Originally Posted by
Bored at 3:00AM
While I thought the Hawkworld arc in Justice League was a bit of a dud, I really appreciated how it neatly separated Kendra "Hawkgirl" Saunders and Shayera "Hawkwoman" Thal into two distinct characters that are still linked, but can now explore different paths without either making the other feel redundant.
I also loved the perfect fix of explaining that Hawkman has been living lives across time and space, thereby allowing all previous incarnations of him to co-exist while also opening up a limitless number of new reincarnations from across the DCU. However, I am not really a fan of retconning Hawkman into a guy trying to gain redemption because he was in charge of the Space Holocaust. Granted, I didn't find the character particularly compelling to begin with (aside from the awesome visuals and cool reincarnation backstory), but making him the ex-leader of some kind of cosmic SS doesn't really help me sympathize with him at all. I preferred Johns's doomed lovers angle, but I suppose that didn't resonate with enough readers either.
Personally, I'm just not interested in reading about a Space Nazi trying to make up for murdering trillions. Cloud Atlas played with this idea in an interesting way, but I don't know if it necessarily works within the context of a superhero context. Given how poorly Hawkman has been selling, I don't think I was the only one who felt that way. Maybe they can course correct with the whole Dark Multiverse angle they're setting up.