Make Hawkman Simple?

Art by Cully Hamner

  

   DC Comics' Absolute Universe has kicked off. While none of it has caught my interest, it's impossible to avoid seeing articles and posts about what is going on with the event. I make it a point to read the articles that mention Hawkman and I came across an article that left me scratching my head. 
   In the CBR article by Timothy Blake Donohoo, the following is mentioned and suggested:

Hawkman featured in JSA No. 3

 

Hawkman featured in JSA No. 3 (Release Date January 1, 2025) 

It appears that Hawkman will be featured in JSA No. 3. Here are the solicitations notes from First Comics News.

After sacrificing his reincarnation for one last life with the woman he loves, Hell is the last place Hawkman wants to be right now! With his allies at the Tower of Fate under siege by the Injustice Society, can he escape Wotan’s clutches—or is his goose truly cooked?

 It still concerns me why Kendra is being paired with Carter instead of Shayera. I thought we were finally done with the whole Carter-Kendra flip-flop soap opera with the horrible Hawkgirl series. The notes seem to indicate that they are going with where Venditti's series left off, but why isn't it Shayera? I guess we'll have to wait and find out. Writer Jeff Lemire is one of the best so I have faith that he will prove me wrong and bring in Shayera. Time will tell. 

Cully Hamner

Sweeny Boo

Dustin Nguyen

How long have the Hawks existed?

 DC's 20 Oldest Heroes, Ranked By Age

CBR put out a ranking of the top 20 oldest DC heroes, and both Hawkman and Hawkwoman are on the list. Hawkman's first life as General Ktar of the Deathbringers and Hawkwoman's first life as Shrra the Herald. It's impossible to know when they first came into existence. They both lived an incredibly long time before their reincarnation cycle of thousands of lives even began. 
 Hawkman is listed at No. 12. He appears to have been created by the Lord of the Void for the purpose of conquering planets and as Hawkman Vol. V No. 7 (February 2019) indicates, Ktar was alive and active for a very long time before he finally broke free of the Lord of the Void's control with Shrra's help/ My guess would be at least 100,000 years old but it could be even longer than that. 
 Hawkwoman comes in at No. 6 as she is probably even older. The fact that she was a herald of the god entity that appears in the issue mentioned above would indicate that she was created at the beginning of this god's existence.  
 There is no doubt that Hawkman and Hawkwoman have been arround for an extremely long time. Their knowledge of history and their expertise gathered from their previous lives is criminally underused by DC Comics writers. It would be a fascinating subject to explore and it would set the Hawks apart from most DC characters. 
 It appears that they sometimes forget some of their past lives until they come across a place or an artifact that triggers their memories and helps them remember. In Hawkman's very first appearance in Flash Comics No. 1 (January 1940), Gardner Fox set this up beautifully with the Nth metal knife that caused Carter Hall to remember his life as Prince Khufu of Egypt. Robert Venditti used the same method to help Hawkman rememeber his past lives on Krypton and other places. This would be an interesting thread for a writer to tackle someday. Even a TV show that introduces a different memory trigger each week would be very interesting. The possibilities are countless. 
 What do you think? How long do you think the Hawks have existed? Let us know what you think in the comments!  

Hawkman and Hawkgirl Tryout Page by Robb Phipps

 I came across this page on a comic art site but it gave few details. If anyone has more information, please let us know in the comments. AND SOMEBODY SIGN THIS GUY UP FOR A HAWKMAN COMIC!!! 

New JSA Series by Jeff Lemire Featuring Hawkman and Hawkgirl

Art by Diego Olortegui

   It has been announced that a new JSA/Infinity Inc. series by Jeff Lemire will start a month after the current Justice Society by Geoff Johns ends. Currently, the last issue of Justice Society is scheduled to end in September, but the series has been plagued by delays since it began so it could be postponed again. The art will be by Diego Olortegui. 

Vote for a U.S. Minted Hawkman Coin!

Get Hawkman on a official coin! The United States Mint will be putting out coins with DC characters on them. The first three are the Trinity, but they are asking the fans to choose an additional six out of twelve heroes to put on commemorative coins and medals starting in the summer of 2025! Click the link to go over and vote for Hawkman! Here's another chance to make Hawkfans voices be heard! It ends on Sunday, August 11th! The info below is from ComicBook.com.

Your favorite DC superhero could soon make their way to an official collectible coin. Earlier this week, the United States Mint announced a new collaboration with Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products, which will honor DC's crop of characters on a series of commemorative coins and medals. This three-year deal will begin in the summer of 2025 with Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman honored as the first three heroes. From now until Sunday, August 11th, fans can vote on six additional characters who will earn their own coins in 2026 and 2027. The survey includes twelve established DC heroes for fans to vote for — Aquaman, Batgirl, Black Canary, Blue Beetle, Cyborg, The Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Robin, Shazam!, and Supergirl.

The partnership, which is being billed as the first of its kind for the U.S. Mint, will have characters depicted on 24-karat gold coins, .999 fine silver medals, and non-precious metal (clad) medals. The art direction for the coins is spearheaded by United States Mint Chief Engraver Joseph Menna.

Let's put Hawkman on a coin! Go vote!  

Hawkworld News (May-June 2024)

The last two months continued to be quiet for the Hawks. The solicitations for August and September offered nothing new for Hawkman or Hawkgirl. It looks like we'll pass 4 years without a Hawkman comic since Robert Venditti's series ended in November 2024. The current event called Absolute Power has nothing to do with the Hawks. It's almost as if they have been wiped off the DC map for now. Here's to hoping it will get better soon. Here is what we got during May and June. 

Art by Alan Quah

Art by Dan Hipp

The Writers with the Most Hawkman/Hawkgirl Stories

Since their debut in Flash Comics No. 1 (January 1940), Hawkman and Hawkgirl have been written by some of the top writers in the history of comics. Here is a list of the writers with ten or more Hawkman/Hawkgirl stories. These writers have written stories for Hawkman/Hawkgirl series, mini-series, back-up features and one shots. The Hawks have truly been blessed with some of the greatest names in comics history! Check out the amazing list below!

Gardner Fox

John Ostrander

Robert Venditti

The Complete History of Hawkman, Hawkwoman and Hawkgirl by Tim Board

   To celebrate Hawkman Day, I started writing a history of Hawkman, Hawkwoman, and Hawkgirl in the comics. The only problem is, I started writing it in 2021! Life can get busy and this project got shoved aside many times over the last 2 and a half years. I'm not a professional writer. The only things that I have to offer are my knowledge of the characters as I have seen them in the comics, and my love for the characters. It's a pretty tough task to include everything in the Hawks' 84-year history, but I did my best.  It is rather long and I will try to break it up later, but if you are a Hawkfan, I hope you enjoy going through their history and that the references will help you find what you are looking for. I don't know how much longer I will be able to do Hawkworld, but I'm glad I was able to finish this and get it out for Hawkman's 84th anniversary of his first appearance in Flash Comics No. 1, way back on November 20, 1939. Feel free to leave some comments after you finish reading. Thanks for always supporting Hawkworld! 

The Complete History of Hawkman, Hawkwoman and Hawkgirl by Tim Board

Hawkgirl (Kendra Saunders I) 25th Anniversary

Art by Amancay Nahuelpan

   Kendra Saunders is celebrating her 25th anniversary this year! James Gunn posted about it on Sunday and it got a lot of attention. Even Isabela Merced, who will be playing Hawkgirl in Gunn's Superman movie, posted a comment on Gunn's post. 

Back Issue Review: Hawkman Vol. 4 No. 2

Review
The issue opens with Carter and Shiera at Midway City storage. Everything from the Hawks’ past is stored there, including a Thanagarian warship called a Brontadon. Carter is an expert pilot, but Shiera/Shayera was the one who handled the ship’s maintenance. When the ship doesn’t start, the past memories inside of Kendra kick in and she easily fixes the Nth metal engine. That was pretty cool. It was a brilliant idea to separate the Hawks’ abilities with their ships in this way.
The Hawks arrive in India, and they run into Jayita, who insults Hawkman by saying his accent sounds like metal scraping concrete. He can speak hundreds of languages fluently, so her critique of his Hindi was a bit odd. Maybe she just likes to insult anyone who is not Indian.
Someone who appears to be Green Arrow appears in St. Roch. Only the second issue and there’s a Carter-Ollie confrontation coming up? Yay!
They find Danny and rescue him from being eaten alive by Copperhead. Shadow Thief is also there and we get to see a nostalgic battle between him and Carter. The Tigress and Kendra definitely don’t like each other and go at it pretty hard. Kendra needs her own rogues gallery and these two have a lot of potential. The Shadow Thief is much creepier than before, even masochistic apparently. It suits him.
Rags Morales was born to draw Carter and Kendra. Ever since we were treated to his work in this series, I’ve always compared his work to other heroes, I have to say that Morales’ work with the Hawks was something special and right up there with Joe Kubert’s. The Hawks vs. the villains, Oliver Evans vs. Kristopher Roderic, Green Arrow, and some hard-charging elephant warriors were enough to keep us anxiously waiting for the next issue.

10 Best Hawkman Moments of All Time (ScreenRant) Plus a Few from Tim Board!

 

Hawkman Vol. V by Robert Venditti, 2018-2021, 29 Issues, 4 Trades

   Hawkman Vol. V by Robert Venditti kicked off on June 13, 2018, six years ago! For two and a half years, Venditti gave us one of the best Hawkan series, some fans say best ever, and it has only grown in popularity since it wrapped up in November 2020. About a month ago, ScreenRant's Ashley Land put out a list of the ten best moments from the series so I'll share it here. There were so many great moments, it's pretty hard to limit the list to only ten, so I'll add a few more that didn't make the list. This is full of spoilers so if you haven't read the series, do yourself a favor and stop reading. Come back and share your thoughts. 
Here is the list on ScreenRant first. You can check out the article here for more details. 

Hawkman's Series Included in List of Instant Classics

    People often ask me what I consider as the best Hawkman and Hawkgirl series in their 80+ years of history. Over the years, Hawkman has had six solo series, a few mini-series and several series in other books. Hawkgirl has also had two of her own series in the past. Some stand out more than the others. I always name Gardner Fox's two 3-issue series in the Brave and the Bold, Tony Isabella's Shadow War of Hawkman, Benjamin Raab's Legend of the Hawkman, and Robert Venditti's Hawkman Vol. V.     
   Hawkman Vol. 1 by Fox and Hawkworld by Timothy Truman could easily be on that list as well. John Ostrander's Hawkworld Vol. 2 started out well and peaked with the Escape from Thanagar storyline, while Hawkman Vol. 3 also had a good start with the battle with Count Viper, but both series struggled in the end. Geoff Johns' series has gradually paled over the years and while the art by Rags Morales is second to none, Johns' Hawkman did a lot of damage to the character. It suffers when compared to Venditti's series that came later. 
   A CBR article by Timothy Blake Donohoo put out a list of series that should be regarded as instand classics, and Truman's Hawkworld (#4) and Venditti's Hawkman (#1) both made the list. DC really screwed up when they decided to place the Hawkworld in the current time instead of making it a reboot, and they have been trying to fix that mistake for over 30 years now. Venditti's series had the misfortune of having to deal with the meaningless Year of the Villain/Secret Six story and then the Coronavirus, and DC did next to nothing to promote the series, so it ended before we could make it out of 2020. 
   We are quickly approaching 4 years without a Hawkman title, and nothing is on the horizon at this time. Hawkgirl had a series last year, but I personally would never recommend that to anyone. However, some fans appeared to have liked it so check it out at your own risk. Hawkman does have some gems in his history and I hope fans will check out the series I mentioned above. 

Here is a list of the series and comics that Hawkman has appeared in over the years. LINK 

Here is a complete list of Hawkman and Hawkgirl trades and collections that are out as of this date. The contents are listed as well. LINK 

Happy hunting! And here's to hoping DC will give Hawkman and Hawkgirl another series soon! 

Hawkworld News (March - April 2024)

The year 2024 has been rather quiet so far for Hawkman, Hawkwoman, and Hawkgirl. The last two months had very little news or rumors of upcoming projects for the Hawks, but here is a look back at what we managed to find. 

Comics
The solicitations for June (announced on March 16) and July (announced on April 20) did not have any news for Hawkman or Hawkgirl. They have popped up in some cameos or as background filler for some covers or variants, but that's been it for a few months. Here are the trades of back issues that they will or might appear in.

DETECTIVE COMICS #1000: THE DELUXE EDITION (2024 EDITION) / August 13

     Hawkman and Hawkgirl appear in "Batman's Longest Case."

ELSEWORLDS: JUSTICE LEAGUE VOL. 1 (2024 EDITION) / Released August 20 

     Hawkman appears as Katar Johnson, a Native American warrior in "Justice Riders."

JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE WORLD’S GREATEST SUPERHEROES BY ALEX ROSS & PAUL DINI (2024 EDITION) / Released August 20

     Hawkman appears on the cover. 

Articles

Note: Some of this is clickbait and not up-to-date. So don't hate me if you don't like the article. I'm only passing along what I found. 
10 DC Heroes the DCAU Could've Done Better (CBR)
Batman Secretly Dislikes 1 of DC's Most Influential Heroes (Screen Rant) 
The Nth Knight Rises in Jazia Axelrod and Amancay Nahuelpan's "Hawkgirl" (DC Comics)

10 Oldest Justice League Heroes in DC Continuity (Ranked by Age) / Screen Rant) 

10 Best World War II Movies Since 2015, Ranked (CBR)

Isabela Merced Can't Wait for People To Shout "Hawkgirl!" at Her (Collider) 

Hawkworld

Hawkworld Facebook hit 10,000 members in April. When I started the group back in 2016, I never imagined the group would grow so big, but there are many Hawkfans out there! The group continues to grow and many Hawkman/Hawkgirl creators such as Tony Isabella and Rags Morales also have joined. There are over 150 writers. artists, and editors who have honored the group by joining and sharing their work and backstories. Hawkworld Instagram and Hawkworld Threads also continue to grow. This blog also continues to get over 300 views a day and we're quickly approaching 500,000 views! Thank you to everyone for your support and come join us if you haven't already! 

That's it for this report. Stay tuned for more Hawkman/Hawkgirl news here on Hawkworld! 

Hawkworld News (January-February 2024)

   Two months of 2024 have already passed, but things have been pretty quiet in Hawkworld. Unfortunately, there has been zero news about Hawkman, Hawkwoman, or Hawkgirl coming up in the comics. There may be tiny cameos here and there, but nothing has been really worth checking out. There appears to be some sort of bounty hunter called "The Thanagarian" (or so I've been told) in a (where else?) Batman book, but it is probably completely unrelated to any of the Hawks. I guess DC didn't have enough material for the two dozen Batman books so they have started strip-mining other heroes' properties for stories. 
   News has been slow about the Superman Legacy movie has well. I guess they have started filming or will be soon. There are a few articles about Isabel Merced working out or trying on her Hawkgirl helmet for the first time but that's about it. There are the usual comics sites' top ten whatever lists, and Hawkman shows up on those sometimes but it's pretty easy reading. About a month ago, Aldis Hodge was doing the interview rounds for his new movie and he got the inevitable questions about Hawkman. The only news we got was that there is nothing happening at the moment, and that he would love to move on and play Green Lantern John Stewart if he could. It looks like the Aldis Hodge-Hawkman ship has sailed. A quick Hawkman news search will bring those up if you want some extremely light articles. I'll list a couple of links to the articles that have come out in the last month or so. 

   We may hear something later on in the year, but so far, the solicitations for comics up through May have revealed nothing. The wait continues. 

   In the meantime, there are some great Hawkman and Hawkgirl stories out there. I've compiled a list of all the Hawkman and Hawkgirl trades with the contents listed as well, so if you want to know what to look for, check out the list. If you haven't read Robert Venditti's Hawkman series yet, it's alvailable in four volumes. I can't recommend this one enough. As for the recent Hawkgirl series, the trade is supposed to come out in April, but I do not, repeat, do not recommend it unless you're a completist and must have it for your comics collection. 
   If you see Hawkman or Hawkgirl pop up somewhere in the comics, let me know in the comments and I'll try to let all the Hawkfans know. Hawkworld on Facebook has passed over 9200 members, and Hawkworld on Threads is slowly climbing to 1,000 followers (745 at the time of this writing). Come join or give Hawkworld a follow if you haven't already. 
   As Better Midler would probably say, the fans are the wind beneath Hawkman's wings, so it's up to us Hawkfans to keep Hawkman and Hawkgirl soaring. Jim Lee won't be at the top forever, and it's always the darkest right before the dawn. Or in DC's case, after the Dawn. Keep soaring! 

Aldis Hodge Has Bad News for Hawkman Return in James Gunn's DC (Exclusive)

Superman: Legacy’s Isabela Merced Has Tried on Her Hawkgirl Helmet 

Art by Prentis Rollins (Commissined by Tim Board)

8th Anniversary of Hawkworld!

 

Commission by Prentis Rollins (Made specifically for Hawkworld)

     Hawkworld is celebrating our 8th anniversary today! It all started on Facebook on January 15, 2016. It's been eight years of ups and downs, but overall it has been an amazing time. It's been one of the most unbelievable experiences of my lifetime, and it has soared higher than I ever imagined when I started it. Of course, it would have never gotten off the ground and it wouldn't have lasted this long without all the fellow fans who have joined, followed, and contributed their art, cosplays, figures, comics, and opinions. So much has happened over the last eight years and I'm sure to forget some things but here's a look back at the highlights. 

Nighthawk and Cinnamon in Superman #9

   For those of you who know Hawkman and Hawkgirl's history, or if you read my History of Hawkman, you know that Nighthawk and Cinnamon are past lives of the Winged Wonders. The two make a surprise entrance in Superman #9 so we definitely want to check this out. Many thanks to Hawkworld Facebook member Ruben Rex Gomez for bringing it to my attention! Link: Superman #9 (League of Comic Geeks) 

Screen Rant article: Justice League's Best Forgotten Heroes are Back to Save the DCU... From Superman?! 

Tim Board's Review of Hawkworld 2023

Hawkman and Hawkgirl by Bo Hampton 2023

   For Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Hawkwoman fans, 2023 was a year of teases, endless waiting, cameos, and possibly the worst series featuring a Hawk character since Hawkman's debut in 1939. Here's a quick rundown of the year and a list of the comics where Hawkman, Hawkgirl, and Hawkman made some sort of appearance. 

Hawkgirl Review #6 by Tim Board

   

Amancay Nahuelpan

Derrick Chew

Jess Taylor

   The place where Hawkgirl ended up at the end of this series isn't bad, but my gawd what a convoluted way to do it. I tried to put out a review for issues #1-4, but I finally just skipped issue #5. I'm doing this review more as a way to wrap up what has turned out to be the absolute worst series involving any Hawk character in history. So if you thought this series was in any way good or competent, you might want to skip this review. I'll try to make it brief. 

Hawkman and Hawkgirl News and Info (November 12-18)

Here are the news and articles we got for Hawkman and Hawkgirl last week!