Hawkman’s making a comeback!
If you’ve been following DC’s Dark Nights Metal story arc, you’re more than aware
that Carter Hall’s Hawkman has been taken over by Barbatos – an evil demon from the
Dark Multiverse who is trying to invade the regular multiverse – and is now become his
‘dragon’, guarding the world forge, also known as the Dark Forge these days.
Batman and Superman encounter the character when they come looking for Nth metal – the
only property capable of defeating Barbatos and the other atrocities that are from the
dark multiverse.
But why Carter?
What’s Nth Metal all about?
And what’s the deal with his part in this story?
Well, we aim to answer some of those questions with our top 10 Hawkman – Dragon of Barbatos
facts list.
10 Keeper of the Dark Forge Let’s start off this list by outlining what
exactly has be revealed so far.
By Dark Nights Metal 3, Batman and Superman have entered the Forge of Worlds, only to
discover that there’s a new dragon in Barbatos’ place.
For those of you not fully up to date, Barbatos was once the dragon in the world forge, who
would consume all of the unstable worlds created by the Forger.
But Barbatos rebelled and became the demon he is today, killing the Forger in the process.
Flash forward to the Dark Nights Metal timeline, Barbatos has finally found a way to open a
door to the multiverse via Batman, and Carter Hall has now replaced him as the dragon, transformed
into this disturbing dark version of himself.
The Forge of Worlds has transformed too, with the Dark Multiverse now influencing it to
craft up ‘nightmares’, like Crime Alley.
9 Origin So why Carter Hall?
Originally, he was an ancient Egyptian prince named Khufu.
He finds a Thanagarian spaceship containing a substance named Nth metal that negated gravity
– a substance that is melted down into various remarkable objects, all of which give Khufu
his powers, along with his consort and love, Chay-Ara.
But a villainous priest by the name of Hath-Set betrays him and kills him and Chay-Ara with
a knife made of Nth metal.
Except, because of the proximity to the Nth metal, Khufu’s soul has been altered, and
he and Chay-Ara are fated to constantly reincarnate.
Flash forward multiple reincarnations later to Carter Hall, the latest.
He’s brought back by Thanagarians in order to fight off a villain named Onimar Synn who
intends on taking over the planet; they needed a champion, and due to his unorthodox resurrection,
he remembers all of his memories from his past lives, as well as the memories of Thanagar’s
original Hawkman, Katar Hol.
So the character’s connection to Nth metal is a big one.
8 Tracking down Nth metal After the big reveal that Carter had become
the new dragon of the World Forge, we were given a tie in issue called Hawkman Found,
which focuses on the story behind how Carter got consumed by Barbatos, and how Carter has
been tracking down the origins of Nth metal for years.
Nth metal has always been an odd not-really-discussed property in the DC universe, for the most
part directly tied into Carter’s character, so the connections between his origin story
and the property being used to take down one of the biggest threats the DC universe has
faced is pretty revolutionary to some.
Anyway, Hawkman found states that Carter has been looking for answer s about Nth metal
for years, keeping a journal of his journey.
7 Martian Manhunter Turns out Hawkman isn’t the only person
who has been hunting down answers about Nth metal.
Martian Manhunter, who appears in Dark Nights Metal 5, manages to free both Mr Terrific
and Green Lantern on Thanagar Prime, and reveals that he’s also been looking for answers
behind the Nth metal mystery.
The reason why this is intriguing is because Martian Manhunter has been MIA since the beginning
of DC Rebirth.
6 Hath-Set This isn’t the first time Barbatos has tried
to access the regular multiverse.
He initially tried through Hawkman’s nemesis, Hath-Set, the evil priest who murdered Hawkman
initially.
Hath-Set was Barbatos’ first conduit, and through this body, had been severely harmed
by Hawkman’s mace, which is made of Nth metal.
Hath-Set became his nemesis after Khufu found the Nth metal and decided to use it for good,
to usher in a new age of peace for Egypt.
5 Jeff Lemire Let’s talk a little bit about the author
behind Hawkman Found.
While Scott Synder and Greg Capullo are the driving force behind the Dark Nights Metal
arc, the tie in issues have included some prominent ‘newer’ talent to join DC’s
roster, including Jeff Lemire, a Canadian cartoonist whose known for his original graphic
novels, which typically deal with rural Canadian life and the loss that comes with it.
But he’s no stranger to superheroes – he was behind the new 52’s Animal Man, Green
Arrow and various Justice League arcs, as well as the New 52 Future’s End.
He’s also worked for Marvel, including writing for the Old Man Logan series in 2016.
4 Silver Age More of a Hawkman fact than one that ties
into him being the dragon of Barbatos , let’s take a look into Hawkman’s really weird
turn during the silver age.
So when the character first debuted, it was in Jay Garrick’s Flash Comics, in issue
#1 in 1940.
He was the secondary story to Jay’s, and occasionally, he’d headline the comic as
well.
His origins weren’t overly different – while we were introduced to him as Carter Hall the
archaeologist, Carter discovers the Nth metal knife from his past and things are put in
motion.
But then the silver age got weird – as it done for most heroes, lets be frank – and
his origin changed to him being Katar Hol, an alien space cop from Thanagar.
This occurred in 1961 right before the issue of the flash of two worlds, where DC’s multiverse
officially came into existence, which then allowed for both versions of Hawkman to exist.
This pretty much stayed the same until Crisis on Infinite Earths, with 1989’s Hawkworld
redefining the new hawkmen yet again, and finally, the new 52 sticking with Carter being
Hawkman.
Confusing much?
3 His Curse One of the most integral components to Hawkman’s
origin as a hero comes in the form of his curse – that when he dies, he will always
reincarnate.
But it’s a bit more specific than that – since he and Chay-Ara used the Nth metal objects
so closely, when they were murdered by Hath-Set, they became cursed – the two will always
be reincarnated, and will always be complete once they find one another, but will inevitably
share the same fate over and over again – once they’re together, they will be murdered,
and must come back to life in a new body and find each other all over again.
2 His New Abilities Aside from quoting Gandalf and giving off
some serious Songbird from Bioshock infinite vibes, it appears this beastly new version
of the character still maintains the abilities he previously had, but there’s still not
much known about the full extent of his new power.
Other than he’s big.
And his hammer swings are deadly.
That being said, it’s safe to speculate that he would now have some of the abilities
that Barbatos had while in his dragon form ages and ages ago.
The character can likely manipulate darkness, consume worlds, alter reality within the forge,
and perhaps infect those nearby with the powers of the dark multiverse.
1 Amnesia During their confrontation, Batman tries to
job Carter’s memory in an attempt to stop him from attacking both he and Superman.
He doesn’t seem to recall his past as Hawkman at all, to the point where Bruce even quotes
a line that Carter had written in his journal , “To retreat is to walk alone, to explore
is to walk with generations, dead and alive, in an act of love.”
There is a brief moment though where he hesitates in his attacks on Bruce and Clark, hinting
to readers that perhaps not all is lost for Carter after all.
There is still one issue left to the Dark Nights Metal story arc, and with the Dark
Multiverse now fully invading the regular multiverse, shit is about to go down.
What are all of your predictions for how the story will end?
Do you think Carter will return to his form state?
And on a different note, would you like us to do more videos on Hawkman in general?
Let us know in those comments below.
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In the meantime, thanks for watching.
I’ve been Kelly Paoli and this has been top 10 nerd.
Catch you all in the next one.