Images of Shadowhawk #4

Between September of 1993 and January of 1994 I picked up each issue of Images of Shadowhawk, Jim Valentino’s Legends of the Dark Knight-like comic series that was intended to give Valentino’s Shadowhawk character (Amazon.com search*) an ongoing book of adventures by various creative teams.

Unfortunately, despite Keith Giffen’s remarkably fun work on the first three issues of the book there never was a fourth book in the series. Instead, the third issue ran this small box explaining . . . well, explaining nothing at all.

Enlarge Image!
Enlarge Image!

And on the back cover of that issue was this ad for the Images of Shadowhawk trading cards. Those appear to have been released (see comiccollectorlive.com), but I’ve never bought any of the cards and continued to watch for the fourth issue of the comic. It’s not that the first three were the greatest books ever created, but at the time I was curious to see how other creators would handle the character.

Enlarge Image!
Enlarge Image!

In fact, the third issue of Images of Shadowhawk was the last Shadowhawk comic I ever bought. Keith Giffen’s work really was fun, and if Image had managed to bring as much energy and strangeness to future Images of Shadowhawk books as Giffen did I think the entire series could have been one of those books people look back on fondly. As things happened, though, it became just one more empty promise from a publisher that was still finding its way and hoping to become a professional organization.