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Ktar, the very first Hawkman who serves as a general for the Deathbringers, a race of titanic gods that require mass sacrifices in their names. Ktar and his his ally, Idamm, are charged with collecting the individuals to be sacrificed -- when we first meet Ktar, he has just finished a campaign on Thanagar, which led to 12,000 prisoners being rounded up. The sacrifices are then taken to the temple world of Qgga, where they are thrown to the deaths in service to “The Lord Beyond The Void” so that he may one day escape into our universe and lead his Deathbringers on a path of devastation, but Ktar has been having second thoughts.
During his time on Thanagar, Ktar saw a woman among the dead who approached him and uttered the words, “You are in pain, warrior,” to which Ktar told her to hide before Idamm found her and added her to the field of dead. The woman appeared again on Qgga, lurking in the shadows, just out of the corner of Ktar’s eye. From then on, every world Ktar traveled to, the woman would be there watching him. The weight of his actions weighed heavy on his conscience until the time came for the final sacrifice, the one which would bring The Lord Beyond The Void into the universe. Again under the judgemental eye of the woman who watches, Ktar refused to commit this last act and instead set about freeing the enslaved to help him bring down the temple and stop the ascension.
Ktar was able to keep Idamm busy while the chained Thanagarians dragged the sacred pillar into the void to stop the dead god’s return. In doing so, they brought down the entire planet of Qgga around them. Idamm was able to pin Ktar to a wall with his spear, but was crushed shortly thereafter by falling debris. In his dying moments, the woman approached Ktar and offered him her hand, saying that no one deserves to die alone. As the gateway closes, The Lord Beyond The Void swears to his former general that he will not only get his revenge, but that one day Ktar will serve as the weapon he was always intended to be. Then, the portal seals shut and Ktar dies staring at the stars without the answer to his final question… what was the woman’s name?
Ktar awakens in a field of skulls with a mysterious, omnipresent voice as his only company. He is told that he has a choice between life and death. He can accept death and whatever judgement may come with it, or he can live again in a cycle of reincarnation to make amends for the lives he slaughtered. If he chooses to live again, he will be trapped in a cycle of reincarnation across space and time until he has saved as many lives as he was responsible for ending, and considering the Deathbringers slaughtered civilizations and offered up sacrifices in the five-figure range, that’s going to be quite a lot of lives that need saving before Ktar can know peace. Still, the Deathbringer chooses to live again and the voice gives him a final word of warning: The Deathbringers will return, and when they do, each life they take will once again be added to Ktar’s tally until he stops them once and for all.