Superhero Silhouettes By Steve Garcia

   Over the years, I've come across Steve Garcia's silhouette art of the superheroes many times. Each hero's silhouette is in a certain color, and another smaller image is in white. These were all fun to look at, but what caught my attention was the theme that the artist gave each character. 

   For Superman, it says "Hope," Batman got "Justice," and Wonder Woman was titled "Truth." Those made sense. Hawkgirl was titled "Spirit." I thought that was a pretty good one-word description of her. The one-word description of Hawkman is "Order." This made me think about a couple of things. Did "order" accurately describe Hawkman? Since the Silver Age, Hawkman has been portrayed as a somewhat rigid, by-the-book character at times. He has even been thought of as a conservative to go against the liberal Green Arrow. He was a police officer on Thanagar when he came to Earth, he was portrayed as a wingman in the Hawkworld series, and he was even the police commissioner on Thanagar after the Infinite Crisis event. 

   "Order" could also be applied to the origin and purpose that Robert Venditti gave Hawkman in the Vol. V series (2018-2021). Hawkman was created to serve an evil entity and he took many lives, but he was able to escape that existence (with the help of Shrra, Hawkwoman's first life), and he was given the chance to set things right, to atone for what he had done, to find redemption, to restore order in his own personal life. From that point of view, order seemed like a good choice.

   I tried to think of other words to describe Hawkman; soar, flight, redemption, atonement, and commitment came to mind immediately. But the word I think I would choose is Discovery. Discovering the evil of the god who created him, discovering his morality, discovering his true purpose and love in each life in different ways, discovering his past lives, his career as an archaeologist, discovering his powers with the Nth metal, and on it goes. I think the word could be applied to every hero at some level or another, but I think no one fits the Discovery as well as Hawkman.  What do you think? If you can think of a word to describe Hawkman, post it in the comments! I would be very interested in hearing some more ideas. 

Here are some of the other heroes with their theme. Click the picture for a larger version. You can also search for Steve Garcia superhero silhouettes and get many, many more. They are pretty cool to see.