Hawkman - SPACE WARRIOR

[bretmaverick2]

I would probably be onboard for the upcoming Hawkman/Adam Strange limited series, however, I just never cared for Hawkman, Space Warrior. I much, much prefer the Hawkman and Hawkwoman that were reincarnated Egyptian royalty.

I'll even go further. I even prefer Hawkwoman withOUT Hawkman!! Not the Kendra from the Earth 2 series but the Kendra intro'd in the JSA series.

But there are enough space warrior types without scifi Hawkman and Hawkwoman.

Also, I'm just tired of the constant need to pit Thanagar and Rann against each other.

Give me a series featuring the Hawks from ancient Egypt. I'll even take them on an adventure with Adam Strange!!

[Icefalcon]

I'll take the opposite view. When I was a kid growing up Hawkman was an alien just like Superman and I learned about GA Hawkman much later on. Katar and Shayera are my Hawkman and Hawkwoman and I'm always happy to see them.

[scary harpy]

There's room for both now.

The Egyptian Hawks for Earth 2.

The Sci-fi Hawks for Earth 1.

(I like the Egyptian Hawks better, too.)

[protege]

I would probably be onboard for the upcoming Hawkman/Adam Strange limited series, however, I just never cared for Hawkman, Space Warrior. I much, much prefer the Hawkman and Hawkwoman that were reincarnated Egyptian royalty.

I'll even go further. I even prefer Hawkwoman withOUT Hawkman!! Not the Kendra from the Earth 2 series but the Kendra intro'd in the JSA series.

But there are enough space warrior types without scifi Hawkman and Hawkwoman.

Also, I'm just tired of the constant need to pit Thanagar and Rann against each other.

Give me a series featuring the Hawks from ancient Egypt. I'll even take them on an adventure with Adam Strange!!

I agree with you, but it seems that the egyptian angle doesn't interest people too much.

[colonyofcells]

I prefer the main Hawkman as a superman of space. Thanagarians can be powerful like kryptonians and daxamites. Earth can have the justice society Hawkman.

[bat39]

The reincarnated Egyptian versions have LOADS of potential which more often than not doesn't get met (the treatment of the Hawks in LoT is testament to that).

So for now it does seem like they're focusing on the Thanagarian Hawkman. Which is fine. Hell, LoT will also be dealing with Thanagar sooner or later so maybe we'll get to see Katar Hol on the small screen at some point.

[Godlike13]

Ya, i much prefer the reincarnated Hawkman and Hawkwoman. Much better mythos IMO that they can continually revisit and take from. The current space Hawkman bores me. Plus he's been utter crap since Flashpoint. Honesty I wouldn't mind if they introduced a new reincarnation of Hawkman.

[Herowatcher]

I'll take the opposite view. When I was a kid growing up Hawkman was an alien just like Superman and I learned about GA Hawkman much later on. Katar and Shayera are my Hawkman and Hawkwoman and I'm always happy to see them.

Same here.

Hal and Barry were given the "Rebirth" treatment by Johns and now it's time for Katar Hol to be fixed as well.
There's no reason that the good aspects of the Hawkworld origin can't fit into the Silver Age version.

[DrNewGod]

Same here.

Hal and Barry were given the "Rebirth" treatment by Johns and now it's time for Katar Hol to be fixed as well.
There's no reason that the good aspects of the Hawkworld origin can't fit into the Silver Age version.

Your image is one of the reasons that I tend to prefer the Silver Hawks over the Golden, they had the best partnership in all of comics.

From their introduction through the reintroduction in Hawkworld, Shayera was never Katar's recurring hostage, nor was she ever made to look weak or stupid to help him look strong or smart. They were the most equal superhero couple published anywhere. It was nice to have a stable, equal relationship. Comics writers and editors, however, seem to have developed a real hostility toward stable, committed relationships. While all the ways-it-used-to-be aren't better than what's come after, this one definitely is.

As for which is better, or which should be kept, there's a way to do both. Given what Absorbascoms are/can do, there's absolutely a way to have both sets of Hawks that's far less tortured than what we've been given since.

[Deniz Camp]

I think the reincarnation angle was a stronger and more unique hook, but I don't think it was utilized properly or fully. It had, fittingly, become part of a weird cycle involving their love affair that just became very dull.

Having said that, I think there's room to do something amazing with the Hawkman: Space Warrior take as well. I'd love a run at that, one that explores the alien economy and political entanglements of the DCU (as opposed to the GL books, which I think should focus on the grander, metaphysical cosmic stuff and weirder science fiction ideas).

Everything right now is so ripe for reinvention and definition. I could easily make a 40 issue run of it.

[Hawkman]

I'll take the opposite view. When I was a kid growing up Hawkman was an alien just like Superman and I learned about GA Hawkman much later on. Katar and Shayera are my Hawkman and Hawkwoman and I'm always happy to see them.

Ditto.

There's room for both now.

The Egyptian Hawks for Earth 2.

The Sci-fi Hawks for Earth 1.

And ditto again.

I will agree with you, though, bretmarverick2, that I miss the old Kendra Saunders, too, and as far as the Egyptian angle goes, she was my favorite Hawkgirl of the two.

Where we diverge, however, is obviously in which version of the Hawks we prefer in general. But as someone who prefers the Thanagarian version of Hawkman, I nevertheless gave Johns' amalgamation of the character a chance, and I ended up a big fan. I think it's interesting to note, though, that (in my opinion, anyway) many of the best aspects of Johns Hawkman were largely drawn from the Silver Age, Thanagarian version of the character, whereas the things that dragged down the series the most (again, for me, anyway) were the reincarnation aspects. So I'm interested to hear what it was that you found so interesting about the reincarnation origin that you feel is lost with the Thanagarian version of Hawkman.

Don't get me wrong. I think there was a lot of [i]potential[i] there, but it was largely squandered. I would have liked to have seen more past lives storylines myself, but over the course of Hawkman Vol. 4 we got only a handful, two of which weren't even written by Johns. Meanwhile, the Hath-Set, will-they-or-won't-they curse was played up to the point of utter monotony as far as I'm concerned. I can't tell you how angry I was with the way Brightest Day concluded, essentially putting Hawkman right back at the beginning of his story, and how likewise relieved I was when the relaunch happened to present the character with a fresh start. We can, of course, debate how successful that fresh start was, but regardless I feel the reincarnation angle, at least in the way Johns chose to present it, painted the characters into a corner that most writers couldn't, and Johns outright wouldn't let them escape.

For me, then, the Thanagarian origin is more than just tapping into my sense of nostalgia (which it no doubt does), but it's also about letting the character breathe a bit easier, as well as opening up his story potential. You'll note that Johns took great care to tie his Hawkman to Thanagar pretty closely as well, because even he recognized that cutting Carter off from the planet completely stripped the character of a lot of his appeal. So not only do I think it's the more interesting origin, but it's also the less binding, as the curse aspect of the Egyptian origin inexorably creates a beginning, middle, and end narrative that simply doesn't work in the serial style of storytelling under which superhero comic books fall.

Of course, the simple solution to this, in my opinion, is to drop the whole "destined to fall in love and die" portion of the origin, which, should the Egyptian Hawks ever return I would highly recommend DC do. As it stands right now, though, I'm just glad that my preferred version of the character is back in the spotlight, and as I once did for Carter, I would urge you to give Katar a shot. Who knows? You just might end up liking what you find.

[AdamFTF]

I prefer the Thanagarian Hawks. I've never read the actual Golden Age stories, but I've read the Silver Age books and read some of the Geoff Johns relaunch. I just found the Silver Age stuff to be more fun. I found Hawkman and Hawkgirl's relationship as depicted in Johns's book as kind of creepy. Also, I had a hard time getting my head around some of the more spiritual/metaphysical aspects. The problem with basing a comic book on the transference of souls is you've kind of got to be clear what a soul is or does under your context. I never got that from the Johns version. Especially the bit about how Kendra died and then had her great-aunt's soul when she revived. I always tend to think of souls as being like ghosts. Like, if you got someone else's soul it would be like being possessed by Deadman or something. They'd act like a different person. But when Kendra got Shiera's soul she was just Kendra but with a different soul and different colored eyes. So, what was a soul in the pre-Flashpoint JSA canon?

[Nomads1]

I'm okay with both versions of the Hawks, though the alien cop was the one I was first intruduced to, during the satelite years. To this day, Ostrander's Hawkworld and Hawkman remain the best take on the characters. But I also liked Johns take on the ressurection angle, making Hawkman sort of a DC Wolverine (brutal and with a healing factor thanks to the Ninth metal).

Peace

[GDC3]

I would probably be onboard for the upcoming Hawkman/Adam Strange limited series, however, I just never cared for Hawkman, Space Warrior. I much, much prefer the Hawkman and Hawkwoman that were reincarnated Egyptian royalty.

I'll even go further. I even prefer Hawkwoman withOUT Hawkman!! Not the Kendra from the Earth 2 series but the Kendra intro'd in the JSA series.

But there are enough space warrior types without scifi Hawkman and Hawkwoman.

Also, I'm just tired of the constant need to pit Thanagar and Rann against each other.

Give me a series featuring the Hawks from ancient Egypt. I'll even take them on an adventure with Adam Strange!!

I feel the same. But something about this mini has me intrigued. Maybe it's just the art, but I think I'll check it out.

[Icefalcon]

Same here.

Hal and Barry were given the "Rebirth" treatment by Johns and now it's time for Katar Hol to be fixed as well.
There's no reason that the good aspects of the Hawkworld origin can't fit into the Silver Age version.

That's a great idea I'd buy it!