Being a DC boy, born & bred, I had no problem navigating through the mire of revamps, retcons, and reimaginings of some of the world’s most famous heroes. After the maxi-series “Crisis On Infinite Earths”, pretty much everything about the DC Universe was changed. Superman’s origin was retold with a new Krypton, Wonder Woman was new to Man’s World, Joe Chill wasn’t the murderer of Mr. & Mrs. Wayne, and, oh yeah, Earth-2 was merged into the regular Earth-1…. Wait, what? (*record scratches*) What the heck is Earth-2 and should I even ask if there’s a -3, -4, or -5? (I’ll get into that in a later post, but you’re not gonna be happy with Earth-X). But another less popular hero who apparently deserved a new origin was the winged warrior of the silver age, Hawkman… and so began his troubles.
(more after the jump)
Getting into comics in my early youth with reading All-Star Squadron and DC’s 2nd volume of Hawkman (with Tony Isabella and Richard Howell), I was well familiar with the fact that there were two Hawkmans (Hawkmen?) in the DCU. Historically, there was the hero of WWII who made his first appearance in Flash Comics #1 in 1940. The young playboy, Carter Hall, was the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian prince who used the magic flying properties of his Ninth Metal to solve crimes and fight bad guys. He would soon help to create the Justice Society of America (comicdom’s first super group… yep, they started it… you’re welcome, Avengers).
When Julius Schwartz redefined hero-led comics in the 50s with the creation of what would become known as the Silver Age, a new Hawkman emerged. This time, although he looked exactly the same as the old one, he was now a police officer from another planet. Oh, and instead of Carter Hall, his real name would be Katar Hol (see what he did there?). For the fans of the time, this was okay. Still no problem… even when billed as an alien with future technology, fighting bad guys with weapons of Earth’s past; essentially a dude with wings and a mace.
Then the aforementioned Crisis happened in the 80s, and the result was Hawkworld. Possibly one of the most beautifully drawn series ever in DC’s history… up there with Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come. Yet, when this retelling of Katar Hol’s history and first travels to Earth were published, instead of making it his past as was intended (like Batman: Year One or Byrne’s Superman), it was considered canon and present-day. Unfortunately, that meant the Silver Age Hawkman who was a member of the JLA from the 60s to the 80s, wasn’t actually the alien cop... but the old WWII hero instead. And so the continuity errors began.
In my opinion, John Ostrander did a carefully sculpted attempt to clear the air and the history with the “Escape from Thanagar” story line… and I was okay with that. It involved a secret alien replacing the hero, and other convoluted retcons… but it made sense of the mess that became the Thanagarian’s history in the DCU.
That all being said, it’s the Hawkworld version of Hawkman that I fell in love with, that I admired, that I thought was the best representation of what this flying hero could be. Here is a man with his own checkered past, who has overcome addiction and overcome guilt for the senseless murder of an innocent. Here is a man who struggled to live up to both the heroic fame and the inevitable downfall of his father. Here is a man, like his father, became a pawn of a selfish, corrupt culture. Here is a man who followed his duty as an officer to this new world, to these United States of America, and found inspiration and the foundation for justice and equality. Here is a man who represented the lost dreams of western culture, and the struggle to soar above its own flaws. Here is a man who mirrored the world of today.
Before it got lost in the world of the anti-hero in the 90s, Hawkworld was a great story of one man finding justice and social equality. It followed Katar’s departure from the racist exploitative Thanagar and its enslavement of other worlds… as he then travelled to America. Learning its own rich history of civil war and colonization, he discovered the power of the written word and the power of conviction with the Declaration of Indepedence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal”, it says… and these words were something for which Katar could fight and in which Katar could believe... not the corruption of his home world. It continues, “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” With his renewed drive to become the champion of these rights… he quickly realized the truth of the modern world, and the fact that he has only exchanged one Hawkworld for another. That despite a founding belief and declaration of a country… the word only persisted in print and failed to persist in the hearts of the people for which it was written.
It was Katar’s conviction that caught my eye as a young reader. It was Katar’s strength of character in the midst of all this corruption that provided a great, epic story arc. It was Katar’s disenchantment with the world around him that I think we certainly all share at one point or another. I was only 12 when Hawkworld was published… but, before I really even grew up, it opened my eyes to many facets of the world I would come to know. I feel it helped to provide me with perhaps a more cynical world view whether I was ready or not (“unexamined life”, and all that). I mean, I’m a pretty optimistic guy and I believe that human nature has some innate good… but this series, this character was a way of showing a mirror to the world (fictionalized or otherwise) and introduced me to the potential for deceit and corruption, the potential for disillusionment, and the potential to rise above it all. And he had some kick-ass fight scenes with high-flying action! How could anyone not want to see that? "No Shirt! No Shoes! NO MERCY!!"
