Whats your preferred Hawkman origin?

[John Venus]

Honestly I have never liked Thanagar to begin with. I want them to be more alien and not just humans who wear wings. Give them all real wings and more bird like features. Yellow hawk like eyes. Maybe a heel tallon. Hair that is more like fine feathers than actual hair. Feather running about their arms. Just something to make them look more alien.

Thanagar is right in the middle of the humanoid aliens of Krypton and the more alien-aliens you see in GLC like Salakk, Tomare and Kilowog.

Their differences are mostly subtle. The most obvious quality is their wings which are sometimes, other times artificial. They are also more stronger and more durable than ordinary humans, have enhanced senses and can naturally communicate with birds (which implies that part of their minds are wired like birds).

Thanagar also has more alien like creatures like the reptilian based aliens and more hawk like aliens as well.

It seems weird that Katar would be so hard-boiled and harsh if he came from a paradise world. Maybe they have really strong coffee on Thanagar.

He wasn't particularly harsh early on. That came a little later. But the thing is . . . Silver Age Thanagar was kind of weird.

I say "paradise", but it wasn't without some very unique problems. They didn't have hunger or poverty. But they still had crime, just not with the societal drivers. Instead, all the criminals on Thanagar did it for the thrill of it. So, imagine being a police officer on a world where every criminal you haul in is there because they thought hurting people and stealing their property was fun and exciting. That'll likely drive you to be a little less forgiving with the criminal element.

That would also go a long way towards explaining Hawkman's extreme and unforgiving stance, as well, if he comes from a world where criminals are universally just thrillkillers and bored nihilists who 'just want to watch the world burn,' and none of them 'need to pay Aunt Maggie's hospital bills' or have some sort of correctible chemical imbalance or whatever.

Pre-Hawkworld Katar and Shayera weren't harsh. They were probably the most benign and softest members of the League to the point where it upset them when they had to fight their friends in Shadow War of Hawkman.

I should note that one of 'bad aids' for trying to fix the Hawkworld mess Post COIE was claiming that the Hawkman on JL was actually the reincarnation Hawkman (and later on it was Fel Andr as a sleeper agent). That guy definitely had some rough edges especially after Johns brought him back and his aggressive side was in full display around 'Crisis of Conscious', the Black Adam arc in JSA and a period in his own ongoing after being captured and tortured by some villains.

Katar and Shayera are also scientists at heart and not just cops and their scientific expertise and gadgets (which they built themselves) played a bigger role in JLA stories than their archaeology and cops sides.

On JLU, Shayera was the berserker and while I like the 'tough girl' personality of the character, I can't help but think that much like John Stewart, the over emphasis on the militaristic aspect of her character has lead to the decline of the more thoughtful and intellectual aspects of their characters.

[Jim Kelly]

Something I never understood, in terms of the revival Hawks, was why they came to Earth to study police methods, if all was copacetic on Thanagar. Their mission suggests that not everything was going okay on that planet--Byth being a prime example. There must have been a rising level of criminality on the planet which motivated the formation of the Hawk police and sending Katar and Shayera to Earth.

As an aside, it amused me that Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud (Dennis Weaver), from Taos, New Mexico, came to Manhattan to study the police methods of the New York Police Department. Clearly, Dennis Weaver's character was the Earth-TV counterpart of Earth-One's Katar Hol.

Anyway, even if things were peaceable on Thanagar before the Hawks left, it all went to pot afterwards.

Reminds me of J'Onn J'Onzz. When he first appears in DETECTIVE COMICS 225 (November 1955), he says that science has made crime obsolete on Mars. Fifteen years later, the planet is involved in an all out war.

[bat39]

He wasn't particularly harsh early on. That came a little later. But the thing is . . . Silver Age Thanagar was kind of weird.

I say "paradise", but it wasn't without some very unique problems. They didn't have hunger or poverty. But they still had crime, just not with the societal drivers. Instead, all the criminals on Thanagar did it for the thrill of it. So, imagine being a police officer on a world where every criminal you haul in is there because they thought hurting people and stealing their property was fun and exciting. That'll likely drive you to be a little less forgiving with the criminal element.

That's a fascinating idea to explore actually if they ever do revisit Silver Age Thanagar.

You should be happy to know that both in the Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert version of Thanagar and in the Tim Truman and Enrique Alcatena re-imagined Hawkworld there were other beings that looked really "alien."

The way I see it, these humanoid people like Katar might not have been native to the planet and they put on these costumes to make themselves appear like the creatures that were there before them. This works for me because I'm a human being and I like stories about other human beings. So I can better relate to other humans making themselves look alien to fit in with the local population.

It also works for the Egyptian version. In ancient Egypt and even later, people believed that all these weird hybrid creatures existed. There were bestiaries with lllustrations and descriptions of these creatures and travellers from afar claimed to have seen them. So you can view Hawkman as dressing up to look like one of those hybrids.

You also have Feithera the land of bird-people, first introduced in FLASH COMICS 71 (May 1946), a lost civilization in Greenland that Carter Hall discovered. Northwind (Norda Cantrell) came from there.

I much prefer that the wings are not biologically attached to the body, given that Katar and Shayera have to spend most of their time on Earth as regular humans. If the wings are part of them, then there has to be some stupid explanation that the wings somehow go inside their body or simply disappear when they're walking around as regular people. It's a lot easier to just say the wings aren't real. Let the Manhawks have the real wings.

I like the way the Arrowverse handled the wings...they are natural, but they can be retracted into the body, like Wolverine's claws.

In line with my preference for a human Carter and a Thanagarian Shayera, I'd have Carter's wings be artificial because they're based on ancient Thanagarian technology recovered from an Egyptian tomb, while Shayera's wings are a genetic modification that modern-day Thanagarians have which can be retracted into her body.

Pre-Hawkworld Katar and Shayera weren't harsh. They were probably the most benign and softest members of the League to the point where it upset them when they had to fight their friends in Shadow War of Hawkman.

I should note that one of 'bad aids' for trying to fix the Hawkworld mess Post COIE was claiming that the Hawkman on JL was actually the reincarnation Hawkman (and later on it was Fel Andr as a sleeper agent). That guy definitely had some rough edges especially after Johns brought him back and his aggressive side was in full display around 'Crisis of Conscious', the Black Adam arc in JSA and a period in his own ongoing after being captured and tortured by some villains.

Katar and Shayera are also scientists at heart and not just cops and their scientific expertise and gadgets (which they built themselves) played a bigger role in JLA stories than their archaeology and cops sides.

On JLU, Shayera was the berserker and while I like the 'tough girl' personality of the character, I can't help but think that much like John Stewart, the over emphasis on the militaristic aspect of her character has lead to the decline of the more thoughtful and intellectual aspects of their characters.

Were Carter and Shiera particularly rough Pre-COIE? (Well, I guess all Golden Age heroes were relatively rough, but were they particularly so?) Carter had a background of being an archeologist and intellectual so you could argue that he's another character who's been made more violent and 'savage' in modern depictions (though Venditti dialed that back and took a more holistic view of Carter's personality across his lives).

With the JLU, the thing was that because it was a cartoon they tried to give every character some memorable character traits that young viewers could easily remember. So Batman was the hardass, grumpy, dangerous guy. Wonder Woman was the nice, kind, peaceful one. Superman was the nice, kind peaceful one as well. Flash was the rookie hero and comedian of the group. J'onn was the intellectual and the serious one. So that left John to be the disciplined military man, and Shayera to be the violent warrior woman.

[kcekada]

Also, someone please do a Batman, Barry Allen, Katar and Shayera miniseries, please, that focuses on their detective and police work.

That would be great for an arc in Detective Comics. Hawkman used to be backup feature when Detective Comics had a 100-page Spectacular format.

[marhawkman]

You should be happy to know that both in the Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert version of Thanagar and in the Tim Truman and Enrique Alcatena re-imagined Hawkworld there were other beings that looked really "alien."

The way I see it, these humanoid people like Katar might not have been native to the planet and they put on these costumes to make themselves appear like the creatures that were there before them. This works for me because I'm a human being and I like stories about other human beings. So I can better relate to other humans making themselves look alien to fit in with the local population.

It also works for the Egyptian version. In ancient Egypt and even later, people believed that all these weird hybrid creatures existed. There were bestiaries with lllustrations and descriptions of these creatures and travellers from afar claimed to have seen them. So you can view Hawkman as dressing up to look like one of those hybrids.

You also have Feithera the land of bird-people, first introduced in FLASH COMICS 71 (May 1946), a lost civilization in Greenland that Carter Hall discovered. Northwind (Norda Cantrell) came from there.

I much prefer that the wings are not biologically attached to the body, given that Katar and Shayera have to spend most of their time on Earth as regular humans. If the wings are part of them, then there has to be some stupid explanation that the wings somehow go inside their body or simply disappear when they're walking around as regular people. It's a lot easier to just say the wings aren't real. Let the Manhawks have the real wings.

Even if the current gen Hawkman does not have biological wings, it's fairgame to say a previous incarnation did.

[Adekis]

I read an article recently about how "Hawkworld" does 2/3rds or 3/4ths of a really interesting commentary on the US as a dystopian state, only to wuss out toward the end and then just kind of drop that when the series moves to the actual real America. I thought it was really interesting.

[astro@work]

I'm a fan of the most recent reincarnations across multiple planets origin, because it allows for both the golden age reincarnations and Thanagar reincarnations to coexist.

While I love the Hawkworld stories, they screwed up Hawk continuity for decades by failing to start with the 3 little words "Ten Years ago..."

While it feels a little convoluted, the current origin at least allows for the "All stories count" idea - which is making most DC continuity a bloody disaster - actually 99% work for the Hawks.

[Refrax5]

Thanagar is right in the middle of the humanoid aliens of Krypton and the more alien-aliens you see in GLC like Salakk, Tomare and Kilowog.

Their differences are mostly subtle. The most obvious quality is their wings which are sometimes, other times artificial. They are also more stronger and more durable than ordinary humans, have enhanced senses and can naturally communicate with birds (which implies that part of their minds are wired like birds).

Thanagar also has more alien like creatures like the reptilian based aliens and more hawk like aliens as well.







Pre-Hawkworld Katar and Shayera weren't harsh. They were probably the most benign and softest members of the League to the point where it upset them when they had to fight their friends in Shadow War of Hawkman.

I should note that one of 'bad aids' for trying to fix the Hawkworld mess Post COIE was claiming that the Hawkman on JL was actually the reincarnation Hawkman (and later on it was Fel Andr as a sleeper agent). That guy definitely had some rough edges especially after Johns brought him back and his aggressive side was in full display around 'Crisis of Conscious', the Black Adam arc in JSA and a period in his own ongoing after being captured and tortured by some villains.

Katar and Shayera are also scientists at heart and not just cops and their scientific expertise and gadgets (which they built themselves) played a bigger role in JLA stories than their archaeology and cops sides.


On JLU, Shayera was the berserker and while I like the 'tough girl' personality of the character, I can't help but think that much like John Stewart, the over emphasis on the militaristic aspect of her character has lead to the decline of the more thoughtful and intellectual aspects of their characters.

I haven't read a ton of the satellite era League, admittedly, but I was always under the impression that was why he and Ollie butted heads. I don't mean that Katar was harsh as in violent, just that he was a very tough-on-crime, law-and-order cop guy.

Actually, Hawkworld Katar (who I'm much more familiar with) wasn't particularly harsh either, despite some of the darkness in his past. He was referred to as the "liberal from another planet" in that series.

[bat39]

I'm a fan of the most recent reincarnations across multiple planets origin, because it allows for both the golden age reincarnations and Thanagar reincarnations to coexist.

While I love the Hawkworld stories, they screwed up Hawk continuity for decades by failing to start with the 3 little words "Ten Years ago..."

While it feels a little convoluted, the current origin at least allows for the "All stories count" idea - which is making most DC continuity a bloody disaster - actually 99% work for the Hawks.

Exactly. Hawkman is one of the few DC characters for whom ''it all happened'' actually works (I guess the Flashes are another one given how time-travel and reboots are part of their history, but its even smoother with the Hawks).

[John Venus]

I like the way the Arrowverse handled the wings...they are natural, but they can be retracted into the body, like Wolverine's claws.

In line with my preference for a human Carter and a Thanagarian Shayera, I'd have Carter's wings be artificial because they're based on ancient Thanagarian technology recovered from an Egyptian tomb, while Shayera's wings are a genetic modification that modern-day Thanagarians have which can be retracted into her body.

Yeah, that was one of the few changes from the Arrowverse that actually worked.

Were Carter and Shiera particularly rough Pre-COIE? (Well, I guess all Golden Age heroes were relatively rough, but were they particularly so?) Carter had a background of being an archeologist and intellectual so you could argue that he's another character who's been made more violent and 'savage' in modern depictions (though Venditti dialed that back and took a more holistic view of Carter's personality across his lives).

With the JLU, the thing was that because it was a cartoon they tried to give every character some memorable character traits that young viewers could easily remember. So Batman was the hardass, grumpy, dangerous guy. Wonder Woman was the nice, kind, peaceful one. Superman was the nice, kind peaceful one as well. Flash was the rookie hero and comedian of the group. J'onn was the intellectual and the serious one. So that left John to be the disciplined military man, and Shayera to be the violent warrior woman.

I've read a few of Carter's Golden Age stories. I haven't read any of his Pre Crisis stuff so I can't say if he was aggressive in those days. He didn't have an ongoing (that I know of) like the alien Hawks did.

Not trying to knock JLU. I think they did a good job of giving each character a defined personality but also making them multi faceted. Shayera and John were one of the more complex characters on the show. I'm more talking about how later writers have interpreted those characters and how general fandom seem to perceive them.

I haven't read a ton of the satellite era League, admittedly, but I was always under the impression that was why he and Ollie butted heads. I don't mean that Katar was harsh as in violent, just that he was a very tough-on-crime, law-and-order cop guy.

Actually, Hawkworld Katar (who I'm much more familiar with) wasn't particularly harsh either, despite some of the darkness in his past. He was referred to as the "liberal from another planet" in that series.

Katar isn't a law and order guy. He rarely gets into arguments with any League members. Ollie on the other hand, is hot headed and argues with anyone and everyone including Katar. The latter is more of an example of 'beware the nice guy' trope. He is pleasant to talk to and he will calmly state his case but if you misinterpret and get on his nerves, he will progressively get more and more argumentative. Although I don't recall them arguing *that* often in the old Satellite era and I think it's just a case of modern writers exaggerating a few instances.

Barry was more of a conservative guy on old school JL since he got into an argument with Ollie when the latter listed Black Lightning being black as part of the reason to put him on the League. Even then that was attributed to Barry not being in the right state of mind because he was still reeling from Iris' death.

If Superman and Martian Manhunter both fall into the immigrant metaphor then so do the alien Hawks since they come across as a couple from another world, emotionally dependent on each other, trying to survive on this strange new world they've found themselves in and torn between the loyalty to their old world and the world they currently live in.

[Psy-lock]

The rivalry became a big thing after Carter was retconned into being the Satellite era Hawkman instead of Katar. Honestly, the pre-COIE "rivalry" seemed more like Ollie having a crush and not knowing how to handle it

[Jim Kelly]

Not to sound like a broken record, but I simply don't understand why they brought back the multiverse if they weren't going to take advantage of it.

[Stanlos]

Honestly I have never liked Thanagar to begin with. I want them to be more alien and not just humans who wear wings. Give them all real wings and more bird like features. Yellow hawk like eyes. Maybe a heel tallon. Hair that is more like fine feathers than actual hair. Feather running about their arms. Just something to make them look more alien.

I keep thinking about your comment above. I think there might have been a scifi TV show with exactly what you describe. I think the intro had a pretty lady in a white...astronaut suit(?) Walking down a hill. But there was a dude in a ship shaped like a bird and he had eyes and hairfeathers like you described

[Stanlos]

Not to sound like a broken record, but I simply don't understand why they brought back the multiverse if they weren't going to take advantage of it.

And this is my obligatory mention of Hypertime and accompanying gripe about the divas DiDio and Johns

[dornwolf]

Not to sound like a broken record, but I simply don't understand why they brought back the multiverse if they weren't going to take advantage of it.

I feel this could kick off an entire thread itself