Absolute Evil was announced a few weeks ago and alert Hawkfans immediately noticed Hawkman on the cover. The villains are having a "go team!" moment, and under thier hands are pictures of heroes that they are going after or have already defeated. Hawkman's picture is there on the bottom left. It's also interesting that his picture is the only one that is not ripped. So what can this mean? He may not be defeated yet. He may be but they didn't bother ripping his picture. He may not even be in the issue at all. Which has happened many, many, many times.
But then we got some confirmation (thank to Matt B. Lloyd for the heads up!) that Hawkman WILL actually be in the issue. Here is a quote from the PopVerse article.
SPOILER ALERT! As a Hawkman fan, it has been very difficult to like what DC Comics is doing to the character in their Absolute Superman series. Hawkman first appeared in Absolute Evil No. 1 last year, and there is absolutely nothing to like about this character as a hero or a person. He is a murderer and a traitor, and he has become the muscle for the villains of this universe's Earth. So when this issue kicked off the way it did, I'm left with conflicting feelings, most of them not so good. This review is a spoiler, so please come back after you have read the issue. .jpg)