Among the many announcements this past weekend at Comic Con International was the news that Jeff Lemire is returning to DC Comics to write, among other things, the Hawkman: Found one-shot as part of Dark Nights: Metal. The character’s past has been an important part of the Dark Days prologue issues but his place in continuity is more nebulous than it’s ever been and no-one’s quite sure what’s going on with him anymore. The Hawkman in Dark Days seems to be a different Hawkman who was in The New 52, who was a different guy to the pre-Flashpoint version and his backstory is often so confusing that it feels like it’s not even worth bothering to try.

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However, despite all the reboots, relaunches and fake-outs over Hawkman’s storied career, there’s a good character in there at the core. After all, something keeps writers coming back to him despite his confusing backstory. In the hands of a writer like Lemire, Hawkman could be elevated into one of DC’s most vital franchises and finally get the recognition he deserves as one DC’s coolest and most interesting characters.

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Humble Beginnings

Hawkman debuted in Flash Comics #1, the same issue that gave the world Jay Garrick, and in his first appearance his origin was no more confusing than any other masked adventurer of the time. He was an archeologist named Carter Hall who discovered an ancient knife made of mysterious metal which unlocked secrets of his past life as an Egyptian Prince. It also revealed to him his and his lover Shiera’s murder at the hands of the dark priest Hath-Set and Carter used ancient artifacts made of the mysterious “ninth metal” to become Hawkman and save the modern-day Shiera from Hath-Set in the present. Together, they became Hawkman and Hawkgirl and served as members of the Justice Society of America throughout the Golden Age.

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Then the Silver Age brought in a new Hawkman, which shouldn’t have been too much of a problem. The new Hawkman was an alien police officer from the planet Thanagar named Katar Hol, who traveled to Earth with his partner Shayera Thal in order to apprehend a dangerous alien fugitive. After subduing the criminal, the pair decided to remain on Earth at Midway City, taking positions at the local museum in their civilian identity while serving on the Justice League of America as Hawkman and Hawkwoman.

Things Get Confusing

In the Silver Age, most of DC’s original slate of heroes was reimagined for a new generation of readers, and it wasn’t a problem. Barry Allen followed Jay Garrick, Hal Jordan followed Alan Scott and Ray Palmer followed Al Pratt with no problems. The problem with Hawkman was that he shared a name with the original and in that way he was more of a reboot than a successor. So when DC Comics merged their Golden Age Earth-2 with the present day Earth-1 as part of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Hawkman’s place in continuity was a lot difficult to pin down because they had two Carter Halls to deal with.

Katar Hol as Hawkman from Hawkworld

It was originally decided that Hawkman would retain his original heritage as a reincarnated Egyptian prince, but serve as an elder statesman in the Justice League; a link between the JSA and the JLA whose son Hector Hall served on Infinity Inc. However, DC later decided to redo the Hawkman concept from the ground-up, similar to how it handled Wonder Woman at the time. Thus, a new Katar Hol was introduced in the Hawkworld miniseries. This meant DC once again had two Hawkmen to deal with, and issue resolved in an even more confusing way by introducing a third Hawkman, Fel Andar, a Thanagarian imposter who masqueraded as Carter Hall Jr while the original Carter Hall was trapped in Limbo with the rest of the JSA.

In order to fix this, DC used the Zero Hour event to clean up the Hawkman mess by merging all of their Hawkpeople into one character who was briefly known as the Hawkgod, but the Hawkgod went crazy and was shuffled off stage fairly shortly afterwards. Grant Morrison and Howard Porter introduced Zauriel as a potential Hawkman with none of the baggage, but DC never allowed them to use the Hawkman named for the character.

NEXT PAGE: Geoff Johns To The Rescue

Geoff Johns To The Rescue

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In one of his first acts of continuity-tidying at DC, Geoff Johns used his run on JSA to bring back Hawkman as essentially the original Golden Age Carter Hall incarnation. He had the memories of Katar Hol’s life from their shared time as Hawkgod, but ultimately he was the original Hawkman without all the baggage. Johns also wrote a Hawkman ongoing series spinning out of JSA which addressed much of Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s shared history, flashing back to their previous lives together as the Hawkman of the present tried to woo the new Hawkgirl, Kendra Saunders.

Unfortunately, good things can’t last forever, and Hawkman became more confusing thanks to Jim Starlin who attempted to bring back elements of the Thanagarian version. However, the DC Universe was rebooted with Flashpoint before that could really stick, and the Hawkman in The New 52 was Katar Hol, stranded and amnesiac on Earth going by the name Carter Hall. At first it seemed to be a streamlined approach to the two different identities and origins, but once again they proved fundamentally incompatible and Hawkman’s story spiraled off into confusion after a short time.

Lost and Found

The New 52 incarnation of Hawkman was recently killed off in the appropriately named Death of Hawkman miniseries, which set the stage for the return of a Hawkman more in line with his original creation. From what we’ve seen in Dark Days, the current Hawkman will be Carter Hall, an archeologist who is also a reincarnated Egyptian Prince. It seems like Scott Snyder and Jeff Lemire will pull from Geoff Johns’ history of Hawkman considerably and hopefully the character is all the better for it. Jeff Lemire is the perfect creator to tackle Hawkman, and if he approaches the new title with half of the nuance and skill he applied to Moon Knight, then Hawkman might very well end up the most exciting and interesting new series of 2018.