Hawkman Special #1

History

The Special grew directly out of the commercial success of The Shadow War of Hawkman (May–July 1985), a four-issue miniseries scripted by Tony Isabella with art by Richard Howell, which DC editor Alan Gold had commissioned as a bold new direction for the character. Because that miniseries sold well enough to justify continued publishing, DC greenlit this bridging one-shot before launching the 1986 Hawkman ongoing. The plot was conceived jointly by Isabella and Howell, with Isabella writing the final script; pencils were again by Howell, inked this time by Ron Randall, colored by Michele Wolfman, and lettered by Kurt Hathaway, with cover art by Howell and Dick Giordano. It carried a March 1986 cover date but was on sale December 12, 1985.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Published December 12, 1985 (cover date March 1986); a one-shot published by DC Comics, formatted as a standard Modern Age saddle-stitched magazine with a glossy cover and newsprint interior.
• Story titled 'Last Rights'; plot by Tony Isabella and Richard Howell, script by Isabella — directly continuing from The Shadow War of Hawkman #4 (1985) and leading into Hawkman (Vol. 2) #1 (1986).
• Gentleman Ghost (Jim Craddock) receives a brief in-story origin recap and is portrayed in an unexpected ally role, using an Absorbascon to learn of the Thanagarian conquest and then helping Hawkman and Hawkwoman defeat the lingering threat of Fell Andar's spirit.
• The spirit of Mavis Trent — the long-running Hawkman supporting character killed during the Shadow War — makes a final appearance and passes on, providing narrative closure to her death.
• Fell Andar, the Thanagarian agent created by Isabella and Howell in the Shadow War miniseries, appears here as a lingering spirit; he was later repurposed by John Ostrander as a major post-Crisis retcon device to explain the continuity tangle of multiple Hawkman identities.
• The issue introduces the Thanagarian grief ritual called 'vol' — described as Shayera's mother's ancient method of coming to terms with the deaths of others — expanding the cultural mythology of Thanagar beyond anything seen in prior Hawkman comics.
• Inside the issue, an advertisement for Batman and the Outsiders #32 accounts for the catalog indexing of those characters (Batman/Bruce Wayne, Black Lightning/Jefferson Pierce, Geo-Force/Brion Markov, Halo/Violet Harper, Katana/Tatsu Yamashiro, Looker/Emily Briggs, Metamorpho/Rex Mason); similarly, Voltron-related characters (King Zarkon, Prince Lotor, Princess Allura, Lance, Pidge, and Voltron itself) and 'Mazing Man appear in period advertisements and promotional material within the issue.
• Barry Allen's Flash appears only in flashback cameo; the issue also includes a letters column with responses written by Tony Isabella, providing direct writer-to-reader editorial commentary typical of DC's mid-1980s production style.

Cast · 33 characters

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Variants (2)