Issue: Flash Comics #6 (Reprinted in The Golden Age Hawkman Archives v.1)
Title: "Sheba, Queen of The Desert" (suggested title)
Published Date: Jun 1940
Generation: Golden Age Carter
Retcon Status: In Continuity
Summary: Fresh off saving secret agent Ione Craig from the Cult of Assassians, Hawkman has to land in the middle of the desert to check his wing harness. Returning to the skies to scout, Ione is promptly found by desert riders and kidnapped. The American agent is brought before Sheik Abdullah, who plans to sell her into slavery. Hawkman tracks her down, but is promptly subdued by Abdullah's men and thrown in the Sheik's dungeon. There, the Winged Wonder runs into Major Brent, who recently had lead an Army mission in the area and is thought dead.
Sheba, "Queen of the Desert," is interested in Hawkman as a slave and demands Abdullah give him to her as a gift. Hawkman is able to escape his new mistress and meet up with Major Brent's unit outside the city limits. Together with the Army, Hawkman lays seige to the palace of Abdullah, and rescues both Ione and the Major. Sheba had tried to escape, but Hawkman dropped her in a tall tower for easy capture later.
Review: As promised, the story here picks up right where "The Kidnapping of Ione Craig" finished, and appropriately, the story is comparable. Moldoff once more delivers the goods in a pulp-y, non-modern setting, and Gardner Fox's story, while simplistic, is fun and colorful. The villians of the piece are definitely products of the era which this was published, but they are so broad that I think they hold up nicely -- this is aided once more by the pulp style storytelling. Despite her big role in the last two tales, I do not believe Ione Craig would ever appear again... are you listening, Geoff Johns?
Image: Flash Comics #6, 1940, Everett E. Hibbard.
2 comments:
Sounds like a fun, swashbuckling kind of tale! This is an element that I think modern Hawkman comics need to incorporate. Hawkman and wife should run off around the world from time to time, probably often dealing with archeological finds of one type or another, and match wits and fists with all kinds of foes, both mystical and traditional. Yeah, they should be guardians of Midway City, but with their technology, and their connection to archeology, there is no reason they can't do some globe trotting!
One element I have really liked so far about the Volume 4 stories is that very globe-hopping adventure you mention. In the first two trades, we saw the Hawks jet off to India, where Carter got pulled into an alternate dimension, and then the Himalayas. It really adds to the flavor when you have your archeologists out in the field!
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