Hawkman by Robert Venditti

Hawkman has long been one of my favorite characters in DC’s pantheon of heroes. I was exposed to him thru his appearances in the Super Friends cartoon as well as in the classic 80’s toyline, Super Powers, Hawkman has always had a very striking look with his wings, his red green and yellow palette plus his impressive feathered helmet, if anything Hawkman’s design lent itself to some very cool collectibles. Hawkman the character has had a convoluted history ever since Crisis on Infinite Earths ended and DC restarted their timeline. In pre-Crisis history, the Golden Age Hawkman was archaeologist Carter Hall who was reincarnated from the Egyptian Prince Khufu, this version of the character was a member of the Justice Society of America and was the Earth-2 version. Earth-1’s Hawkman debuted in the Brave and the Bold and was a more science fiction based character than his predecessor, he was Katar Hol from the alien planet Thanagar and he would eventually join the Justice League of America. After Crisis merged the earths, both Hawkmen co-existed in the new chronology, but the Golden Age version was sent to DC’s version of Ragnarok and caught in a time loop with several other Justice Society members in the Last Days of the JSA special that released shortly after Crisis. Meanwhile, DC continued to use the Katar Hol version as is until 1989, when the excellent Hawkworld mini-series came out. Hawkworld was gritty and told one of the best Hawkman stories ever. It was intended to be a prequel/origin story of sorts to the Thanagarian Hawkman as we knew him, but DC decided to make Hawkworld part of the then current DC timeline which meant that every Hawkman story told between 1986 and 1989 was either out of continuity now or had to take place some other way. In addition, since the Hawkman (and Hawkwoman) that came out of Hawkworld would have just arrived to Earth during the present, this left two Hawk shaped holes in the classic JLA lineup.(A similar situation happened with Wonder Woman, as George Perez’s run kept Diana away from Man’s World until the events of his series takes place, meaning she couldn’t help found the Justice League as she originally had- she was replaced by Black Canary in Post-Crisis continuity.) That was the start of the jumbled continuity with Hawkman, which now included Thanagarian impostors, the golden age Hawks now being part of the JSA and JLA and even more twists that took place in Zero Hour which brought back the recently returned from Ragnarok, Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl and merged them with the Hawkworld Hawkman to form the one true Hawkman. That Hawkman got his own series in the wake of Zero Hour which would poison the character for DC for several years after that.