So let me get this straight, Carter Hall and Katar Hol are not the same guy? Katar wasn't one of Carter's past lives and both of them exist in the same universe at the same time? There just happens to be an alien cop with the same name and is also a superhero with the same title and costume as him? Who also happens to be married to a woman with the same name and superhero title and costume as his wife who is also not one of their shared past lives together?
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>So let me get this straight, Carter Hall and Katar Hol are not the same guy? Katar wasn't one of Carter's past lives and both of them exist in the same universe at the same time?
They're the same "spirit." Dollars to donuts, they would've just had Carter and Shiera died and reincarnate right into Katar and Shayera if given the chance to redo Post-Crisis continuity.
>Post-Crisis continuity
So the fact that they're both around at the same time is because of some crisis shenanigans? Basically the same reason there's both a white Wally West and a black Wally West at the same time?
I think the last Hawkman solo explained it that he was reincarnating throughout time and space and it isn't necessarily in a straight line through history
Like at one point he was reincarnated as two soldiers fighting on opposing sides of a planetary war.
So he can potentially run into another version of himself
>reincarnating throughout time and space and it isn't necessarily in a straight line through history
Was it as dumb as it sounds? Even the whole "crisis compressing different universes together" makes more sense.
It was honestly my favorite Hawkman run ever. The final issue was especially comfy.
This. It felt like the payoff we never got to Brightest Day.
That planetary war took place over about 400 years so he was constantly going back and forth over and over again.
I feel that's what future adaptions should do if they decide to adapt the Hawks as legacy characters for once. In fact I think Justice League did something like that.
JL didn’t have a true Katar, Carter was a mentally ill fake and Shayera had an Egyptian past life with GL John but that was it as far as I recall.
It sounds like you're talking about the DCAU Hawks, but you're remembering wrong. Carter wasn't mentally ill, but he was a human and not a thanagarian like Shayera was in that lifetime. He and Shayera did have a past life together as pharaoh and queen, but she cheated on him with past life GL Jon and the pharaoh's underling killed them for it without his say so, thinking that's what pharaoh wanted after he found out about it.
Oh sorry I thought by Justice League you were referring to the DCAU. Yeah you’re right, I guess it’s more appropriate to say Carter was a bit delusional and a lot more interested in all the destiny bullshit. I remember she cheated on him but I could have swore past Carter killed them and them himself but it’s been so long since I watched that episode.
It's Hawkman lore, that shit is needlessly convoluted.
Basically, it's schizo space magic
I enjoyed Geoff Johns' Hawkman. Anybody have any other Hawkman recommendations?
Hawkworld
Vendetti’s Hawkman run
Katar Hol is the only Hawkman I was a fan of. Never cared for Carter Hall and his reincarnation bullshit.
Thanagar actually leads to some fun space stuff while reincarnation did nothing but make things confusing.
confusing how? It seems pretty starightforward, at least until this happened
Same, I like flying pseudi-Klingon aliens that frick shit up. Not mopey reincarnating archaeologist guy. I have no idea why the two HAVE to be connected so badly like this.
If anything Carter does not even need the Hawk theme at all here. He is basically good Vandal Savage with all the skills and tricks he learned over lifetimes too. He can do his remember space science, priest rituals, and wizard magic for any situation thing and not need to do the flying with a mace thing at all here.
>I have no idea why the two HAVE to be connected so badly like this.
CoIE happened along with some miscommunication. Before that Katar was a reboot of Hawkman like GL and the Flash and it was later established he and Carter live on different Earths.
Yeah but Alan and Jay got to be separate people. For some reason Carter must be Katar.
Again see CoIE and Hawkworld. As Mark Waid pointed out, had you put "ten years ago" at the beginning of the Hawkworld mini, you could have avoided all that mess and had them be separate characters.
They did the same thing with Wonder Woman and it ended up fricking Donna Troy up for years since she still had to be around when the Titans were founded. What was the logic behind Hawkworld taking place in the present DCU anyway? Year One already showed you could do a gritty reboot without throwing continuity out of whack.
IIRC, the Legion of Super-Heroes got thrown out of whack when Crisis retconned out Superman's time as Superboy.
Ironic these headaches popped up when Crisis was supposed to streamline everything and make things simple and accessible.
I honestly wonder if kids in the 60s gave a shit about the golden age heroes/JSA. I would've been fine with all those guys being forgotten in favor of the silver age recreations.
Probably not. Modern space age heroes were more fun and no one was super into old mostly forgotten characters in weirder looking costumes.
All the best heroes are space heroes. It's peak comic comfy.
in the 60s everything was space, no one cared about wizards and ancient Egyptians hanging out fighting mafia bosses. They wanted heroes out in space punching lizard men who were going to invade.
It was the era of the space race and the atomic age. It was a different time.
A simpler time, a better time.
...when all we had to worry about was total nuclear annihilation
A simpler time
ok boomer
Just duck and cover and that heatwave and radiation won’t get ya, bruh.
>GL
>Hawkman
>Adam Strange
>Starfire
>Captain Comet
checks out
Jim Starlin you gotta calm down and drink your warm milk.
who?
It's cool you don't know jack shit anon. But you're god damn moronic.
Sure thing dumbass
ok moron
Street heroes > space heroes > superpowered terrestrial heroes > sorcery heroes
Not universal for me. It depends on the character/writer. For the space comics, GLC is typically fun to read, but I always thought stuff like LEGION or Darkstars were boring.
Sorcery "heroes" are cool when they're not heroes. Zatanna is lame; the Spectre, Etrigan or the Swamp Thing are cool.
They've put him in a lot of team books, but is there is great Etrigan solo run? I feel like that would be a simple book to make.
>but is there is great Etrigan solo run?
you series anon?
Alan Grant was great and I liked how Val drew Demon.
wish this one got collected instead of the Ennis series
His original book was a solo run anon (very recommended as all things Kirby)
And Alan Grant's run is my personal favorite.
Sadly you'll never see it again because he doesn't have a bat on his chest (although given the quality of the current DC stuff it might be for the best)
Also Ennis' run is very fun if you like Ennis.
>because he doesn't have a bat on his chest
I liked that Waller used him on the Suicide Squad Black/Limbo Legion.
Kids didn't but even back then there was Golden Age fanboys (along with Golden Age writers) who didn't want them forgotten.
>reincarnation
its an interesting angle for a character since his only other gimmick is that he can fly (which might have been cool in the 40s but now half the heroes can do it)
The Hawks are a comic book rabbit hole.
What's funny is that they weren't even that complex until Post-Crisis. Then, they added in the Hawk Spirit, and everything went downhill from there...
Yeah, they were pretty simply until the 90s tried to explain everything and made things worse. Then Johns came along and made up the constantly reincarnating into everyone thing in the early 00s. Strange Adventures in 08ish added the Katar never actually existed thing.
Then Brightest Day added in even more weird shit like Thanagar is an in between dimension, since Thanagar was blown up at the time. Now it's not since other events added Thanagar back without explanation, and Shayera is alive again also without explanation.
2015 run put Carter back as the main again and Katar was just another incarnation of many. 2019 run pushed the origin back further now Carter was some evil bird man that killed planets to a bird god for some reason millions of years ago and Shayera was an angel that got him to stop now he reincarnated across all space, time, and dimensions and any bird themed hero on any world is just him again. And he reincarnated for every person he killed.
Now we wait for the next run to invent an all NEW explanation, push the origin back even further than that, and make it even MORE complicated for no actual reason.
At this point I think they're making a game of how convoluted the lore is getting
He has the same problem as a lot of characters. Modern writers come onto the book with the plan to FIX EVERYTHING!
Like writers that come on board a Superman or Wonder Woman book with the idea that all their villains suck and they are going to invent the greatest bestest ever villlain that will definitely be iconic and remembered forever. And we end up with a dozen or so main rival characters that were boring, the same thing as the last guy, and were quickly dropped and forgotten when the writer that invented them moves on to something else. Only for the new guy to do the same thing and invent the newest bestest OC ever that will definitely be iconic and remembered.
Hawkman has the unfortunate position of being the character everyone wants to reinvent and FIX the origin of. As if the last 5 guys who also came on didn't try the exact same thing. Only to be dropped and replaced by the next guy, and the next.None of these guys are fans or know much of the character and they all sort of pretend they are coming on board Hawkman in the year 1998. Not current year.
You said nothing on how Savage Hawknan was supposed to be Carter Hall Post Brightest Day
Just make carter hall a descendent of yhe Egyptian hawkgod and hawkwoman a Latin coded space alien.
It’s reincarnation across time and space, innit.
90s series was good
The last Hawkman ongoing did have Katar as a past life. And also the past lives were not in linear time either, Carter's immediate past life was a Kryptonian that blew up with Krypton. And he had some future incarnations in other universes and other dimensions as well.
They are reincarnations, at the start of Katar's run the JSA had disappeared but it turned out they were on stasis due to some multiversal mumbo jumbo and they come back.
>There just happens to be an alien cop with the same name and is also a superhero with the same title and costume as him?
Paran Katar, Hol's father, infiltrated Earth in his youth and met Carter and Shirera. Together they discovered how to use the Nth Metal and when he went back to Thanagar he created the Wingmen inspired by the Hawks of Earth.
No more than Alan Scott discovering a magic lantern that just so happens to work exactly like the ones these aliens out in space have been using for thousands of years. Or Jay also somehow accidentally discovering the speed force independent of Barry, Wally or any other speedster later on.
I liked the crashed Thanagarian ship theme. It's a little close to the Reach Scarab thing also ending up on Earth and inspiring a few random heroes. But it easily explains how an earthman has a similar power and weapon as the space guys.
Fret not anon, neither Carter nor Katar are named Batman so you don't have to worry about them since they won't exist by next year.
Personally enjoy their convoluted history and lore. It adds to DC's multiverse charm and crazy capeshit
Can we just start over with a new guy already? No Carter, Katar, Car-Tar, or any of that shit? Just make some new Thanagarian named something like Thoran Pan or something and have him go to Earth and be a superhero while using the Earthman name Fred Thomas or something?
Drop all of the last 30+ years of pretentious nonsensical meaningless shit already?
Yeah that always works out
But that'd be boring.
Carter has not been able to have a book make it to two years before being cancelled for low sales. Apparently the general public of the last 30 years considers what we got now is too boring to maintain.
The general public doesn't buy comics anon.
>Gee I wonder why comics are dying and manga consistently outsells it
Believe me, there are quite a few factors for that and none of them are "Hawkman should be a random Thanagarian".
A major one is taking comics out of all major stores that commonly see the general public in and places them only in specialty shops that lots of towns do not even have.
Meanwhile manga is in every major book store, library, Target, Walmart, and Best Buy.
>a book make it to two years before being cancelled for low sales.
Does any other hero's solo book that is NOT Batman or Superman achieve that? Even Batfamily books only stick around cause of all them tying into the man Batman book's bat-events,
Even then, DC will cancel a successful book for edging into Bat sales, or to free up space for a new Bat book.
Just look at 2015 Blue Beetle, Green Lantern Corps, or JSA All Stars.
>JSA All Stars.
For a purely legacy centered book, it was a fun ride. There's no way a book with a line up like that would survive now.
>Can we just start over with a new guy already?
Morrison tried exactly that with Zauriel in his JLA book and that character bombed hard. Zero connections to the Hawks and still no traction.
I didn't think he bombed as much as he was a victim of the mid 00s
>Back to the silver age!
push that was going on at DC where they removed, killed, or erased almost every character invented in the 90s one by one.
DC's Nu-Silver Age post Identiy Crisis wasn't bad and I enjoyed resurregance of books like Uncle Sam & The Freedom Fighters and Rucka's Checkmate and Ostrander's Suicide Squad.
But atleast Zauriel was being utilized post Infinite Crisis though.
Zauriel should go hang with Kyle Rayner, Wally West, Kon El, Steel, Cassie Sandsmark and make a forgotten JLA.
Throw in 1940s Hippolyta/Wonder Woman & Azrael then you'll start cooking!
The Super Hardcore X-Games Extreme Edge Friends. Where everyone wears leather jackets over their costumes, has ammo pouches even if they don't have guns, and Azrael can be the gruff one that smoked cigars and points claws at people for no reason.
Zauriel was cool when he debuted. When he got all that angel armor shit it turned to crap.
>Can we just start over with a new guy already?
>Just make some new Thanagarian named something
Both of these were tried, separately and together with the same character. Pre-COIE Golden Eagle was a fanboy human that became a hero when Hawkman went back the Thanagar. Then Post-COIE Golden Eagle was retcon'd into a Thanagarian related to post-Hawkworld Fel Andar/Hawkman/Carter Hall Jr
Wasn't he meant to be the Titans hawk adjacent?
The recent Venditti run fixed all the confusing shit with the simple explanation that katar, carter and any other hawk hero you can think of are reincarnations across space and time. No need to beat your head trying to grasp it anymore. If you want to know why it was so confusing in the first place, I think the explanation in the DC wikia is pretty complete.
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Hawkman_is_confusing
https://dc.fandom.com/wiki/Hawkman_is_confusing
It did add some stupid shit like Carter killing countless words and now I gotta atone for it bs, as well as keeping the ancient world destroyers around and bird themes.
Just like in the 90s where Katar, Carter and any other hawk hero across space and time were avatars of the Hawk God, and ended up the same person. That totally worked well and didn't make things worse at all.
It's better the Venditti way because reincarnating due to the curse was always the Hawks' thing. The Hawk God shit was literally a way to complicate that same concept.
Carter and Katar are reincarnations of the same soul; Ktar the Deathbringer.
Their reincarnations transcend linear time which is why both of them can coexist.
>Hawkman inspired Adam Strange to be Rann's champion
>Hawkman founded the Blackhawks and owns Blackhawk Island
>Hawkman defeated Barbatos
>Hawkman redeemed The Shade and gave him his cane
>Hawkman taught Supergirl on Krypton
>Hawkman was a New God
>Hawkman was Black Adam's best friend
>Hawkman lead the Justice Society for longer than any other member
>Hawkman lead the Bird Tribe
>Hawkman is the greatest detective off history
>Hawkman's mace can be recalled
>Hawkman's wings retract
>Hawkman's costume can instantaneously appear
>Hawkman can oneshot a gorilla golem
>Hawkman can talk to his past lives
>Hawkman can generate earthquakes
>Hawkman has a cosmic army at his command
>Hawkman genocided Earth, Thanagar and Rann at the dawn of the universe
>Hawkman can defeat a dragon
>Hawkman discovered the Dark Multiverse
>Hawkman discovered the Microverse before The Atom
Does it seem weird that new gods are a part of the regular cycle of reincarnation with random species across the universe?
I don't anyone who gives a shit about this character so does it even matter?
GOOD MORNING SIRS
That's the problem with the character. Not enough people really give a shit about the character, no one ever really has. Hawkman has struggled to sell a book for 80 years. Not enough people give a shit about a guy with wings that whacks stuff with a mace. It's just not enough for a superhero book to maintain interest.
So writers try to chance things around and make him into things like a Hawk God avatar, or a Native American hawk spirit guy, or just a straight up stormtrooper on an alien planet, to bird themed Batman. Nothing works for too long because there is a very tiny super dedicated grouping of fans that just want him to be some weird mix of iconic classic character in classic suits with just a mace and no shirt. They hate all changes. But the rest of comic readers hate the classic Hawk stuff.
But at this point he lingers on based entirely on how he has been around for a really long time and has been in the JLA and JSA before.
You do realize that argument is a big fallacy right? Every old superhero has been through different iterations throughout the years, it's not different to what happened with Green Lantern or Flash.
Would you say that not enough people cared about Batman and that's why he went from campy Sherlock Holmes to brooding tacticool guy?
zThats not a fallacy.
That's facts.
Meanwhile all of those had successful ongoings, like right now. They still have ongoings right now. Hawkman cannot make it past two years and has never accomplished that in 8 decades of publishing.
Campy Holmes sold consistently for about 30 years until comic readers tastes changed and they changed him into brooding super ninja. Which has also been pretty consistent for about 40ish years now.
When they make a Hawkman change it only lasts for about 6 issues before someone changes him back or the book is cancelled. Your comparison only works if he remained the Apache Hawk god from 94ish to today and is still working out in various media across the board.
That isn't true in the slightest. In fact DC marketing even points out how much of a thematic mess Batman is by calling him one of the most versatile heroes in History. Even in today's DC where pretty much every story is about Batman and pretty much every one is the exact same the Batman you see in the solo series and the Batman you see with the Justice League are almost completely different.
Show me the current GL ongoing.
You live in a goddamn fantasy land fanboy.... Wake the frick up already.