Hawkman is one of superhero comics’ oldest characters, first appearing in Flash Comics #1 all the way back in 1940. Hawkman would go on to become an integral part of DC’s superhero universe, and was the first leader of the Justice Society. The character’s original origin — Carter Hall was an archeologist who found out that he was a reincarnated Egyptian pharaoh — made him interesting, and his look was striking and intriguing; it’s hard to forget a muscle man with wings and a hawk mask. Hawkman disappeared from comics in 1951, as superhero comics went out of vogue because Frederic Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent, and this is where the problems begin for the character.
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When things began to shift again, Hawkman was one of the greatest DC heroes of the ’40s, so he was brought back in the Silver Age in The Brave and the Bold #34 in 1961. Like the other remakes of Golden Age greats, Hawkman got another origin, becoming an alien policeman named Katar Hol from the planet of Thanagar. Eventually, the Golden Age Hawkman would return on Earth-Two and things were fine until the continuity reboot of Crisis on Infinite Earths. Suddenly, there was only one DC Universe, and we had two origins for Hawkman, which would become three when Hawkworld dropped. Hawkman got super confusing, but as a Hawkman fan, I want to let you in on a little secret — Hawkman’s confusing continuity is part of the fun.
Hawkman Wouldn’t Be as Interesting Without the Wonky Continuity
Hawkman is sometimes called DC’s Wolverine, and there’s a lot to that. Hawkman has always been played as a more violent hero because of his origins. Carter Hall was royalty in ancient times and fought the way someone back then would, with weapons and tactics that fit those older times. Katar Hol, the Silver Age Hawkman, was a police officer first and foremost, someone who was ready to do as much damage as possible to win the fight. However, none of that is the interesting thing about Hawkman. Violent superheroes used to be a big deal, but they aren’t now.
What makes Hawkman such a fun character to read about is the continuity snarls. Most of the coolest Hawkman stories have been when we were getting a new origin for him. Hawkman’s return to prominence in the ’00s was in a story that was meant to make sense of him, establishing that Carter and Katar were related because of Thanagar and reincarnation, bringing the disparate origins together. Suddenly, both versions of the character made sense, and it was cool. Instead of telling us that something didn’t happen, we got all of our cake. Then, when 2018’s Hawkman series gave him a new origin — that he reincarnated across space and time to try to make up for a bloody first life — we got to eat that cake.
Hawkman, in either his Carter or Katar guise, even his blended form, wasn’t a super interesting character. However, a Hawkman that has been traveling through time and space, incarnating on different worlds? That’s cool. That’s an idea that we haven’t really gotten before, and it only came about because Hawkman’s origin was completely broken by Crisis on Infinite Earths.
For a long time, Hawkman was considered to be too confusing for fans, but his muddled past is what makes him unique. We have plenty of heroes who carry old-school weapons and bash people’s skulls in, but Hawkman’s weird multiple-choice past is actually unique. There are some cool things that every version of Hawkman has in common — the love story between him and Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman and the Nth metal weapons and tech — but the weirdness of his past is the coolest part. Right now, there could be multiple different incarnations of Hawkman.
They could all meet each other. We can have Hawkman stories in any era of DC — there’s already Nighthawk, an old West gunslinger version of the character. None of that would be possible without Hawkman’s weird past, and it’s such a cool little wrinkle. Hawkman could have just been a violent character who led the Justice Society, died, and came back as an alien who got mouthy with Green Arrow a lot. That would have been fine. But this multiple-choice Hawkman is much more unique and fun to read about.
Hawkman Being So Complicated Is What We Love About Him
Hawkman never gets the credit he deserves for helping to make superheroes in the Golden Age popular. He was part of the first major superhero team, leading it through adventures that garnered legions of fans. He’d fade away and return, and would get dealt what could have been a death blow by Crisis on Infinite Earths. However, instead of giving up, creators like Geoff Johns and Robert Venditti stepped up to take all that was confusing about the character and make it great. What was once perceived as a weakness became a strength.
Hawkman is one of those characters that a lot of people point to as why comics are bad, but I think it’s the opposite. Hawkman is a character that shouldn’t work at all in the modern comic industry. He was seemingly broken beyond repair in the mid-’90s when creators tried to fix him for the first time, but he was saved because of things that could only work in comics. Hawkman shows that no matter how confusing a character is, how tangled his past has become, there’s hope. You can lean into the confusing aspect and create something new and vital.
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