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. 

Back Issue Review: Hawkman Vol. 4 No. 1

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!