This 37-Year Old DC Classic Redefined Comics’ Highest Flying Hero (and It Made Him More Confusing Than Ever)

Hawkman is one of DC Comics‘ oldest heroes, but it’s rare that he’s talked about as some Golden Age legend. Carter Hall has been hitting bad guys in the head with a mace since 1940, a year before a certain star-spangled hero would sock Hitler in the jaw, decades before all of the Silver Age Marvel characters that have become more popular than him. Before Wonder Woman was getting tied up and making eyes at her fellow Amazonians, Hawkman was fighting the good fight. He was a founding member of the Justice Society and would eventually get another chance to fly in the Silver Age, both the original version and a newer one, more in line with the times.

The second Hawkman wasn’t Carter Hall, but Katar Hol. He wasn’t a reincarnated pharaoh using the secrets of Nth metal to discover his past, but a Thanagarian police officer who came to Earth on an arrest and decided to stay here along with his wife Shayera. Hawkman and Hawkgirl would join the Justice League, meet their Earth-Two counterparts and become iconic heroes (I had the Kenner Super Powers Hawkman as a kid). Then Crisis on Infinite Earths happened. The multiverse was no longer and most of DC’s legends were getting redefined. In 1989, Hawkman would finally get his chance, with a story that changed the direction of the character forever… and made everything even more confusing than it already was.

Hawkworld Redefined Hawkman for a New Era

Crisis on Infinite Earths was a huge turning point for DC. The publisher doing away with the multiverse was a huge move, but it was merely the first. They had been experimenting with making their books more mature in the early ’80s and in the years after Crisis, we’d see more of that brought into the mainline DC books. DC heroes were suddenly the choice of the cool people, with stories like The Longbow Hunters showing that superheroes didn’t have to be corny.

Finding a way to make Hawkman a more mature ’80s character took a couple of years, with writer/artist Tim Truman deciding to dig into a direction that a lot of creators hadn’t – Thanagar. The only thing we knew about it up to this point was that they liked bird motifs, were fierce warriors, and liked melee weapons. Hawkworld would take us to the planet Thanagar to follow Katar Hol as he tried to keep the people of his world safe. It was Silver Age Hawkman meets Judge Dredd, a grittier retelling of Katar’s origin.

There would be a drug epidemic, corrupt officials, a hero losing everything and rebuilding himself, and a final big battle against the heart of all darkness on the planet. It was all very ’80s sci-fi and it was fantastic. It became the perfect origin for a new Hawkman and DC listened to the praise from fans. Hawkworld would become an ongoing, with Katar and Shayera having adventures both on Thanagar and on Earth, with the character’s origins to changed to reflect the Hawkworld origin. Hawkman actually started to get popular again.

However, there was a problem with Hawkworld and it was, well, everything. Not the story, mind you, that’s fantastic, but for everything else about the hero. So, we have two different Hawkman origins, one where he’s a reincarnated pharaoh and the other where he’s an alien. It used to work because there were two Earths, but now you had one Hawkman that existed during World War II and another during the heyday of the Justice League. However, Hawkworld was a reboot of the Hawkman mythos for the Thanagarian version. That means, for example, that he wasn’t on Earth back in the day to make enemies with Green Arrow. Those stories never happened, even though they did happen.

So, while Hawkworld was an excellent story and a perfect reboot for a DC icon that made the character more popular than ever, it also wreaked havoc with DC continuity. This problem would keep getting bigger throughout the early ’90s, coming to a head with Zero Hour and its attempted reboot of Hawkman by smushing it all together and saying it was all canon without ever explaining how. We often talk about Zero Hour killing Hawkman and that is true, but the sad fact is that the character’s best modern story poisoned him and it just took him years to die.

We’re still feeling the effects of Hawkworld to this day. Shayera Hol is still Hawkwoman, leading to there being a Hawkwoman and Hawkgirl, with Hawkwoman mostly staying in space and Hawkgirl mostly staying with the Justice Society or Justice League. Shayera is technically the most popular version of Hawkgirl, since she was the one that starred in Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. Ideas from the Thanagar established in the stories have been used in various books over the years.

Carter’s origin has finally been made sense of, with him being a reincarnating warrior, moving across time and space to make up for the sins of his past. Hawkman is an icon without a direction right now, but at least he’s in a better place than he was. We have Hawkworld to thank for that; it was the perfect grim and gritty Hawkman reboot and it broke the history of the character to such an extent that creators had to go back to the drawing board, unsnarl the tangles of the character’s continuity, and finally make it all make sense.

Hawkworld Made Things More Confusing In the Best Possible Way

After Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC started to take all of its characters in bold new directions. Batman got darker, Superman got more modern, Wonder Woman got more mythological. The Justice League went from the smiling gods above us to more human heroes hanging out down here with us. There was a new Flash. Everything old was new again and Hawkman was given his turn with Hawkworld, a book that took the Silver Age changes to the character and went even further with them.

It was the kind of unsettling sci-fi that appealed to readers of the day and it led to a period of some success for Hawkman. It’s been out of print for a long time, but you can still find copies of it out there. It’s perfect for fans who love Hawkman and want to see something different from him and for fans who have never read one of his stories. Sure, it led to the character going away for years while creators straightened him out, but it made him a better character in the process.