Hawkman
Hawkman solves the impossible crime of emeralds that disappear from a room that has been sealed and guarded for 10 years. The tale's beautifully designed last panel shows Hawkman with his wings in a circular arc. A tall vertical panel shows a flying Hawkman far above men on the ground. Anderson's art includes some good portraits of Hawkman. There are also airline pilots in formal uniforms , an Anderson specialty. CAW returns, stealing valuable objects from enemy spies, who have in turn stolen them from the US Government; Hawkman works with a talented woman agent of the CIA to defeat them. Often, various kinds of teleportation machinery show up in the tales, at the heart of the plot. The Hawk couple uses plenty of Thanagar inventions of their own to trail the crooks. There is a gang of high tech crooks whom Hawkman and Hawkgirl are trying to track down.
This story is an example of what might be called a "technology detective story". Fox always establishes a distinction between these two categories, living beings and inanimate objects, and has the two categories serve different roles in the tale. Fox employs another Hawkman staple here: machines that can teleport objects and people. Many of the Hawkman tales have this sort of exotic location. Here, Fox has used gangsters' capabilities - unlimited funds, lots of manpower, high tech weaponry - and used them to construct a hoax set in traditional Egypt. Most gangster movies take place in an urban underworld. Fox is on to something here with his mix of mob villains and exotic adventure. This aspect of the story is probably a collaboration between Fox's script and Anderson's art. The fact that they have high tech capabilities is a neat concept. These wands are power symbols, symbols of the ancient gods' power.
These are shaped exactly like tradition Egyptian mages' wands. These bird masks remind one of those of Hawkman and Hawkgirl themselves. These tend to have bird mask heads, and are almost as appealing as the croc-gods. Anderson also includes other Egyptian "gods", who are also mob agents in disguise. With today's technology, they could be realized with lavish detail.
The Hawkman tales are different from other Fox series such as Adam Strange or the Atom. Aside from the character and sf explanation of the Shadow-Thief, this story seems quite perfunctory. The origin of the Shadow-Thief, a crook whose body is in one dimension, with a shadow image of that body committing crimes in another dimension. These are suitably macho looking. These show black trousers and tunics with militaristic red stripes down the sleeves and trousers, as well as red boots. Here they are arrayed in traditional comic book uniforms, for the first time. Anderson has changed costumes for the CAW men again. Unfortunately, nothing here is very inspired. Anderson continues his exploration of 1960's suited men with the heir, who is blond and buzz cutted.
The image involves both symmetry, with the four people balanced on either side of the mirror, and pleasing asymmetry, with different postures of the flying Hawk couple. The splash panel is beautifully composed, with Hawkman and Hawkgirl swooping down on crooks standing on either side of the title mirror. Unfortunately, neither tale is all that good. It was clearly an experiment to see if readers would like a pure mystery approach to Hawkman. Fox also includes an interesting legal twist at the end, about the statue of limitations; such legal ideas regularly appeared in The Atom. It somehow lacks the sparkle of the Atom's best crime cases. As in The Atom, the impossible crime here is an impossible theft, not an impossible murder; murder mysteries were not considered suitable for kids' entertainment during this era. The splash panel explicitly invokes the great mystery tradition of locked room mysteries and impossible crimes. Pure detective stories without sf elements were rare in Hawkman; this tale reminds one of the mystery stories that regularly appeared in The Atom.