Comic books are often criticized for being overly complicated and convoluted and while
I think that might be a bit unfair, it’s examples like this that seem to ruin the medium
for everyone.
This is Hawkman.
He’s been in several mainstream DC productions including Justice League Unlimited and Legends
of Tomorrow, but there’s actually been about four or five different Hawkmen out there and
each one is about as confusing as the last.
Let me explain.
The first to bare the title was named Carter Hall, an archaeologist who discovered that
he was the reincarnation of the Egyptian prince Khufu.
Using a mace and belt made out of the powerful Nth Metal that allowed him to manipulate gravity
and fly along with some artificial wings to help him steer, he fought crime as the first
Hawkman.
Shortly thereafter, Carter bumped into a woman named Shiera Saunders who he immediately recognizes
as his reincarnated lover.
This is the woman who would later become the hero Hawkgirl.
The two of them eventually get married and they had a child that ended up living a life
that’s almost as complicated as his parents’.
Let’s not get into that for this episode.
Hawkman was a founding member of the Justice Society of America, alongside some characters
you might already know about like Jay Garrick A.K.A.
The original Flash and Alan Scott A.K.A.
The original Green Lantern.
I mention those last two because of one important point.
When the Silver Age of the mid-fifties started, DC started rebooting their characters with
most of the heroes that we know and love today.
All of the Golden Age characters and adventures were retconned to have taken place on an alternate
universe called Earth-Two.
This was what happened to Carter Hall and paved the way for the second Hawkman.
This was Katar Hol, an alien police officer from the planet Thanagar.
He and his partner/wife, Shayera Hol, were sent to Earth in order to track down a shapeshifting
criminal.
After catching the bad guy, the hawks decided to stay on Earth to research human police
methods and Katar adopts the name Carter Hall as a secret identity.
A nice nod to the Golden Age incarnation.
Later on down the road, Hawkman joined the Justice League of America and for a while
things were pretty simple.
Cater Hall was on Earth-Two while Katar was on Earth-One.
Well, that is until Crisis on Infinite Earths happened which merged parts of the entire
multiverse into one singular universe.
This led to both Hawkmen suddenly existing at the same time on one planet.
Don’t think too much about it too much because Carter and the Justice Society were almost
immediately thrown into limbo where they were forced to endlessly fight in the Norse Ragnarok
for the rest of eternity, making things at least a little easier for a now.
What’s important is that this left Katar Hall as the only Hawkman.
Finally, this whole mess was resolved!
...Until Hawkworld came out and ruined it again.
See, the post-Crisis DC Comics started launching books that retold the origin stories of many
characters such as Batman: Year One.
Hawkworld made their origin darker and grittier, turning the Thanagarians into a brutal world
conquering race.
This title even dealt with themes of corruption by making the criminal that Katar tracked
to Earth into a corrupt colleague.
People really liked Hawkworld and everything would have been great…
If it had taken place in the past.
That’s right, Hawkworld was taking place in the MODERN DC universe so now there are
TWO Thanagarian Katar Hol space cops!
How did DC explain this?
The Silver Age Katar Hol was ACTUALLY a half-human, half-Thanagarian sleeper agent named Fel Andar
who came to Earth, took up the name Carter Hall Jr. in order to pretend to be the Golden
Age Carter Hall’s son, and became Hawkman.
Once the new Katar arrived, Fel Andar revealed himself and was more or less written away
to make things less complicated.
Oh yeah, and the Golden Age hawks are now back from their fight in limbo so now we have
two Hawkmen again.
It’s around this time that they also tried to flesh out the new Katar’s history by
revealing that like Fel Andar, he was ALSO half-human.
That and both Carter and Katar were avatars of some Native American hawk spirit, but neither
of those plot points really went anywhere.
Moving on.
Up next was the book Zero Hour which mainly existed to fill in DC’s plot holes.
So naturally, the Hawkmen were prime targets.
One of the biggest changes in the wake of Zero Hour was that both Carter and Katar were
fused together into one super mega hawk god thing.
Oh, and they were also fused with the Golden Age Hawkgirl and a literal Thanagarian hawk
god, but nobody seems to want to talk about that.
Now there’s only one Hawkman, the hybrid hawk thing that ended up being a super brooding
and angsty version of Katar Hol, now with natural wings because comics.
At this point, DC agreed that Hawkman was too confusing so with the help of the heroes
Arion and Martian Manhunter, he just goes away into the realm of that Native American
hawk spirit that we mentioned earlier.
Enter comic book legend Grant Morrison.
He started working on a Justice League of America book and wanted a new version of Hawkman,
but DC vetoed that decision because of how convoluted his history was.
You know that things are bad when a character is so confusing that they won’t even let
Grant Morrison of all people touch it.
As a result, Morrison made the angel Zauriel.
Who you might as well just call “Totally Not Hawkman”.
Yet since he has no connection to the previous hawks other than than his editorial origins,
we won’t really discuss him in this video.
Of course though, Hawkman had to come back to life at some point and… he did.
The Hawkgirl at the time was summoned to a pretty destroyed Thanagar by some priests
to use her connection with Katar in order to bring him back to life and save the day.
Now despite the fact that this is a THANAGARIAN RITUAL took place ON THANAGAR, Katar was not
resurrected.
Carter Hall was, but it’s okay because he has all of Katar’s memories too.
Sure, why not?
This version of Hawkman continued on for a little while until he’s killed by some alien
Manhawks and he’s replaced by a guy named Charley Parker.
Charley was originally introduced in the 70s as a Hawkman fanboy, but was later retconned
and reintroduced as a deadbeat who was trained by Carter Hall.
He became a member of the Teen Titans as the hero Golden Eagle and he was killed by a member
of the Wildebeest Society in the storyline Titans Hunt, but then he came back to life
because comics.
When Carter Hall died, Charley took over as the all new Hawkman and even revealed that
he was Carter’s son.
This lasted for about one whole issue because when Charley tried to force himself onto Hawkgirl,
he revealed that he was actually the son of Fel Andar and that it was HIM that pulled
all the strings to have Carter killed.
Yet it didn’t work because Hawkman was in fact NOT dead and kicked Charley’s ass.
So yes, Hawkman seemingly died, was replaced, had his protege turn into a super villain,
and came back from almost dying in the span of less than five issues.
Now thankfully, we are almost done!
In Blackest Night, the hawks are killed in the very first issue, resurrected as Black
Lanterns, and at the end of the book they’re resurrected again as White Lanterns.
To make things better, they’re also free from the cycle of reincarnation!
Now they have a role to play in the Brightest Day event, but literally EVERYTHING we have
talked about in this video was rendered null and void because Flashpoint happened and reset
the entire DC universe into the New 52.
Things are much easier with the reboot.
Hawkman is just Katar Hol, but now with Nth Metal armor that’s bonded to his skin.
Ironically, the simplest version of the character is also one of the least interesting, but
for the purpose of this video, we’re not going to talk about his book, but instead
end off with this tidbit.
There was a SUPER long event called Future’s End that showed what the future of the New
52’s universe would be like in about five years.
It led into a very mediocre event called Convergence that dealt with intersecting multiverses including,
you guessed it, the PRE AND POST-CRISIS universes.
Because of the multiverse shenanigans, we got this picture that shows off the entire
Hawkman kerfuffle front and center.
So will this continuity nightmare ever end?
Only time will tell.
Most likely not.
So which Hawkman origin do you guys think is better?
The reincarnated Egyptian or the alien space cop?
Click to cast your vote or tweet me @TrailerDrake.
If you want to know more about how crazy DC’s continuity is, then just click that annotation
right there to check out the history of EVERY.
SINGLE.
FLASH.
Also like and subscribe and all that stuff kthxbye!