Polite Dissent

When last we left Hank Hall (a.k.a. Hawk) he was heading down to South America to meet the mysterious “Queen of Hives.” Teen Titans Spotlight #8 picks up the action where the previous issue left off. On a remote airfield in an undisclosed South American country, a small plane lands. Hank Hall emerges and meets up with Lupe, a scantily clad teenager who is to guide him to the Queen. Hank and Lupe are accosted by two local soldiers, but Hank easily knocks them both out. He and Lupe then hop in a Land Rover and head deep into the jungle.

Once in the jungle, Hank and Lupe meet up with Arachnid who provides them with a giant beetle to ride deeper into the foliage. The beetle deposits them at the Hive, an ancient Incan ruin. Lupe feeds Hank some hallucinogenic mead that allows him to talk to the insects. She also comes clean and admits that she is the Queen of Hives. Several years before, her village was attacked by soldiers who wanted to burn down her village for the farmland. The only survivor, she ran deep into the jungle. Arriving at the Hive, she met Arachnid and he taught her to talk to the insects. She became the caretaker of the Hive and their Queen.

Lupe tells Hank that the jungle is under attack by developers. They are cutting more of it down every year to make farmland; farmland that is abandoned the following year. She and her insects had been attacking the developers’ men and were able to beat them back, but now the developers have brought in a new weapon, a man who calls himself “The Toxicator” (because — apparently — all the good names were taken).

After a leisurely night with Lupe, Hank changes into Hawk. He straps into the Hawk-Glider and flies to the nearest developer camp. He smashes things up in the camp, but then encounters the Toxicator. The two tussle and the Toxicator sprays Hawk with an extremely poisonous pesticide. Badly wounded, Hawk makes it into the jungle where a giant beetle returns him to the Hive.

After several days of recovery, Hank comes up with a new plan. With Lupe’s help, he collects a swarm of angry bees with a potent hallucinogenic sting. The bees attack the developers’ camp and sting everyone in sight. While everyone is tripping from the hallucinogen, Hawk and Arachnid appear and scare them away, never to return. No really, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried: Hawk, the kill-all-drug-dealers arch-conservative defeats a lame villain and his lackeys with hallucinogenic bees.

He and Lupe then head back into the jungle, presumably to live happily ever after (or at least until Hawk’s next appearance in Booster Gold #16).