Few major, immediately-recognizable superheroes have had as tough a go of things as has Hawkman.
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With an origin that was seemingly retooled every few years at random, his backstory became a convoluted mess and building on that foundation of sand wasn’t easy.
Not impossible, though. There have been a number of great stories to feature the Winged Wonder, both in his Golden Age (before the whole continuity thing became so much an issue) and after.
Here are our picks for the ones you ought to read before the character pops up on Arrow, The Flash and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
The Return of Hawkman
Geoff Johns’ JSA run defined the character for a generation at a time when he really needed to be.
From the early work with James Robinson all the way until the end of his time with the character, Johns took Hawkman out of the realm of “characters irreparably damaged by backstory” and made his long-cursed origins a blessing, a major part of his motivation and in many ways the most interesting part of his relationship with Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman.
The Shadow War of Hawkman
When members of Hawkman’s race came to invade Earth, it was only he and Hawkgirl who stood in their path. The result was a memorable, brutal and fast-paced story that stands as one of the few DC events that centered primarily on the Hawks.
Elements of this story have been seen in the Justice League cartoon’s “Starcrossed” episode as well as in the recent Convergence: Hawkman miniseries.
Hawkworld
The original miniseries is a classic, and the ongoing that followed surprisingly solid.
Taking the idea that the Hawks were police officers from another world, something used in the Silver Age but often only as a kind of vague background detail, Hawkworld redefined how readers saw the Hawks and, for a time, reshaped the image of both the Hawks and Thanagar’s role in the DC Universe.
Golden Age Classics
This is kind of a cheat, but let’s face it: many of Hawkman’s best stories actually took place in the Golden and Silver Ages, when there weren’t a lot of multi-part, continuity-altering epics. Instead, we got stand-alone issue featuring sharp writing by Gardner Fox and gorgeous Joe Kubert art.
You can get some of these stories in a collected edition available on Amazon, although it is out of print, so if people believe me and go buy it, the price might go up.
Allies, Enemies and Beyond
There’s the Hawkman: Allies and Enemies trade paperback, which is a great stand-alone arc…but really, the whole Johns oeuvre for Hawkman full of terrific work, and if you can afford it, you should probably just punk down for the omnibus or two worth of material that’s out there.
That said, yeah, his work co-writing with James Robinson was pretty stellar. If you can’t afford a $100 hardcover, the first few trades by Johns and Robinson are definitely worth a read-through, and almost certainly provide the groundwork for the character we’ll see on TV.
