Call this comic what it is: a sequel to an existing IP. and Enter the Ninja come to mind-are remembered, beyond Rifftrax fodder, if at all, for their scruffy charm and heart, which Kingsley describes in Hawk's case as “ attitude and style and where it carried me, the viewer.” What a load of aspirational bullshit.
Now, as co-founder of the large and lucrative video game developer and multimedia conglomerate Rebellion (owner of 2000 AD, not to mention the world’s largest archive of English-language comics), Kingsley can have his pals–writer Garth Ennis, cartoonist Henry Flint, and letterer Steen–pen more Hawk tales.Ī childhood hobbyhorse like Hawk the Slayer or other '80s adolescent movie tchotchkes- Invasion U.S.A. The filmmakers lean into every stock sword and sorcery cliché - and, for good measure, Star Wars. The movie follows two warring brothers, Voltan (a sexagenarian pre-Grissom, pre-Curly Jack Palance) and Hawk (John Terry, Joker’s boss in Full Metal Jacket) as they fight, fight, fight over a magical sword, the cumbersomely christened Elfin Mindsword. See, Hawk the Slayer began as a movie in 1980 and young Kingsley fell for it, hard. In a brief yet passionate introduction–set off in an Old English-y script by letterer Rob Steen on, what else, a scroll–Kingsley writes a reminiscence-cum-call to arms that ends, “Finally I have been able to help Hawk myself, now, at last, Hawk rides again.” So fervent is he about this tale of warriors, wizards and witches that he wants readers to know before they’ve read a word or looked at a line that this project carries Kingsley’s imprimatur. The profligate in question is the comic’s publisher, Jason Kingsley OBE.
Hawk the Slayer embodies that old saw about having “more money than sense.” But this being a comic, it probably isn’t that much money.