“Out of the Shadows”

While not the first ShadowHawk, Paul was the first ShadowHawk to see print. In this first story arc readers met Paul, Christina Ried, Carlton Sum, Jamie Anthonette, Arturo Rieves and Lt. Lou Jacks-all of whom may have been under the mask. It was left up to the readers to deciede, which one was the mysterious vigilante.
ShadowHawk was a decidedly violent hero with a penchant for breaking the backs of the criminals he encountered. This left him on the wrong side of the law, who sought his arrest and on the wrong side of New York City crime boss, Vendetta, who founded a cartel of super-powered villains, the Regulators, to hunt him down.
The “Out of the Shadows” storyline was reprinted as a trade paperback.

“The Secret Revealed”
ShadowHawk II #1-3

In his second finite series, ShadowHawk met his opposite number, Hawk’s Shadow (formerly the Silver-Age ShadowHawk’s kid-sidekick, Squirrel, a fact few readers picked up on). Hawk’s Shadow was a racist who believed that he should have been the next ShadowHawk. In one of the most dramatic un-maskings in history (a three-page fold-UP), he and the reader’s were shocked to learn that ShadowHawk was, indeed, Paul Johnstone, a black man. “The Secret Revealed” was collected into a trade paperback that sported a beautiful Bill Sienkiewicz cover.

“Through the Past, Darkly”
ShadowHawk III #1-4

Readers were in for another big surprise with the third limited series. In it, Paul’s origin was given for the first time.
A former, District Attorney, Paul refused to play ball with some mobsters. He was assaulted and injected with the AIDS virus. Believing that the justice system had failed both him personally and the people of New York by allowing criminals to escape in the courts on technicalities, he took justice into his own hands as ShadowHawk. Forging a temporary alliance with the Regulators, he tracked down the acidic alien monster, the Liquifier.
The back-story: The AIDS angle was in response to a lot of disinformation at the time about the disease. It was being labeled as only affecting gays and IV drug users. One of the intents of this story-line was to educate about the disease and essays in the back of the book gave a lot of information about it to the reader.

Interlude
Image Zero, Images of ShadowHawk #1-3

Around the same time as these stories were seeing print, ShadowHawk was featured in a short story in Image Zero called “Prey.” He was also featured in what was to be a second on-going title, Images of ShadowHawk. This title was to have a different creative team per story arc, as it was only three issues ever saw print. Written by Alan Grant and illustrated by Keith Giffen (the two maniacs who gave us Lobo), Images of ShadowHawk #1-3 had Paul meet Alan and Keith’s character Trencher and his disembodied companion, Phoebe. The later would play an important role in Johnstone’s next and final story arc.

“The Monster Within”
ShadowHawk Gallery #1, ShadowHawk #12-17, #0, Badrock and Company #6

The longest ShadowHawk story arc began in a back-up feature in ShadowHawk Gallery, a book otherwise devoted to other artists’ interpretations of the character that also served as a trading card set. In it, Trencher’s disembodied companion, Phoebe, attempted to help our hero transverse time and space to find a cure for the disease that was ravaging his body. For this story arc the Roman numerals were abandoned and numbering continued sequentially (so, II #1 was #5, II #2-6 and so on). Paul was getting progressively weaker from the HIV virus he’d been afflicted with and this story arc allowed us to do a “team-up” riff, wherein every issue he would encounter a different guest star from the “Image Universe.”
Issue #12 found ShadowHawk teamed with Image’s other HIV infected hero, Youngblood’s Chapel. The two “Brothers Under the Skin” nearly found a cure kept secret by the government, but it was denied them both. In #13 he met the Wild C.A.T.s, who offered a robot body that he might slide his consciousness into, but that also failed to produce the desired results. He traveled back through time in issue #14 to the year 1963 where he encountered the Tomorrow Syndicate, the Fury and Johnny Beyond, none of whom could help, despite their vast powers. The Others, introduced in a back-up feature in issues #1 and 2, guest starred in #15. He joined forces with the youngest member of Youngblood in the 6th issue of his team-up title, Badrock and Company, then in a Zero issue written and drawn by Liefeld for “Image X-month” and, in a tip of the hat to the World’s Finest team, ShadowHawk and Supreme starred in “One Adventure Together” in #16. Finally, in issue #17 he met Spawn for the second time (the first was briefly in issue #2). Despite all of his travels, nothing was going to stop the monster that lay within his body.

Death and Beyond
ShadowHawk #18, ShadowHawk-Vampirella

In his only inter-company crossover, Paul met Vampirella in a two-part story. In it, the two became lovers and she turned him into a vampire. This had the unexpected effect of curing him of the HIV infection. Alas, it was an “imaginary tale” that took place outside of continuity. Not wanting to cheat fans or to trivialize the serious disease he was infected with, Paul Johnstone died in issue #18.
This would not be a “comic book death” in which the character dies only to miraculously “get better”. Paul Johnstone would never rise from the grave. But, ShadowHawk would live on.