I was surprised I actually like this more than I expected.  I am not a fan of Rob Liefeld.  I like his art okay, but his past conduct in the business has always bugged me.  It has been a long time, so I’m going to let it go, and look at it without the baggage.  These are characters he did back in the day, so we all hope he captures the magic again.

His art is pretty good.  There are times of brilliance.  The first couple of pages are great.  There are great details in the hair and lips and shrubbery and all that.  But there are still some things that bug me.  The cover is awful!  This should be his time shine, instead he uses it torment the art form.  To get people excited about the comic, what does he do?  He puts an action shot (good) and then adds close-ups of the faces of the characters he is already showing.  Why?  We already see them on the cover… did he think we forgot them already?  And then he adds a profile of a Hawk and a Dove!  The actual animals Hawk and Dove!   It is the title.. we get that they are Hawk and Dove, we don’t need the reminder of the animals.  Does Rob think that a customer might not be able to read?  ‘I better put some animals on the cover in case they don’t understand the concept’ thinks Robb.  I want to punch him for this cover.

The story is okay.  There is some neat touches.  I like the Deadman relationship.  I like the dead brother story.  I like the mystery Don – Dawn (Dove/Dove) relationship.  All enough to get me to read the next few.

There some things I don’t like.  1)  The red text boxes are just distracting.  I don’t mind the dialogue in text box, but the stylized H (for Hawk) is just distracting. 2) Are they trying to make Hawk so hateable?  He comes off a complete jerk.  In the past he was aggressive and gruff, but now he is someone not to be around.  ‘Pleasure is all yours dude’ and later he wants to go beat up random people on the street because he is mad.  I hope his character arc shows some growth (or gets funnier) otherwise people (me) will start rooting for the villains.  3) Rob cannot draw eyes.  We have known this for a long time, but it gets silly.  Every one wears masks, or has zombie eyes, or has sunglasses.  There are only a few panels in the comic that contain irises & pupils. It becomes funny just to watch what he will do to avoid it.  In the past he would avoid drawing feet and hands to.  I actually think he has gotten better at that (they used to always be off panel) and it is appreciated.

Fun.  C+ —-   Don

Rob Liefeld on Hawk and Dove brings back memories of some of his first DC comics work many years ago, and his art bridges the gap between his wildly energetic-but-also-anatomically-insane later work and his more staid early work that proved he really could draw shoulders and hands and feet. The coloring and inking is also very complementary to the artwork.

Story-wise, this is another of the new 52 books that shows that this launch is not a complete reboot, as references that Brightest Day happened are plain to see. Deadman is still “dating” Dove, as established at the end of that series, for instance. I also like the hook introduced here that teases a connection between the current Dawn Granger Dove and the original Dove, Hank Halls brother Don Hall (who in previous DC continuity was killed during the Crisis, and seemed to be the only dead hero that could not be resurrected by a Black Lantern ring, as he was “at peace.”).

I’m also curious about the villain introduced at the end, and while I’m not a fan of the color scheme of this particular character over the old one (assuming it really is that character and not just a similarly designed new one), it made me interested enough to check out the next issue.

With 52 new titles to possibly follow, this is still near the bottom of the pack for me, but so far it’s more because other books have already sunk their hooks in much deeper story/status quo/creative team-wise than any serious flaws in the book itself. If I wasn’t trying to grade on curve and wasn’t taking expectations of other titles with superstar creative teams into account (I’m looking at you, Action Comics), this would easily grade in the “B” range for me, but with my somewhat biased curve in place, it still earns a C+, but with a lot of potential to reach higher.

- Ed