issue miniseries was collected in a trade paperback (DC, 1997, 115 pages) and later reprinted as Hawk & Dove: Ghosts & Demons (DC, 2018).
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