Hawk and Dove are underutilized

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I'm curious what Gunn's take on them would be.

[j9ac9k]

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.

Sorry, that wasn't the series I was referring to. I was referring to the New 52 series. I thought Liefeld wrote it, but I looked it up and it was apparently Sterling Gates.

[Bruce Wayne]

Gates is only credited for five issues.

It's probably another open/shut case of Liefeld and the Harras people plotting/writing from bts.

And another example of New 52 derailment since that was clearly a followup to Brightest Day that was hijacked to allow Liefeld a foot in the door at DC.

[Robotman]

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that the political stereotypes of the 60's (Hawk right wing toxic masculinity) (Dove left wing wimpy femininity) is outdated and does neither character any good.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 agree. At its core the concept doesn’t hold up. The country isn’t divided between peace loving hippies and war mongering alpha males. But I think Dawn Granger has been a pretty good progression. She isn’t a stereotypical pacifist but a more hopeful embodiment of peace. I think Hank is the biggest problem with Hawk and Dove. He always devolves into a two dimensional ultra douche. That’s why I think the duo has only worked in the modern age with Holly and Dawn. Holly can still be an overly aggressive character but as a woman she’s still an oppressed demographic, so her war stance comes off more punk rock.

[j9ac9k]

I agree. At its core the concept doesn’t hold up. The country isn’t divided between peace loving hippies and war mongering alpha males.

What if they were retconned as being heroes in the 60s? With the sliding timeline, the gap between the JSA in WWII and modern heroes gets bigger and bigger with no (or very few) active heroes for decades. I know 5G originally tried to pepper heroes throughout history, but I wasn't a big fan of how they were going to do it from what I saw. And Hawk and Dove don't have super strong ties to the rest of the DCU anyway that it wouldn't create a ton of gaps if they were separated from modern heroes.

[Sutekh]

(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 **** out of agents of chaos with Dove (or any other agent of order) helps prove the merit of the two Lords' point.

Now that sounds like they would make an even better pair to hang out with a Justice League Dark / Shadowpact sort of supernatural group, which tend to have lots of waggly-finger spellcasters and sleuths like Zatanna and Constantine, and not quite so many straight up supernatural brawlers like Marvel's Blade or Elsa Bloodstone. Wonder Woman obviously fills that niche just fine for the JLD, but they aren't the only supernatural heroes / monster-hunters out there, and Diana doesn't have to handle all the punchy fighty stuff.

And the notion that the world needs both the safety and restraint of Order, but also will stagnate and die without the creativity and freedom of Chaos is a neat one. Sort of takes them out of the 'Jedi / Sith' good vs. evil paradigm and suggests that too much Law can be 'bad' and too little Chaos can also be detriment, leading to a cold sterile 'safe' world without freedom, hope or growth.

[Zero Hunter]

Sorry, that wasn't the series I was referring to. I was referring to the New 52 series. I thought Liefeld wrote it, but I looked it up and it was apparently Sterling Gates.

Ah ok. This series was not good. About the only interesting thing that come out of it was the characters of Condor and Swan who were basically evil versions of Hawk and Dove who wanted to kill them and take their power.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I rather genderswap Hank than Don. Replacing him with Holly felt like a better play.

[Comic Lore]

The series in the early 90s was good then they ruined Hank. The girl Hawk is a waist. Dawn was an improvement over Don.

[Captain Nostalgia]

I agree. At its core the concept doesn’t hold up. The country isn’t divided between peace loving hippies and war mongering alpha males. But I think Dawn Granger has been a pretty good progression. She isn’t a stereotypical pacifist but a more hopeful embodiment of peace. I think Hank is the biggest problem with Hawk and Dove. He always devolves into a two dimensional ultra douche. That’s why I think the duo has only worked in the modern age with Holly and Dawn. Holly can still be an overly aggressive character but as a woman she’s still an oppressed demographic, so her war stance comes off more punk rock.

A good and interesting analysis of Dawn Granger, I disagree with you on Hank Hall though. I like him precisely because he is an ultra douche. I know it's sort of a right wing stereotype (insensitive, over aggressive, hyper patriot) but I like him for that because it kind of seperates him from the crowd, and makes him somewhat unique in suiper hero world of do gooders.

Just to make it clear, Hank Hall has no relation to my own politics, but rather I just like to have a good variety of different types of heroes.

[K7P5V]

I agree. At its core the concept doesn’t hold up. The country isn’t divided between peace loving hippies and war mongering alpha males. But I think Dawn Granger has been a pretty good progression. She isn’t a stereotypical pacifist but a more hopeful embodiment of peace. I think Hank is the biggest problem with Hawk and Dove. He always devolves into a two dimensional ultra douche. That’s why I think the duo has only worked in the modern age with Holly and Dawn. Holly can still be an overly aggressive character but as a woman she’s still an oppressed demographic, so her war stance comes off more punk rock.

I rather genderswap Hank than Don. Replacing him with Holly felt like a better play.

Finally! Holly Granger gets mentioned. Still hoping for her return, someday...

[Thirteen]

Their presence in the TITANS tv series didn't help?


The ongoing series by the Kesels was HAWK AND DOVE at their peak. Though I didn't care for the idea that the Hank and Dawn forced romance concept because it doesn't make sense with the brothers being the chosen vessels.

[OBrianTallent]

I was never really crazy about the Chaos or Order connection. Just didn't feel like it connected to the characters outside of explaining their extra-ordinary abilities.

[Bruce Wayne]

The ongoing series by the Kesels was HAWK AND DOVE at their peak. Though I didn't care for the idea that the Hank and Dawn forced romance concept because it doesn't make sense with the brothers being the chosen vessels.

That's kind of a point though. That they deliberately depowered Don during CoiE (which lead to his death) and chose Dawn as a means of creating the Unity.

[kcekada]

I first saw Hawk & Dove in a Superboy reprint with amazing art by Gil Kane. They looked amazing. When I finally was able to read more of that series -- I can see why it failed. It really was aping the concept of violence versus peace -- and made for very awkward reading.

H&D on Titans were incredible! Honestly, they could have carried the series. The guy they pushed the most (Nightwing) wasn't that impressive to me. I didnt' mind Starfire, but she was such a different version of the character from any we've seen previously that she may as well have been a new character.

The 80s H&D series by the Kessels and Leifeld was pretty good. That was before Leifeld's art became a caricature of itself -- and he apparently forgot how to draw. He never could write!