Hawk and Dove are underutilized

[LordUltimus]

You ever notice that Hawk and Dove is never really played to its full potential? It's always either "Dove is a bleeding heart that complains too much" or "Hawk is a hyper-aggressive meathead that's out of control" when they want to explore the concept of having different approaches to crime-fighting, or they basically agree on everything with slight details differing at worst.

[Frontier]

I do feel like they're on paper a really effective concept that gets nowhere near executed as well as it could be.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I saw them first in JLU so maybe they need a team book with a third character as a mediator?

[BlackClaw]

Who knows? Knowing how much James Gunn loves lesser known characters, we might see them show up in the DCU.

[Bruce Wayne]

At least they (mostly Johns) fixed most of the damage from Armaggedon 2001.

[Frontier]

Who knows? Knowing how much James Gunn loves lesser known characters, we might see them show up in the DCU.

Curious if they'd start off with Hank and Don (and set up Don dying) or go for Hank and Dawn from the get-go.

[Captain Nostalgia]

You ever notice that Hawk and Dove is never really played to its full potential? It's always either "Dove is a bleeding heart that complains too much" or "Hawk is a hyper-aggressive meathead that's out of control" when they want to explore the concept of having different approaches to crime-fighting, or they basically agree on everything with slight details differing at worst.

With the industry arguably on the brink, a lot of people's favourite characters are being underutilized these days.
Unless they pop up in a new Titans title or a government agency book (Checkmate/Suicide Squad) I don't see them being utilized much in the near future.

The stereotypical Hawk as a right wing aggressor & Dove as the left wing bleeding heart is the basis of their characters from their inception, as they were in part a commentary on the Vietnam war.

The incarnation of Hawk & Dove I loved died off when I was still in Elementary school with the death of Don Hall.

I think it was a mistake to kill him, because Don Hall was the better version of masculinity in my opinion, (Don Hall, introspect & intelligent, with Hank Hall representing hyper or toxic masculinity if you believe such a thing) When they made Dove a women with Dawn Granger they unwittingly reinforced traditional gender norms, Hawk took on the symbol of masculinity and Dove the symbol of femininity. Perhaps that's why they tried to do away with Hank Hall at one point.

Of course one could argue that the political stereotypes of the 60's (Hawk right wing toxic masculinity) (Dove left wing wimpy femininity) is outdated and does neither character any good.

At any rate, I think the trio is probably done, at one point they were quite popular, but I think the legacy character swaps kind of killed of their momentum.

[j9ac9k]

You ever notice that Hawk and Dove is never really played to its full potential? It's always either "Dove is a bleeding heart that complains too much" or "Hawk is a hyper-aggressive meathead that's out of control" when they want to explore the concept of having different approaches to crime-fighting, or they basically agree on everything with slight details differing at worst.

Where would you place Liefeld's "H&D" series on that spectrum? (I never read it, so I'm curious to hear someone's take on it)

[PurpleGlovez]

DC has at least 10,000 characters and concepts at any given time that are "underutilized" and are most likely not going to be "utilized" at any point in our lifetimes.

[Frontier]

With the industry arguably on the brink, a lot of people's favourite characters are being underutilized these days.
Unless they pop up in a new Titans title or a government agency book (Checkmate/Suicide Squad) I don't see them being utilized much in the near future.

The stereotypical Hawk as a right wing aggressor & Dove as the left wing bleeding heart is the basis of their characters from their inception, as they were in part a commentary on the Vietnam war.

The incarnation of Hawk & Dove I loved died off when I was still in Elementary school with the death of Don Hall.

I think it was a mistake to kill him, because Don Hall was the better version of masculinity in my opinion, (Don Hall, introspect & intelligent, with Hank Hall representing hyper or toxic masculinity if you believe such a thing) When they made Dove a women with Dawn Granger they unwittingly reinforced traditional gender norms, Hawk took on the symbol of masculinity and Dove the symbol of femininity. Perhaps that's why they tried to do away with Hank Hall at one point.

Of course one could argue that the political stereotypes of the 60's (Hawk right wing toxic masculinity) (Dove left wing wimpy femininity) is outdated and does neither character any good.

At any rate, I think the trio is probably done, at one point they were quite popular, but I think the legacy character swaps kind of killed of their momentum.

I think Dawn is a pretty great Dove though .

[Bruce Wayne]

Obviously, she is from the incarnation most people remember. Most people are frankly just not interested in the Vietnam era/Cold War era politics where Don/Dove was just a peacenik strawman for Ditko.

[Sutekh]

I never liked the characters in the comics, but the actors who played them on Titans really brought them to life and made me like them. That show's garbage when it comes to writing, but the various actors are pretty amazing.

And yeah, in the comics keeping the hyper-aggro one male, but changing the 'wimpy liberal' to a woman seemed a bit on-the-nose. If they're going to lean that far into the political tropes, I'd prefer both of them be men, or both of them be women. (Cause dudes can be liberals and ladies can be conservative.)

A story element about them I've always wondered about was their ties to the Lords of Order and Chaos. I haven't read enough about them to know much about this, but shouldn't this mean that one of them is more or less explicitly working for Dr. Fate (and the other almost as implicitly working *against* him?). I would expect that this connection would plant them firmly on the more supernatural and less 'Teen Titans-y' side of things, working alongside folks like Constantine, Shadowpact and the Justice League Dark, or with figures like Madame Xanadu or Baron Winters, or Etrigan, Deadman, Nightshade, etc. and yet I've never really seen them travel in those circles, which tend to be more populated with hand-wave-y spellcaster-types, and Hawk & Dove, supernaturally-enhanced brawlers, could really stand out and be more active at punching zombies / werewolves / vampires / demons than the typical members of that fraternity.

[TheCasualReader]

I never liked the characters in the comics, but the actors who played them on Titans really brought them to life and made me like them. That show's garbage when it comes to writing, but the various actors are pretty amazing.

And yeah, in the comics keeping the hyper-aggro one male, but changing the 'wimpy liberal' to a woman seemed a bit on-the-nose. If they're going to lean that far into the political tropes, I'd prefer both of them be men, or both of them be women. (Cause dudes can be liberals and ladies can be conservative.)

A story element about them I've always wondered about was their ties to the Lords of Order and Chaos. I haven't read enough about them to know much about this, but shouldn't this mean that one of them is more or less explicitly working for Dr. Fate (and the other almost as implicitly working *against* him?). I would expect that this connection would plant them firmly on the more supernatural and less 'Teen Titans-y' side of things, working alongside folks like Constantine, Shadowpact and the Justice League Dark, or with figures like Madame Xanadu or Baron Winters, or Etrigan, Deadman, Nightshade, etc. and yet I've never really seen them travel in those circles, which tend to be more populated with hand-wave-y spellcaster-types, and Hawk & Dove, supernaturally-enhanced brawlers, could really stand out and be more active at punching zombies / werewolves / vampires / demons than the typical members of that fraternity.

(This is based on the version of Hawk and Dove that I'm somewhat familiar with) Hawk and Dove's deal is basically that they're empowered by both a Lord of Chaos and a Lord of Order who fell in love and was cast out by their respective factions for falling love and, more importantly, for arguing that working together made them stronger (and that chaos and order should see the merit in working together)

Hawk and Dove is the two Lords' attempt to prove this to both chaos and order. So, Hawk isn't really empowered for the purpose of aiding chaos - if anything, he's actually empowered more for the opposite purpose since beating the shit out of agents of chaos with Dove (or any other agent of order) helps prove the merit of the two Lords' point.

[phonogram12]

Who knows? Knowing how much James Gunn loves lesser known characters, we might see them show up in the DCU.

Fingers crossed.

I think it was a mistake to kill him, because Don Hall was the better version of masculinity in my opinion, (Don Hall, introspect & intelligent, with Hank Hall representing hyper or toxic masculinity if you believe such a thing) When they made Dove a women with Dawn Granger they unwittingly reinforced traditional gender norms, Hawk took on the symbol of masculinity and Dove the symbol of femininity. Perhaps that's why they tried to do away with Hank Hall at one point.

Of course one could argue that the political stereotypes of the 60's (Hawk right wing toxic masculinity) (Dove left wing wimpy femininity) is outdated and does neither character any good.

Agreed with pretty much every word here. Much to the chagrin of many, the world and culture has evolved since the '60s. The idea that any of Don's traits can be perceived as exclusively feminine is beyond ridiculous.

At any rate, I think the trio is probably done, at one point they were quite popular, but I think the legacy character swaps kind of killed of their momentum.

This would be a shame.

And yeah, in the comics keeping the hyper-aggro one male, but changing the 'wimpy liberal' to a woman seemed a bit on-the-nose. If they're going to lean that far into the political tropes, I'd prefer both of them be men, or both of them be women. (Cause dudes can be liberals and ladies can be conservative.)

If the past few years has taught us anything, it is def this.

[Zero Hunter]

Where would you place Liefeld's "H&D" series on that spectrum? (I never read it, so I'm curious to hear someone's take on it)

Actually it was very good. It is where Dawn was introduced and fleshed out and introduced their arch villain Kestral and agent of the Lords of Chaos that poceses the bodies of others. Liefeld just does the art here with Barb and Karl Kesel doing the writing so the story doesn't suffer from Robs lazy writing.