Flash Comics #1 (1940)
by Gardner Fox & Dennis Neville
Not satisfied with having created the original Flash in the same issue, Gardner Fox proceeds to create Hawkman.
His civilian identity of Carter Hall is commonly associated with being an archeologist, but he starts off as “a wealthy collector of weapons” and a “research scientist”.
I don’t think museums will complain if he keeps the Narcolepsy Knife for himself, it’d be hard to display properly.
In his sleep, Carter dreams of being in a completely different comic.
I’ve praised Garner Fox for his attention to scientific details before, but I don’t think he’s as well-versed in mythology because… the “hawk-god” Anubis!?
Also, Carter is dreaming of being Khufu. I can excuse showing him as a blond very white guy because it’s a dream, so he’s probably just seeing himself in the role.
“Prince Khufu” then flees on a chariot. If this is the actual Pharaoh Khufu (26th century BC), he’s quite ahead of his time because chariots wouldn’t be used in Egypt until A THOUSAND YEARS LATER.
Thanks to his futuristic vehicle, Khufu saves his beloved Shiera.
She’s later said to be his wife, but not here. The historical Khufu had two wives (that we know of), Meritites and Henutsen.
His nemesis Hath-Set unleashes a magic blackout, and then sends an army to attack Khufu.
Khufu is not a superhero yet, so he can’t defeat an army on his own.
Some of that “older science” might’ve been handy during the battle, Khufu.
The dream ends with Khufu and Shiera (the latter off-panel) being murdered.
Carter Hall has just learned that reincarnation and magic are real. What impact are those revelations going to have on his life?
NONE WHATSOEVER.
Now rails changing colors, THAT is something extraordinary that warrants a closer look. (WTF!?)
This is where he bumps into Shiera’s reincarnation… who is also named Shiera.
How come Khufu gets a new name but she doesn’t?
But who will save the people from the fire and electricity? And why did the rails turn blue?
With a scene like that you’d expect Carter Hall to rush into danger to save innocent people, but… nope! He just takes a taxy to go home!!!
In fact, he goes home to tell Shiera of his dreams (she’s had the same dreams he had), deciding to change into “the guise of the hawk-god Anubis”.
Not that I needed to tell you that, the resemblance to Anubis is uncanny.
The fact that those wings defy gravity is impressive and all, but how does he walk with those things attached to his back? These are the biggest wings ever!!!
“Look! It’s a bird, it’s a… no, I got it right the first time, it’s a bird.”
I glossed over the earlier mention of Hawkman’s Dynamo Detector™, but it’s more useful than you’d think.
Hawkman looks into the secret lair, and this our first good look at his mask… which looks absolutely awful.
Hawkman is not afraid of the evil electrician (now that’s a moniker I don’t use often) because all of his weapons are non-conductive. That’s nice, but it still would’ve been hard to hit him with a lightning bolt while he’s flying!
You’ve probably already figured out that the evil electrician is the reincarnation of Hath-Set, who then prays to Anubis to bring Shiera to him.
Just how many of these things do you have just laying around, Hawkman!?
You’d expect the “other cloak of Nth Metal” to be a set of wings for Shiera (who’ll later become Hawkgirl, I’ll cover that separately), but nope: it’s just for electrical insulation.
One of Hawkman’s gimmicks is that he uses ancient weapons, but since he’s in a superhero comic he tends to never use them for the intended lethal purpose.
Not in his first story!!!
But when will I get an explanation for why the rails turned blue?
You’d expect Hawkman having to face a new incarnation of Hath-Set soon enough, but this was his only Golden Age appearance.
Like I did with Flash, let’s talk about the penciler, Dennis Neville.
He started out of one of Joe Shuster’s early assistants, working on the Superman daily strop and on the Slam Bradley serial.
He only drew the first three Hawkman stories, being replaced first by Sheldon Moldoff and then by Joe Kubert.
After leaving Hawkman he did some more Superman stories, but he mostly stopped drawing by 1946. The only other thing I could find about his work in comics was a syndicated Western comic strip in 1977.
I could not find any news about his death, but he was born “circa 1920” so I don’t think he’s still around.
I’m not sure if it was ever explicitly admitted, but Hawkman VERY likely inspired by the Hawk Men from Flash Gordon.
Joe Kubert redesigned Hawman’s helmet in Flash Comics #85 to be less ridiculous.
That would later become his most recognizable look, and the basis for his Silver Age design, but it didn’t last that long in the Golden Age: by Flash Comics #98, he switched to a much simpler design.
Historical significance: 6/
Hawkman is a constant presence in the Golden Age, being the most consistent member of the Justice Society.
Silver Age-ness: 10/
Carter Hall just has a suit with functional wings laying around.
Does it stand the test of time? 2/
The two sections feel quite disjointed, and absolutely no time is spent on Carter Hall becoming Hawkman… he just IS.
Shiera doesn’t do anything, the villain is underwhelming, the action isn’t all that great, and we never learn why the rails turned blue.
How close is this to the modern character? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m not familiar enough with Hawkman to make the call. I could never “get” the character… he’s got an amazing look and a great backstory, but I never connected with the character.
I very much prefer the version where he’s an alien (more on that below), but they keep bringing him back to the Ancient Egypt stuff that I don’t find all that appealing.
Well, that’s not true: I find Egypt truly fascinating, it’s Hawkman that I don’t get.
This is where I’d usually talk about the evolution of the character, but he’s famously a mess.
Crisis gets sometimes blamed for the mess, but I don’t think it’s the problem.
The confusion comes from the fact that in 1961, Garner Fox and Joe Kubert would start the Silver Age version of Hawkman, who was just an alien cop named Katar Hol.
There was no mention of pharaohs or reincarnations: he was just an alien. The Ancient Egypt guy stayed on Earth-Two and the alien guy stayed on Earth-One.
With Crisis deleting Earth-Two, the alien version essentially replaced the Egyptian version: there was no confusion there.
Another target to blame for Hawkman’s confusion are the two Hawkworld miniseries, one from 1989 and one that lasted from 1990 to 1993. Because those miniseries retconned the fact that Hawkman JUST arrived to Earth in the present day, invalidating any flashback where Hawkman was already around.
It was a problem yes, but I’m rather fond of the Hawkworld era: it’s the ONLY period in Hawkman’s publication history where I really cared for the character and his world, because it really made Thanagar feel thoroughly alien and Katar Hol complex.
Therefore Hawkman has two version that are fundamentally incompatible with each other: the reincarnated Pharaoh that fights with magic weapons, and the alien cop that fights with super-science.
The ideal way to treat Hawkman would’ve been either:
A) completely forget the Golden Age version
B) treat the Golden Age version as a completely different character
But nope, they just HAD to connect the two. Lots of “solutions” were explored… is the alien a reincarnation of the pharaoh? Was the pharaoh an alien all along? Maybe one of the Hawkmen was an impostor?
This was already a convoluted mess BEFORE Zero Hour even had the brilliant idea to merge ALL versions of Hawkman into a single character.
Wait, did I say brilliant? I meant stupid and convoluted.
The problem was sort of sidestepped in 2001, when Hawkman had a sort of soft reboot on the basis of “nobody understands this, let’s just introduce a new one and say he’s a reincarnation”.
But of course he’s Hawkman, so they STILL meddled with the origin several times.
I THINK the full story is (at the moment!) that he’s the reincarnation of a pharaoh that had access to alien technology, and that he was reincarnated in the 40s as archeologist Carter Hall but later reincarnates into the alien cop Katar Hol.
He’s a guy with wings who fights with ancient weapons, how hard is it to keep it simple!?!?
Agree that Hawkman always had a cool look but that his backstory never made sense.
An aside: One of the earliest comics I read was JLA #109, in which Hawkman leaves the team and returns to Thanager. It was quite an unpopular move, and less than 10 issues later, he was back. The character worked well in the JLA as a verbal sparring partner for Green Arrow. They had a logic vs. emotions relationship similar to Spock and McCoy.
I don’t understand the need to combine all of his past incarnations into a single origin and character. This was not done with Flash, Green Lantern, Atom, or other characters who peacefully co-existed with their earlier counterparts. It’s a shame because Hawkman has so much potential just being a guy with wings who uses ancient weapons.
It’s worse than you think. Hawkman’s most recent series tacked on a new origin. Now he started as the leader of a death cult, the Deathbringers, who reformed and has to continuously reincarnate to make up for all the deaths he was responsible for. He was a Kryptonian in one life, and various other aliens, before incarnating as Prince Khufu.
It should also be noted that western hero Nighthawk and ancient hero Silent Knight are now incarnations of his.
Why am I not surprised in the slightest?
At least, thanks to Hawkman I don’t see as many “the Legion is too complicated with its many reboots” anymore 🙂