Explain the Appeal ~ Hawkman

[Frontier]

Strangely enought your reasons to like Hawkman remind me a lot to Wolverine. Of course they had differences, but that dichotomy beetween savagery and nobility remind me a lot to Logan.

I was thinking to myself while typing that out how much that seemed a lot like Wolverine too .

[TheCape]

I was thinking to myself while typing that out how much that seemed a lot like Wolverine too .

Great minds think alike

[Tenzel Kim]

While Dennis Neville (the first Hawk artist) and Sheldon Moldoff (who took over the series very early in its run in FLASH COMICS) were reading Alex Raymond's FLASH GORDON and cutting out panels from the strip for their swipe file.

Wow. Knew he was inspired by Flash Gordon but sis not know he was swiping the art. Always liked the art on Hawkman but seeing panels like this next to one another Moldoff's art really pales compared to that of Raymond.

[DrNewGod]

While Dennis Neville (the first Hawk artist) and Sheldon Moldoff (who took over the series very early in its run in FLASH COMICS) were reading Alex Raymond's FLASH GORDON and cutting out panels from the strip for their swipe file.

Wow. Knew he was inspired by Flash Gordon but sis not know he was swiping the art. Always liked the art on Hawkman but seeing panels like this next to one another Moldoff's art really pales compared to that of Raymond.

Kind of begs the question: how many big name DC characters would have been sued into oblivion if today's trademark/copyright environment had existed in 1938? (IMO, only two of DC's historical top 7 would still be here)

[Ascended]

Thank you, to both you and everyone else whose replied, for elaborating what you see in him. These things you're all mentioning aren't exactly traits that appeal to me, but I can definitely see why others like them.

Happy to help, in whatever small way I can. As I said, I'm not an expert on Hawkman.

However, I have to disagree here. Carter didn't enter the JSA series until over 20 issues into it and Kendra was already a very likable, fleshed out character with a compelling storyline long before then. If anything, I think Carter is detrimental to her as once he entered the picture, most of her page time was centered around him and it was increasingly frustrating.

I'm definitely a bigger fan of Hawkgirl than I am of any version of Carter. Of the two, she's been my favorite since I discovered Hawkworld some years back.

I do think that, of the two of them, Kendra is more self-sufficient and "whole" but even then, a big part of that is the role she plays in their shared narrative; she's the one who, in this life, is fighting against destiny. Much (not all, of course) of her greater independence and development is specifically to play off of Carter.

They both have several traits and motivations that are unique to them, but I feel they're both missing that deeper level of nuance and development.

I disagree. Take away Hawkgirl/woman and Hawkman is still an archeologist, whose interest in the past and the occult still draws him into many a mystery. Whether informed by past life memories, or the Absorbascom, he is still a hero with unique perspectives on the world around him. Whether motivated by an ancient royal nobless oblige, or a police officer's training, he still views civilization and people as worth defending.

Hawkgirl/woman's absence doesn't make him less, but it denies him being something more: part of a loving, stable relationship. I just would like to see the "more" restored to him.

Oh, Carter's definitely got enough going on to get by. I myself listed several traits and personality contradictions that are wholly Carter's and have little, if any, connection to Kendra/Shayera/whoever. But what's his favorite food? What is the one specific thing that scares him or gives him the creeps? What's his favorite car? Little details like this are the things I'm talking about. I mean, do we even know what initially drew him to archaeology as a field of study (seriously, I dont know)? Carter's got a career and a motivation and a basic framework, but these tiny details are largely (to my knowledge) missing. And I believe it's because he and Kendra have to split panel time and get "developed" together. Their ties to each other is both their greatest asset as characters, and their biggest obstacle.

But again, I'm no expert. I've read my share of Hawk stories, but there's plenty I haven't read and it could just be that I've never encountered the kind of deeper nuances I'm talking about. So take my opinion here with a grain of salt. And if someone does know the answers to questions like "what's his favorite song?" or whatever, I'd love to have my ignorance rectified!

[JackDaw]

Happy to help, in whatever small way I can. As I said, I'm not an expert on Hawkman.



I'm definitely a bigger fan of Hawkgirl than I am of any version of Carter. Of the two, she's been my favorite since I discovered Hawkworld some years back.

I do think that, of the two of them, Kendra is more self-sufficient and "whole" but even then, a big part of that is the role she plays in their shared narrative; she's the one who, in this life, is fighting against destiny. Much (not all, of course) of her greater independence and development is specifically to play off of Carter.

They both have several traits and motivations that are unique to them, but I feel they're both missing that deeper level of nuance and development.


But again, I'm no expert. I've read my share of Hawk stories, but there's plenty I haven't read and it could just be that I've never encountered the kind of deeper nuances I'm talking about. So take my opinion here with a grain of salt. And if someone does know the answers to questions like "what's his favorite song?" or whatever, I'd love to have my ignorance rectified!

That..leaving all those “nuances” unanswered is deliberate policy, not just for Hawkman, but for all the main DC/Marvel characters.

The idea is, I think, to leave them fairly “blank” so each reader can foist their own preferences onto their favourite characters.

Actually, I think Hawkman is more “filled in” than most. For example, it’s obvious he leans toward Republican politics. There are other characters, that I have followed through many adventures, where I don’t have a clue about their politics.

[Jim Kelly]

When Ollie was having those arguments with Carter (aka Katar) in the 1970s (thanks to Len Wein), the politics of Arrow were hard to work out. To me he didn't seem a liberal, since Hal was clearly a liberal and Ollie was getting in arguments with him, too. I think the Emerald Archer was an extremists--and when politics are so out there, the right and the left meet. Certainly, once Mike Grell started writing him, Queen seemed more like a survivalist rough justice guy. This is the same problem I have with Billy Jack--is he left or right or do those labels even have any meaning?

And Hawkman was from a completely different planet. He had knowledge of everything on Earth--but that generalized knowledge probably didn't give him a clear political perspective. His response to Green Arrow was the response of an alien to a hothead Earthling espousing whacky theories.

Classic Hawkman--the Egyptian reincarnation--was a typical DC hero. He didn't have extreme views. But in the modern era, writers have got hold of him and tried to make him "Savage" just because he uses a mace. However, I explain this as the fact that current Carter remembers all of his past lives. In these different lives, he would have had different personalities. So the current Hawkman is so strange because he's having a hard time controlling his personality.

[Ascended]

That..leaving all those “nuances” unanswered is deliberate policy, not just for Hawkman, but for all the main DC/Marvel characters.

Perhaps. And I'll admit that I tend to use Superman as the metric when judging almost anything in comics, which is incredibly unfair to every other character out there since Superman has seen far more issues than nearly anyone else. But with Clark, I can tell you what his favorite foods are, what his favorite Metallica album is, and what his favorite movie is, all from looking at what is said on panel.

I can also explain, in detail, the odd contradictions in his character and point out where the chinks in his armor are and the places where his actual character goes against the public perception of the character. But that also comes from reading far more Superman than anything else too, so again; unfair to Carter.

I know DC policy is to avoid things like politics and religion in most of their titles, allowing the audience to fill in the blanks to their preference. And odds are a lot of these characters aren't terribly political anyway. When you decide to go outside the law to enforce our own sense of justice, you probably don't care very much about the tripe political parties spout out or who your local representative is; if you cared about the system you'd be involved in it instead of becoming a masked vigilante, right? But I also know that there are more subtle developments and quirks and traits that come into the picture. And to my knowledge, Carter doesn't have many of those. The biggest seem to be the contradiction between his "noble savage" brutality and impatience and his career in archaeology, which of course requires tremendous forethought and care and patience.

Actually, I think Hawkman is more “filled in” than most. For example, it’s obvious he leans toward Republican politics. There are other characters, that I have followed through many adventures, where I don’t have a clue about their politics.

He's more filled out than a lot of C-listers, that's true. But Hawkman also exists in that weird place between "major name" and "who?" I mean, most everyone in America knows the name and will probably recognize the classic visual, just like most people will recognize Flash or Aquaman, but they don't know anything beyond the name and costume. And I still maintain that a huge part of Carter's character is dependent on Hawkgirl/woman; erase her from continuity and big parts of Carter no longer make sense.

[Ascended]

When Ollie was having those arguments with Carter (aka Katar) in the 1970s (thanks to Len Wein), the politics of Arrow were hard to work out. To me he didn't seem a liberal, since Hal was clearly a liberal and Ollie was getting in arguments with him, too. I think the Emerald Archer was an extremists--and when politics are so out there, the right and the left meet. Certainly, once Mike Grell started writing him, Queen seemed more like a survivalist rough justice guy. This is the same problem I have with Billy Jack--is he left or right or do those labels even have any meaning?

And Hawkman was from a completely different planet. He had knowledge of everything on Earth--but that generalized knowledge probably didn't give him a clear political perspective. His response to Green Arrow was the response of an alien to a hothead Earthling espousing whacky theories.

Classic Hawkman--the Egyptian reincarnation--was a typical DC hero. He didn't have extreme views. But in the modern era, writers have got hold of him and tried to make him "Savage" just because he uses a mace. However, I explain this as the fact that current Carter remembers all of his past lives. In these different lives, he would have had different personalities. So the current Hawkman is so strange because he's having a hard time controlling his personality.

I'm pretty sure by today's standards that era of Ollie would be classified as a left-leaning libertarian, actually. He was big on the self-sufficiency, low-regulation, make-your-own-way politics, but also championed anti-discrimination laws and tax hikes for the rich.

Ollie as he's currently written seems to be a fairly straight forward liberal, veering heavily on the SJW extreme end of the spectrum. It's a little hard to tell because not only do I trade wait that book (so I'm always behind) the people and forces he's fighting against are actually evil, rather than just having a different political view. Would he rage against the "smart-tech city" stuff being done to Seattle/Star City if it was Bruce Wayne funding it?

[Jim Kelly]

Libertarian, yeah, that's the word I was looking for before.

I don't like identifying the characters by actual political parties. I think it's too divisive. It's one thing to say Carter is a conservative (that includes a wide swath of people) but it's something else to say he's a Republican.

Actually, just like they have made-up cities and made-up sports teams, DC should have made-up political parties.

[Ascended]

Libertarian, yeah, that's the word I was looking for before.

I don't like identifying the characters by actual political parties. I think it's too divisive. It's one thing to say Carter is a conservative (that includes a wide swath of people) but it's something else to say he's a Republican.

Actually, just like they have made-up cities and made-up sports teams, DC should have made-up political parties.

That's a great idea.

I've long wanted to see a DC title that explores how eighty years of superhumanity (if we include the JSA) has influenced the world. What does religion look like in a world where gods are real? What would a philosophy built by a metahuman look like? How has interactions with aliens impacted society? What about nations like Themyscria and Atlantis? How do they influence and impact national politics and military strategy? How do you cut a trade deal with a country that's completely underwater and relies on magic the way we rely on electricity?

There's so much there you could do......my dream is to see an earth-2 that actually explores all this; with heroes arriving in the 30's and 40's, the JSA following soon after, and then just running with it; Ted Knight's cosmic energy technology powering cars and houses and phones, magic as a course of study at Harvard, philosophy built around the ideals of Paradise Island.......it'd be a fascinating alt-earth.

[Comic-Reader Lad]

Here's a question for Hawkfans:

WHICH Hawkman do you like better? The Golden Age reincarnated Prince Khufu or the Silver Age Thanagarian Katar Hol?


For me, I grew up with Silver Age Katar, but post-Crisis, I feel that Hawkman was kind of ruined by Hawkworld as not only did it screw up Katar's continuity, I felt the whole rich-above/poor-below leftist-subtext re-imagining of Thanagar was both uninteresting and unoriginal.

Golden Age Carter, who has ties to ancient Egypt, has more interesting story potential for me than yet another alien DC character.

I haven't read Geoff Johns' JSA series, but it seems to me that there is a story to be told linking ancient-Egypt derived characters like Hawkman, Hawkgirl (Shiera), Dr. Fate, Black Adam, Shazam, and Ibis the Invincible. Has Johns or anyone ever done this type of shared history story?

[scary harpy]

Here's a question for Hawkfans:

WHICH Hawkman do you like better? The Golden Age reincarnated Prince Khufu or the Silver Age Thanagarian Katar Hol?


For me, I grew up with Silver Age Katar, but post-Crisis, I feel that Hawkman was kind of ruined by Hawkworld as not only did it screw up Katar's continuity, I felt the whole rich-above/poor-below leftist-subtext re-imagining of Thanagar was both uninteresting and unoriginal.

Golden Age Carter, who has ties to ancient Egypt, has more interesting story potential for me than yet another alien DC character.

I haven't read Geoff Johns' JSA series, but it seems to me that there is a story to be told linking ancient-Egypt derived characters like Hawkman, Hawkgirl (Shiera), Dr. Fate, Black Adam, Shazam, and Ibis the Invincible. Has Johns or anyone ever done this type of shared history story?

Golden age.

Agreed.

Agreed.

I feel the silver-age sci-fi space-cop reboot worked for Green Lantern much better than it worked for Hawkman. The Hawkworld decision debacle ruined any chance Hawkman might have had.

I also feel the golden-age Carter Hall is more relatable simply because his human backstory is more easily accessible.

I also really want his golden-age villains revisited and updated.

[BatmanJones]

Here's a question for Hawkfans:

WHICH Hawkman do you like better? The Golden Age reincarnated Prince Khufu or the Silver Age Thanagarian Katar Hol?


For me, I grew up with Silver Age Katar, but post-Crisis, I feel that Hawkman was kind of ruined by Hawkworld as not only did it screw up Katar's continuity, I felt the whole rich-above/poor-below leftist-subtext re-imagining of Thanagar was both uninteresting and unoriginal.

Golden Age Carter, who has ties to ancient Egypt, has more interesting story potential for me than yet another alien DC character.

I haven't read Geoff Johns' JSA series, but it seems to me that there is a story to be told linking ancient-Egypt derived characters like Hawkman, Hawkgirl (Shiera), Dr. Fate, Black Adam, Shazam, and Ibis the Invincible. Has Johns or anyone ever done this type of shared history story?

I'm more a JLA fan than a Hawkfan according to the times I grew up in. I started reading comics as a kid in the 70s and I loved Carter Hall and the JSA too but I came to know them first via JLA, which was the definitive DC book to me and my favorite too. I can't make a good argument for Katar being more interesting than Carter but Katar has always been "my" Hawkman and he probably always will be.

I have enjoyed a lot of 'modern' JSA/Carter Hall stories and I enjoyed a lot of older ones too. Still Katar's Hawkman to me as surely as Ray Palmer is The Atom, with Al Pratt being a secondary but still beloved character to me.

Regardless of which I prefer though I don't like the mashup and I never have. I liked them both better as separate characters than as an amalgamation. The mashup solution will always feel inauthentic to me.

It's just a function of when I developed nostalgia for the DCU of my childhood.

[Jim Kelly]

Well, I grew up with Thanagar Hawkman, too. Sure, it wasn't so long before I discovered the FLASH COMICS Hawkman, as well, and I have an affection for him--but I always felt more strongly about Katar and Shayera. The HAWKWORLD prestige format series fit in perfectly with the Hawkman and Hawkgirl we knew from THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD 34 - 36 & 42 - 44; it was only the HAWKWORLD ongoing that threw a spanner in the works.

And the "solution" that blond Carter Hall was both the Hawkman of the JSA AND the Hawkman of the JLA was no solution at all. It gave him a split personality. What? when the JLA/JSA had all those crossovers, did Carter have conversations with himself, taking off and putting on different helmets? It made me a little more than peeved with the original Hawkman that he was trying to take the place of a character I liked so much.

Also, I think the classic Justice Society and the classic Justice League each have their own identity, which is summed up in the Hawkman they each had. Khufu/Carter was a reincarnation of an Egyptian prince--he was a very supernatural type character. Katar/Carter was an interplanetary policeman--he was a very science fiction type character. The JSA included on its team a lot of mystical characters--Dr. Fate, the Spectre, Johnny Thunder, Green Lantern. The JLA's ranks included a lot of space age characters--Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, the Flash, the Atom. It's really a defining distinction between a lot of the "Golden Age" versus the "Silver Age" at DC.