Who
says you can't judge a book by its cover? 
As
anyone who purchased ShadowHawk II: The Secret Revealed found out
in a hurry, the innovative exteriors that made issues #1 and #3 a
pair of spectacles to behold were a clear indication of the
quality work that was waiting inside the state of the art covers!
Proving that the overwhelming success of the first finite series was no fluke, Jim Valentino and Chance Wolf hit full stride on this series that began on the same up tempo note where ShadowHawk left off, and then took it to an even higher level of intensity.
ShadowHawk's true identity became apparent in a three page gatefold that will make issue #2 a certain collector's item, but as was the case in "Out Of The Shadows," the underlying themes played a far more significant role than the simple revelation of the man behind the mask. Prejudice and bigotry reared their ugly heads in this dramatic story-arc which introduced Hawk's Shadow, a copy-cat killer whose racial hatred was matched only by his misguided view of what is right and holy. The pent-up rage and frustration of a lifetime nearly transformed ShadowHawk into the killer he despised as his own emotions poured free in a classic confrontation between Paul Johnstone and Hawk's Shadow. Meanwhile, Captain Frakes showed that he was willing to risk his career in an attempt to rid the streets of both Hawk incarnations, and Vendetta's "mission of submission" continued while dissension began to creep into the ranks of The Regulators.
ShadowHawk's crushing attack on Hawk's Shadow took care of one of Frake's problems, but in his own strange slant on justice, the captain enlisted the aid of Slaughter, a one-man arsenal. Just when it seemed like ShadowHawk's story was about to end, a cerebral showdown produced a new lease on life that itself seemed threatened as this impressive chapter of The ShadowHawk Saga came to an end.
OCIC Anti-Racism Working Group
