Writer – Brian Augustyn
Artist – Rags Morales
Inker – Richard Space
Colours – Stuart Chaifetz
Letters – Gaspar Saladino

The final issue of Black Condor begins much like it did in its first, with some action and drama as he tries to save the day, as reluctantly as it might be. There is a missing child and Condor agrees to search for the girl. He gets nowhere fast until he is arrested and meets a man behind bars who might be able to help him. Suffice it to say, this also gets him nowhere and for the rest of the issue, he chases his tail while others chase him and it is only with the help of Batman that he finds the girl and the bad guys that show their faces are defeated. For the last issue of a series, this was an all-right story. It was a little sad that Batman was brought in to guest star and ended up being more of a hero than Black Condor who ended up doing little to nothing, embarrassing in fact. Rags Morales did a great job with the artwork and Brian Augustyn who penned this issue made it somewhat enjoyable but it could not even give readers a single moment of Condor doing hero stuff, instead, the man just goes from one page to the next essentially clueless. In addition to all of this, there is the fact that Condor’s origins were never fully explained, his full range of powers still a mystery, why it is that the original Black Condor appears as a ghost to Ned and more questions than one can shake a stick at. At one point, it seemed as if Augustyn had all these grand plans but for one reason or another, kept putting them off with fill-in issues and stories that did little to advance much in the way of the main character. It was and is, if nothing else, a shame that any plans he might have had went unrealized – at least in this character’s solo title. To put it plainly, this series was very underwhelming and for those that enjoyed the original Freedom Force or any of those golden age heroes of the past, they will not find what they are looking for here. It is too bad that this book could not have been better than it was as it definitely had the potential to be so.

2 out of 5