Jeff Hawke - Themes

Themes

Jeff Hawke started as a conventional hero-vs-aliens science fiction action comic, but under Patterson's direction it quickly developed its own individual style. The three frames format of the daily strip made it hard to create vivid action scenes, so the stories centred more on dialogue than on action and violence (although these do occur).

The Jeff Hawke character himself became more and more focused on reasoning, diplomacy and moral virtues instead of brute force and bravery, and he is frequently forced by circumstances to be the ambassador of mankind in front of alien species. There are many circumstances in which Jeff Hawke is more an observer than a participant.

The real main characters in Jeff Hawke were the aliens. The universe of Jeff Hawke was highly populated with strange alien species that came in contact with humans for various reasons – accidental contact, commercial interests, and so on, but hardly ever for invasion. The plots of Jeff Hawke turned around the seemingly endless, baroque diversity of aliens and their worlds, their contacts with humans, and the ability of Hawke and his friends to manage relationships with so many different entities. The subtle wit of Patterson made the creatures and the plots revolving around them as fascinating as they were amusing, whereas the highly expressive Jordan drawing style fully captured the strangeness of the various worlds and creatures. The aliens were almost always much more technologically advanced and wise than humans, and often the plots were highly critical of various "primitive" aspects of the human race, like pollution.

Often in the plots of Jeff Hawke there was a connection between extraterrestrial entities, archaeological mysteries and even supernatural creatures. The god Pan and the devil, among others, appeared in Jeff Hawke strips.

There was also a softcore erotic flavour in some strips. For example, there were some instances in which alien creatures took the shape of beautiful young women.