Polite Dissent

Hank returns home from an evening of studying to find a mysterious woman in a wheel-chair waiting for him in his apartment. She explains that she is Barbara Gordon and she calmly informs Hank that she wants him to call Dawn because she needs to talk to both Hawk and Dove.

Once Dawn arrives, Barbara explains that she needs their help in taking down Velvet Tiger once and for all. She explains that Velvet Tiger was once one of Batgirl’s enemies, but since Batgirl has “retired,” Hawk and Dove will need to step in and apprehend Velvet Tiger. When asked how she learned their identities, Barbara plays coy at first, telling them that she got it from “an oracle.” Then she quickly explains that Oracle is a top secret government computer expert, but in the next panel she all but admits she is Oracle (”I hacked the Titan’s database”). Clearly this is before Oracle’s identity became the big secret it is now (and it is one of her first appearances outside of Suicide Squad).

Barbara tells the duo that Velvet Tiger is said to be Lani Gilbert, but she finds that hard to believe because records show that Lani is only ten years old. Barbara explains that the Tiger is trying to take out Washington D.C.’s mob bosses one by one so she can take over as top boss in the city. Barbara has been able to pinpoint who Velvet Tiger will attack next and she wants Hawk and Dove to intercept and capture her.

Across town, the Velvet Tiger and her bodyguard/lackey Sudden Death arrive at the hide out of one of the few remaining mob bosses. As the Tiger moves in for the kill, Hawk and Dove arrive. Hawk quickly subdues Sudden Death with the help of a conveniently thrown gas grenade. Dove’s battle with the Velvet Tiger is much more interesting. First, she fools the Tiger into thinking that Batgirl has returned. While Velvet Tiger is focusing on “Batgirl,” Dove tries to grab her and suddenly everything goes topsy-turvy. It turns out that Velvet Tiger has the ability to stop time and enter a special dimension that is “between the seconds.” Due to an unhappy childhood, she has spent years hiding in this dimension and the grown-up Velvet Tiger really is the ten-year-old Lani Gilbert. She now uses her powers for criminal gain and to evade capture. Since she is the only one who can survive in this dimension, her plan is to strand Dove here to slowly starve to death. Unsurprisingly, Dove is not too keen on this plan, and she deliberately strikes Lani’s already injured ribs so that the shock will cause her to bring them both back into normal time. As they suddenly appear in the hideout, Barbara shows up just in time to handcuff Lani to a pipe. She informs Lani that that while Dove may not be able to testify at a trial (because of that whole secret identity thing), Barbara will testify and make sure that the Velvet Tiger is put away for a long time.

As the issue ends, Dawn has a quiet chat with Barbara while Hank receives another message from his dead brother. This one asks him to steal a special sapphire from the Smithsonian Institute that he’ll need to bring Don back to life. Hank is unsure what action to take: he’ll do anything to bring Don back, but stealing would mean that he’d be “no better than a criminal.”

Notes:
The art by Greg Guler continues to be good. The writing by the Kesels is still good — particularly the quiet character moments — but overall the last issues of Hawk & Dove just don’t have the same zing as the earlier issues.
The Unofficial Oracle Chronology
Barbara Gordon makes a reference to the Titans Hunt storyline, the company-wide Titans crossover that was occurring at the time (and went for what, six or seven months?) This is the second reference to Titans Hunt in Hawk & Dove, but the actual crossover doesn’t occur until issue #28 and lasts for all of 2 panels before it is crushed (literally) by another company-wide crossover, War of the Gods. More about this when later.
While their children are off fighting the Velvet Tiger, Hank’s and Dawn’s parents are both attending a fancy soirée for Senator Tommy O’Neil. The parents chat for a bit and are clearly confused about who’s dating whom, but the main reason I mention this is that O’Neil will play a key role in the remaining 4 issues of the series.
I find the idea that Velvet Tiger has actually spent half her life hiding in her special between-seconds dimension and really should only be ten years old is kind of creepy, but handled well. It’s nice to see super-powers that actually have real world consequences.
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