The 48th Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast: Hawkman! Part 1

I can't recall when the last time I updated this broadcast.  No, wait I do.  It was in August.  I was supposed to do this weeks ago but circumstances prevented me from updating the Broadcast.  I tried but I just couldn't find the time.  My only excuse is work commitments caught up with me and unfortunately I had to sacrifice my broadcast.  I had no choice but I'm back.  The 48th Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast is back.

For this edition I wanted to talk about a title I read a few years ago.  Even I got the idea to start this blog of mine, one of the titles I wanted to feature was this one.  It was definitely one of the best written and best drawn comic book for me.  The unfortunate thing is I never found the comic itself, well not all of them but thanks to a friend who kindly let me read the entire collection on his tablet I was introduced to this really great comic book.

This edition of the broadcast is all about HAWKMAN!

The year was 2002 when DC Comics reincarnated Hawkman with a new series in 2002 entitled Hawkman Volume 4, written initially by Geoff Johns and James Robinson, the art was handled by Rags Morales and Michael Bair.  The cover to Hawkman # 1 was penciled, Inked and painted by Andrew Robinson.  When this series was released I had stopped collecting for a period of time.  Despite not actively collecting, I still kept up with new releases, reading about what's new, who's the new writer or artist on this or that title, what changes are coming and all that.  The sad thing was while I was reading up on these comics, I couldn't afford to buy any of these comics.  Anyway, one day I read that in an issue of Justice Society Of America, Geoff Johns was bringing back Hawkman.  This was in Issue 26 of the JSA.

Here's the cover to JSA # 26.  The start of the Return Of Hawkman Storyline.  According to the article I read, after many many years of convoluted story lines and retcons of Hawkman, Geoff Johns had some how managed to untangle all that mess with regards to the many reincarnations of Hawkman and reintroduce him into the DC Universe.  That made me curious, I read up on this character.  Hawkman first appeared in Flash Comics # 1 in 1940.  He was a featured character in that title throughout the 1940s. This Hawkman was Carter Hall, a reincarnation of the ancient egyption prince Khufu.  Carter Hall discovered that the mysterious "ninth metal" could negate the effects of gravity and allowed him to fly. He donned a costume with large wings to allow him to control his flight and became the crimefighter, Hawkman.

Then there's another Hawkman, this one named Katar Holl.  A honored policeman from the planet Thanagar.  Along with his wife Shayera, they use the anti-gravity ninth (also known as Nth) metal and their wings to fight criminals. These were the tools of an elite police unit tasked to track and apprehend the most dangerous criminals. The pair were sent to earth in 1961 to capture the shape-shifting criminal Byth.  Following this mission, they elected to remain on Earth to work with authorities in the United States and learn human police methods. The two adopted covers as a pair of Museum Curators.

Now this is just two versions of Hawkman, over the years there have been more.  I first read about Hawkman and also Hawkgirl in an issue of Superman, that's this one, Superman # 18.

This was my introduction to the new Superman.  What do I mean by new?  This was the Superman by John Byrne after Crisis On Infinite Earths.  This was also for me the first time reading about the Hawks.  Years later I read that due to convoluted storylines created over the years, this team up or meeting between the Hawks and Superman did not or should not have happened.  I can't remember the details but it boggles the mind.  DC 's efforts to streamline their universe in Crisis resulted in a massive revision of much DC continuity and led to many characters being substantially rewritten.

Hawkman was to suffer some of the greatest confusion as successive writers sought to explain his various appearances. In the revised timeline there was a single Earth which had witnessed the JSA in the 1940s and the JLA decades later. Successive revisions sought to establish exactly who had been Hawkman and Hawkwoman at different stages. For the first few years the pre-Crisis incarnations were still used, during which time they were prominent across the DC Universe and joined the latest incarnation of the Justice League. Did that confuse you?

Some years later DC Comics had another mega event called Zero Hour and that mini-series muddied the waters further by merging the different Hawkmen into a "Hawkgod", who was the focus character in the third volume of the monthly Hawkman series. This version of Hawkman also had a small role in the alternate-future series Kingdom Come.  After the demise of this series, Hawkman's continuity was considered to be too messy, too complicated and so the character kinda sorta disapeared for a while.

But that didn't last too long, after a few years had gone by, DC felt that the complicated storyline could be fixed because sometime in the late 1990s, the JSA series untangled Hawkman's continuity, establishing him as Carter Hall, a man who - along with Shiera - had been reincarnated dozens of times since his life in ancient Egypt, and whose powers were derived from Thanagarian Nth metal, which had been retroactively renamed from "ninth metal". The Katar Hol of the Hawkworld series had also come to Earth during the 1990s, as previously established. The 1980s Hawkman Fel Andar returned to Thanagar. The Hawkgod was later revealed to be an avatar of the Hawk aspect of the Red and only believed that he was Hawkman.  Are you still with me so far?

Okay, back to the new Hawkman series.  I was excited when I found out that DC was giving Hawkman another chance and to have the team of Geoff Johns, James Robinson, Rags Morales and Michael Bair was a good move.  I wanted to get this series BUT at the time none of the shops had this series and the fact that I had stopped collecting stopped me from actually hunting this series down.

After a few years had passed, I met a friend who was still collecting comics and also started buying digital copies online.  I couldn't believe my luck when I went through his digital collection, he had Hawkman Vol. 4.  I asked if I could read the series on his tablet and he said sure.  I started "flipping" through the pages of this series and I have to say, I loved it!!!

I started taking some screen shots of the pages and saving them and that's what I want to share with you for this edition of the Broadcast.  First off I think Geoff Johns and James Robinson did such a great job of telling the story of Hawkman and Hawkgirl and just doing it as simply as possible.  The character already came with a huge back story and I guess for some it's a daunting to get into such a character especially if you know the story behind Hawkman.  A story that didn't need to be told over and over again.  Johns and Robinson did that, they did tell us about the origins of Hawkman and Hawkgirl but it wasn't forced down our throats, well at least that's my opinion.  What they did was tell a great story, take us right into the thick of the action and boy oh boy they sure did that.

In issue # 1 instead by recapping what happened, who the characters are, we were thrown into the thick of the action and surprisingly I didn't feel lost reading it.  I liked how the writers had established Hawkman (Carter Hall) and Hawkgirl (Kendra Saunders) in a city called St. Roach.  I thought that was a great move instead of placing them in say New York or any other fictional city.  To place them in a city called St. Roch, a fictional city which has a lot of history as well was in my humble opinion a master stroke.  The city itself was part of the story and I loved it.

For anyone who is new to DC Comics and new to Hawkman, it was refreshing to read about Hawkman, getting to know the other characters, the rogues gallery and also other key players in the series.  I loved how each character had their own voice in the comic.  Like Bloque here, he had a distinct accent which you can hear when you read the comic.

I also liked how Johns and Robinson fleshed out the character of Carter Hall.  Often times Hall came off as a jerk, the way he would treat Kendra Saunders but after a while you realize the fear Hall had knowing what actually WILL happen to them as the prophecies eventually comes true.  I won't say too much about that, suffice to say, Johns and Robinson did a great job and this was just the first issue.  Well I was hooked.  Great story from two great writers.

I love this page.  Really nicely done by Rags Morales and Michael Bair.   Which brings me to the next question.  They have good writers.  What about the art?

First off, the cover artist, Andrew Robinson, I love his covers, I like this painted feel to them which adds to the uniqueness of this relatively new title.  At first i thought it was Matt Wagner's art on the cover but I found out it wasn't.  I like his artwork.

And the interior art?  Well, I said on twitter once that thanks to the art of Rags Morales and Michael Bair, I wanted to visit St. Roach.  Their artwork on Hawkman was just absolutely beautiful.  I liked the way Morales and Bair complemented each other.  I remember first laying eyes on Morales' artwork when he worked on titles like Turok, Archer and Armstrong and Geomancer.  while I liked his pencils I wasn't thrilled about some inkers he was paired with.  I always thought that a penciler and Inker needed to complement each other and Morales and Bair, they make a great team.

In 1999, Morales was made the penciler on DC's on a comic called Hourman, penciling 20 of that series 25 issues before it was canceled in 2001. Over the course of the following year, he drew nine intermittent issues of JSA before moving onto Hawkman with Bair.  It was on Hawkman that Morales first worked with Bair.  He has worked on most of his projects since. At the time Morales said "when I saw the magic that Michael Bair added to my work, I knew I had to stick with this dude" I agree wholeheartedly.

I'll have more for you on Hawkman in the next broadcast.  I hope you enjoyed this little "chat" we had about this great title which unfortunately went the same way of many other Hawkman titles of the past. Which I think is rather sad, this series was good.

Thanks for dropping by for the broadcast and I apologies for not updating the broadcast sooner.  I'll be back soon with part two of the Co(s)mic Comic Book Broadcast.  See you soon.