Josh Reed

Last year, just before DC were set to release Marc Andreyko and Aaron Lopresti's Hawkman and Adam Strange: Out of Time, the publisher announced the series had a new, more foreboding title: Death of Hawkman. While downplaying Adam Strange's co-starring role in the miniseries, it promised the final fate of DC's most confusing continuity conundrum. The final issue came out this week, and now we have a definitive answer to the question; "Will DC actually kill off a character in a miniseries named after their death?" Note: Spoilers for Death of Hawkman #6 follow!

With titles such as Clean Room, Unfollow and Frostbite, Vertigo has been making a comeback over the past year or two, and is once again becoming a place where the best creators can let loose with their most interesting ideas. This March, Legacy of Luther Strode writer Justin Jordan teams with High Crimes artist Ibrahim Moustafa for a new Vertigo miniseries titled Savage Things, a mix of espionage and horror that sees a terrorist group founded by the US government going rogue and turning its attention on domestic targets.

If the stated goal of DC's line-wide Rebirth was to restore the connections and the sense of history that have been building between those heroes for 75 years, then at this point, I think we can call it a success. For the first time in a long time, the DC Universe feels like a universe again, and that foundation of interconnected characters and relationships, all those bits and pieces that can unify all these disparate stories, have led to some truly great comics. The unity of the Batman books, the bizarre excesses of Superman and Son battling against an island of dinosaurs, the breath of fresh air that's giving the Green Lanterns a whole new appeal, and all the way down the line. For a reader like me, who has a love of that universe that's built on those connections and tied up into those relationships, there's so much out there that's genuinely great. And nothing on the stands has done it better than the first issue of Midnighter and Apollo.