I usually give Hawkman a bit of the business on this blog, because his continuity has been wrecked so many times it feels deliberate now--Geoff Johns had it pretty much shored back together in JSA, and I think it's been broke two more times since then! And he had some unflattering moments in various Justice League turns: he was often the conservative, authority voice to play off the more liberal and rebellious Green Arrow; then in the DeMatteis/Giffen era he had a brief stint as a humorless prig, not even good as a straight man. To be fair, he's hardly a jokester, but he's in a good place at the start of this mini, which was tying into most of Katar and Shayera's continuity to that point. Earth is invaded, subtly and quietly, by an unknown number of shadowy men from a shadowy planet (not those ones!) who seem to start by forcing a small-time cat burglar to rob the Emmett house, home of the former police commissioner, where Carter and Shiera Hall were currently staying, in order to steal the Hawks' anti-gravity devices.
For their part, the Hawks are about as happy as can be, although Katar is a little grumpy after beating up some thugs after senior citizens; since by earth standards he was twice those seniors' age. (Which might explain why he sometimes seems a bit stodgy! And it's given as a roundabout reason why Shayera kept the Hawkgirl monicker for so long.) They had come to earth so many years ago on a case, then stayed to "study earth policing techniques," but earth had long since become home, partly because Thanagar was a mess. An alien had "equalized" the populace, averaging them out and making them all the same; then the alien tyrant Hyathis had taken over, just on the promise of a partial cure. (Hyathis is the third of three alien tyrants typically seen in JLA books; Despero and Kanjar Ro are probably better known.) When they arrive to finish setting up an exhibit at the museum, they overhear art director Mavis Trent getting into an argument, where she blames Shiera for the Halls being late, because she wants Carter, bad, married or not. Carter gets called away by the burglar alarm he set up at their new place, where he fights the shadowy men, who disintegrate the cat burglar, burning a negative shadow into the wall. The shadow men don't think they're a match for a furious Hawkman, and retreat when they receive word that their second squad destroyed their objective, which doesn't seem to have been their goal.
Hawkman quickly realizes, the shadow men had wanted his anti-gravity belt; and races back to the museum...to find the horrifying shadow of Hawkwoman, burned into the wall! (Spoilers after the break, or at least that's where I tried to put them, the blog's not playing ball today!)
Katar uses some tech, to trace the shadowy men's weapons, and is dismayed to discover, they were from Thanagar! Thanagar had recently decided to conquer the universe, and what better place to start than earth...also, they had lost their anti-grav tech, and needed to steal it back from the Hawks, so...But, they did have some tech of their own, as well: the Absorbascon, with which they could read the minds of anyone on earth, except the Hawks. So, Carter isn't even able to get help, since anyone he told, the Thanagarians would know. They also hook one of their own up to the Absorbascon, as punishment for failing, which is a fair bit of horror, since it chews that guy's mind up.
Anyway, there's the double meaning of the "shadow war," which I can't remember if I knew before; and I'm also not sure if this was the first heel-turn for the Thanagarians, who previously were fairly bland victims that always needed saving, like Adam Strange's Rannians. While the Hawks have stayed cool, the Thanagarians are by-and-large dicks when encountered since. (I don't know if this is supported by the material, but it feels like the Thanagarians got hurt once and have been lashing out ever since.)
2 comments:
I can’t say you’re not entirely wrong about DC’s seeming fetish with constantly f’n up Hawkman’s continuity. The evidence is too overwhelming at this point to ignore. I for one would be interested in finding out why this is the case. Is it because they don’t think Hawkman on his own as a character is interesting enough or what? Would love to understand their reasoning behind that.
Are Hawkman & Hawkgirl/Woman the first ever Silver Age interplanetary exchange students in the DCU? I mean they loved Earth police procedurals so much they moved there to get a better & consistent view of how it’s done in real time. Yet, it’s mostly American policing they enjoy, not so much how it’s done across the world. Weird & definitely a problematic take to have in the current climate.
Now that I think about it, Thanagar is like what you’d get if a big conservative state like Texas was a country or planet rather than just a state.
I think the main issue with the Hawks’ continuity is that they were very different in each pre-Crisis universe, other than the basic names and powers. When everything got merged, they never really decided which was the ‘definitive’ story so everything counts no matter if it fits together or not.
There were definitely lots of ‘aliens learning how human society works’ stories before and during the Silver Age but the Hawks had the most lasting power (unless you count Martian Manhunter, but he didn’t really choose to come to Earth).
Interestingly, Hyathis was introduced as one of three tyrants (though I don’t think Despero or Kanjar were part of that group). They were all kind of weak, if I remember correctly- I don’t even remember Hyathis being involved in anything else but the Thanagar thing, and I don’t know if the other two even showed up again outside of flashbacks.
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