DC Comics created the superhero in the Golden Age of Comics, which started in 1938 with Action Comics #1 and ended in 1956 with the publication of Showcase #4. The building blocks of the DC Multiverse were laid back then, with Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman at the top of the heap and heroes like Green Lantern, the Flash, the Atom, Hourman, Doctor Fate, and more all under them. However, there was a character who has been around since then, a character whose mantle was never technically taken up by someone else, and whose importance to the Golden Age is often forgotten: Hawkman.
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Hawkman was the first leader of the Justice Society of America, making him one of the most important characters of the Golden Age. He was joined by his girlfriend Hawkgirl as a hero, something that would be repeated numerous times over the years by other characters. Hawkman is a legend, one who has been abused by the vagaries of DC continuity worse than anyone else, including someone like Donna Troy, which is saying something. One Hawkman retcon was so damaging that it destroyed the character in the eyes of fans. However, 24 years ago, DC would put out a story that would begin the process of fixing the character, bringing him back to the forefront of the DC Universe.
“Return of Hawkman” Made the Icon Tenable Again
JSA was the hottest team book of the ’00s. The book started in 1999 and played off the concept of legacy, bringing together the surviving Golden Age members of the team and the descendants of those who died. Fans loved the book, but there was a Hawkman-sized hole in the team. Hawkgirl was there, but it wasn’t the same. At this point, Hawkman had been destroyed as a character for numerous reasons, with the main one being that the character was much too confusing to work with anymore.
The original Golden Age Hawkman, Carter Hall, was a reincarnation of Prince Khufu, an Egyptian pharaoh. In the Silver Age, a new Hawkman was introduced, named Katar Hol, who was a Thanagarian policeman who came to Earth and took up the name Carter Hall (see, technically the same person). Eventually, the Golden Age heroes were revealed to be on Earth-Two, so the two Hawkman origins could co-exist. However, Crisis on Infinite Earths did away with the multiverse, which made the two origins impossible to reconcile. Creators tried, with Zero Hour trying to meld all the versions of the character into one. However, this didn’t make sense, and the character faded away.
“Return of Hawkman” did much the same thing as the Zero Hour retcon, but did it not by merging timelines or anything like that. Instead, it used the idea of reincarnation from the Golden Age to link the two origins. Khufu found a Thanagarian spaceship in the past and became the proto-Hawkman of Egypt, with the Nth metal allowing him and Princess Shay-Ara to reincarnate. Katar and Shayera Hol were a reincarnation of Khufu and Shay-Ara, as were Carter and Sheira Hall.
The story took the Justice Society on a hunt for their former leader, traveling all the way to Thanagar. Hawkman was reborn on the planet and ended up in battle against Ominar Synn, the main villain of the late ’80s Hawkworld series. It was able to take the two different origins and reconcile them. While it didn’t completely make sense, mostly because we never saw the death of the Golden Age Carter Hall, it still worked. It wouldn’t be until the 2018 Hawkman series that we’d learn that Hawkman’s reincarnations made it so two different versions of the Hawks could be around at once. “Return of Hawkman” made the character make sense again, leading to the character getting two different ongoing series and becoming a key member of the Justice Society.
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