Aldis Hodge on Hawkman’s Confusing History in DC Comics Before Black Adam

Aldis Hodge is set to soar onto screens as Hawkman when Black Adam opens in theaters on Friday and while DC fans are excited to see the iconic character up on the big screen, Hawkman is also a character that doesn’t necessarily have the most straightforward history. On the pages of comics, Hawkman has a long, complex, and often very confusing history that even the most dedicated of fan can have some challenges keeping straight — which in turn makes adapting the character for screen a bit tricky as well. For Hodge, his approach to the character was start with what stood out to him as a comics fan and go from there.

“Oh, for me, the opportunity for figuring out how we defined that history was open, right? So, I just decided based off of myself, as a fan, reading the comics and figuring out what stood out to me the most. And I worked off of that base,” Hodge explained in an interview with ComicBook.com about Black Adam. “So, what you know, the people see in the film is definitively a version that we know. But for me, I looked at, you know, alright, if we go down this road and we get to a place of really digging into to his history and exploring what history is the one that I want to explore. And that’s what I chose based off of and built with Jaume [Collet-Serra, director] in terms of his foundation. So, when, you know, I think people will get it once they see it and they know which version they’re going to hopefully explore more of.”

Who is Hawkman?

Without getting extremely bogged down in the complexities of the character’s very convoluted history, in comics Hawkman is most frequently presented as human archeologist Carter Hall who happens to be a reincarnation of the Egyptian prince Khufu, though sometimes he is instead Katar Hol from the planet Thanagar or some combination of both. He has Nth metal wings, and typically uses a mace as a weapon. Again, this is a very basic explanation of the character in extreme broad strokes — we’re not even getting into his connection with Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman, the reincarnation of it all, and a whole lot more. These are just the high notes.

Who stars in Black Adam?

Black Adam will star Dwayne Johnson and will also feature Aldis Hodge (Underground, The Invisible Man) as Hawkman, Noah Centineo (To All the Boys I Loved Before, Charlie’s Angels) as Atom Smasher, Quintessa Swindell (Trinkets, Euphoria) as Cyclone, Sarah Shahi (The L Word, Sex/Life) as Adrianna Tomaz, and Pierce Brosnan (GoldenEye, Mamma Mia!) as Doctor Fate. Uli Latukefu, Marwan Kenzari, Mohammed Amer, James Cusati-Moyer, and Bodhi Sabongui have also been cast.

Black Adam opens in theaters on Friday, October 21st.