Polite Dissent

I was looking forward to this episode of JLU as I am a huge Hawk and Dove fan in all their incarnations (well, except that awful Mike Baron mini-series a few years ago). This episode stars a peeved Wonder Woman* who is sent along with brothers Hank and Don Hall (i.e. Hawk and Dove) to a small war-torn country. It turns out that the war god Ares has been inciting each side against the other, along with providing a super-powerful god-forged combat robot to cause massive death and destruction.

At first it struck me as unwise that the JLU would send such relatively low powered heroes like Hawk and Dove into such a dangerous area. Certainly more uber-powerful heroes such as Superman or Captain Atom would do better in a war zone. However Hawk and Dove are not in the story to provide power, but instead to act as foils for the whole concept of war. In this, they hold true to their original Ditko creation: Don is the liberal peacenik while Hank is the right-wing umm…hawk. While Dove ultimately saves the day by defeating the robot through peace, the ending makes it clear that the war is not over, just delayed.

While I prefer the male/female Hawk and Dove written by the Kesels, the original brother concept works better in this episode by adding more weight to the Hank-Don, Hawk-Dove, War-Peace conflict. I hope to see more Hawk and Dove in the JLU, but preferably as super-heroes next time instead of just metaphors.

*NOTES:

• Actual quote from the Polite-Wife, “Is Wonder Woman PMS-ing?” Tell me, how does a loving husband answer that question? (My answer: “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, dear.”)
• To the producers: Please stop using that horrible generic rock-opera music in the title. Thankfully, I didn’t notice it as much as incidental music this episode. Please go back to the original musical score.