DC Has Their Own Wolverine (And It’s Not Who You Think)

Wolverine has taken his place among the most popular superheroes of all time. Wolverine often seems like a fundamentally Marvel hero — the story of a man dealing with the beast inside all while trying to find a family and become a greater hero. Marvel and DC Comics have often taken inspiration from each others’ characters and stories, but most fans have a hard time identifying DC’s version of Wolverine. There really doesn’t seem to be any character who fits the Wolverine mold, but actually DC has had their own Wolverine for much longer than Wolverine has existed — the leader of the Golden Age Justice Society of America known as Hawkman.

Hawkman first appeared in Flash Comics #1 from 1940, his hawk mask, giant wings, and morningstar mace setting him apart from the other early heroes of DC. Looking at Hawkman’s history, there are many, many parallels between him and Wolverine. Hawkman is one of the most complex characters in comics, much like Wolverine, and just needs to find the right portrayal to reach the heights of Marvel’s ol’Canucklehead.

Hawkman Introduced Many of the Tropes That Would Become Central to Wolverine

To understand why Hawkman has been DC’s Wolverine since before Wolverine was even a thing, one needs to go back to the days of Golden Age DC. Superman and Batman had shown that people were ready for a new breed of heroes, and the comic creators of the day stepped up. Hawkman was one of the more interesting ones. Hawkman was Carter Hall, an archeologist specializing in Egypt who had a secret — that he was the reincarnation of the ancient pharaoh Khufu. Armed with weapons made of a mysterious mineral called Nth metal that allowed him to fly, gave him a measure of superhuman strength, and a healing factor, he was joined the battle against alongside Hawkgirl, who was the reincarnation of his Egyptian lover, and becoming a leader of the Justice Society. Later, in the Silver Age, we’d get Katar Hol as Hawkman, the Thanagarian policeman who came to Earth-One, while the original Hawkman stayed with the Justice Society on Earth-Two. This led to some confusion later, but we’ll get to that. Obviously, this is a very different set-up for a character than Wolverine’s, but right off the bat, there are similarities.

To begin with, there’s healing factor and the love of fighting, something that has become much more of Hawkman’s personality as time went on, but the mysteries of both character’s past is the icing on the cake. Hawkman and Wolverine both are characters with years of backstory that can be fleshed out — look at the latest volume of Hawkman, where writer Robert Venditti gloried in revealing hidden facets of Hawkman’s past. Hawkman and Wolverine are both perfect men of mystery, allowing creators to take fans on bloodsoaked treks through the past. Wolverine fans are used to going on trips through Logan’s history; Hawkman stories can easily do the same thing. Both characters spent ages as soldiers in some of the greatest battles in human history. There is a core to each character that is fundamentally the same — good people who have been forced to kill so others wouldn’t who have watched time go by and are defined by their tragedies.

Speaking of the past, both Hawkman and Wolverine have some rather convoluted pasts. This is the place where Hawkman suffers the most. Crisis on Infinite Earths did away with DC’s multiverse, melding the different versions of doppelganger heroes and villains together. This was a problem for Hawkman; there was the Hawkman who fought in the Golden Age and then there was the alien Hawkman who had come to Earth in the modern day. It took years — from 1985 to 2003 — for DC to come up with an explanation, using reincarnation to explain it all away, and Venditti would take that and give Hawkman the ultimate origin. The same thing, to an extent, happened to Wolverine. Wolverine’s “memory implant” origin allowed writers to say that anything that happened in Wolverine’s past could be written off as implants. This came to a head in the ’90s, making Wolverine one of the more confusing characters in comics. Not as confusing as Hawkman, but still pretty mystifying.

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Hawkman and Wolverine both like gingers, with their defining relationships being with redheads. Both of them are the heroes who bring up just killing the problem first and each of them has a “frenemy” teammate — Wolverine has Cyclops and Hawkman has Green Arrow. They are both known for getting mouthy with their teammates. They each have their best superhero friend who they could be dating — Hawkman has the Atom, Wolverine has Nightcrawler. Hawkman and Wolverine share so many similarities, and it’s strange that DC has never found a way to bring Hawkman to Wolverine’s level. Hawkman basically originated everything that made Wolverine popular.

Hawkman Just Needs the Right Showcase to Hit Wolverine’s Level

Wolverine felt like something of a revolutionary character when he first premiered, but the fact of the matter is that Hawkman was doing everything that Wolverine did, and had been doing it for decades. There are of course differences, but whatever the case, DC has never been able to raise Hawkman to Wolverine’s level. However, looking at the tale of the tape, all of the pieces are there.

Hawkman gets a bad rap because he’s “confusing”, but honestly, so is Wolverine. For example, did Wolverine (Vol. 2) #10 actually happen or was it a Weapon X implant? Was Silver Fox a woman from the late 1800s or did Wolverine meet her as a ’50s greaser? Marvel has found a way to move readers past all of the weird things they’ve done with Wolverine, but DC always has to find ways to explain away the confusion of Hawkman instead of just ignoring it, which usually just serves to remind people of why they never read Hawkman comics in the past. Hawkman has all of the tools to be Wolverine, all DC has to do is find the right way to bring the character to the people.