Hawkman: Always a Second-Stringer, Never a Star
Today for Not So Secret Origins, we cover someone who has shown up in a lot of DC’s TV shows as a guest-star, but has yet to make the transition to the big screen. This is perhaps because his powers are literally just down to flying around and hitting people with a big honking mace.
See that mook on the top-circle on the left? That's him
No, not the Flash. He’s a story for another day. This origin is all about Hawkman!
Created in 1939 to fill pages in the first issue of Flash Comics, Hawkman was dreamed up by Gardner Fox and Dennis Neville. Neville mostly worked as an assistant on Golden-Age Superman stories alongside his creators, but was a reliable artist of the time. Fox, though, is a genuine heavyweight of the Golden and Silver ages of comics, having written over 1,500 different stories for DC Comics alone. Not to mention, he also made The Golden-Age Flash, the Golden-Age Sandman, Batman’s utility belt and Batarangs, the Silver-Age Atom. Fox also pretty much developed the concept of the team-up book with both the Justice Society of America and the Justice League of America. Needless to say, he’s got an awesome resume.
Unfortunately, he may have had an off day with Hawkman. Hawkman is really Carter Hall, a rich white guy who is the reincarnation of an ancient Egyptian price. Who was also a white guy.
No, seriously.
Our story opens with Carter Hall, currently a weapons collector and vague research scientist, examining his newest piece. It is a glass knife used for ritualistic sacrifices! Which isn’t something Egypt did, according to Doctor Internet PhD, but glass knives are a thing. They were huge in the 20s through the 40s until better metal knives came along. Go figure.
HAWKMAN! Tales of high fantasy and adventure!
The knife glows, giving Carter a bad case of narcolepsy. He dozes off and has a strange dream. Allegedly, this is his past life as Prince Khufu of Egypt, but Fox doesn’t outright say so at the time. Carter is being tortured by the evil Vizier Hath-Set, who is generically Arabian, and demands Khufu-Carter tell him something unspecified.
Khufu is not a smart man.
I really love how he apparently tells Hath-Set exactly what he needs to know. You can also tell that this was written before the Internet or easy research books, because there’s a small problem here.
Anubis is the dog-headed Egyptian God.
Horus is the hawk-headed Egyptian God.
This will continue for the entire story, and it is never not hilarious to me. I apologize for nothing.
Luckily, Carter is able to out-wrestle the big guy holding him, punches out Hath-Set, and vows to come back and murder them both at a later time. But first, he must flee across the desert to protect his lady love, Shiera!
You know, he might have solved this problem if he’d just stabbed hath-set in the first place.
Yes, he must get there before Hath-Set. The same guy he just punched out. And left behind. Khufu is not a smart man.
Thankfully, Khufu-Carter makes it home to Shiera, who is safe. However, Hath-Set’s army has made it to the same nondescript home, and have the place surrounded! Since Hath-Set has sent only soldiers and not magicians, Khufu is confident he can win.
And loses. But Khufu has a plan B!
...stabbing the love of his life. And letting her die, despite his entire objective being keeping her alive and away from Hath-Set for unknown reasons. Prince Khufu is a horrible human being. But hey, he fails here too, thanks to Shiera’s guard having issues with this:
”I'm just gonna go die over here. Don't mind me.”
Having won because Khufu turned into a team killing moron, Hath-Set takes both Khufu and Shiera over to the temple of Anubis to kill them both in a sacrifice. What he hopes to gain with this is unclear, aside from the fact that Khufu dies. Maybe Hath-Set is actually the hero of this flashback? Still, it looks like being killed doesn’t stop Khufu from being lame.
I'm really beginning to think that Hath-Set is the real hero.
And we pull back to the present, where Carter decides his dream was completely true and is the reincarnation of an Egyptian prince. He also might think the knife is intelligent, and claims he’ll be prepared if it tries to kill him again!
No, seriously.
Figuring a nice walk could clear his head, Carter walks downtown. His reveries over his dream are interrupted by people fleeing the subway. Apparently, the train rails are glowing blue and have made the train itself catch fire. Carter jogs down the entrance stairs, curious as to what caused this horrific disaster.
Not watching where he’s going, he bumps into a woman who looks like Shiera. Not thinking, he blurts out that she must be the reincarnation of the ancient princess of his dreams. Strangely, she doesn’t slap him in the face and flee the burning subway station.
They both realize how awesome it is that they both know one another, and that their dreams are completely true...and completely leave people to burn to death in the subway without a second thought.
"Oh, look. Death and tragedy. Let's go back to my place!
While riding back to Carter’s home, he describes his backstory to Shiera as well. She has had those too, but thought of them as nightmares. Considering what we saw, I don’t blame her. Carter lets her relax from her horrible ordeal of…being in his company, and goes out for the night... as HAWKMAN!
Well, he’s certainly perilous to his own dignity, at least.
A text panel explains that Hawkman’s entire powers come from Carter Hall’s discovery of the “secret of the ages,” the Ninth Metal. This awkwardly-named metal defies the pull of Earth’s gravity and does whatever else the plot decides it needs to do. Also, it may defy gravity, but Hawkman probably can’t leave a room.
"But first, I need to widen my doors. Crap."
Hawkman soars through the night, and his wing-mounted instruments show him his destination. He lands outside the castle home of Doctor Hastor, Electrician Extraordinary! Yes, this is his title, and it’s awesome. I wonder if he prints it on his business cards.
Luckily, Hawkman is correct that Doc Hastor is behind all this making subway rails glow blue. And burning people alive too. He figures his lightnings have purged the subway, and he will soon threaten the city wi-
Wait, what’s up in that window?
"Hawk-face, please. I'm trying to be serious."
Hastor is incredibly happy that Anubis, the do-
"Um... hi. This is awkward. You're not evil, by chance. Are you?"
...right. Hawk God Anubis has come to bless his evil, because he’s also the reincarnated Hath-Set as well. Because reincarnation is nothing if not convenient. Hawkman circles in to attack, but Hastor fights him off with a blast of electricity.
However, Hawkman is just fine! His wooden quarterstaff isn’t affected by electricity, and giant wings made of highly conductive metal apparently don’t attract electricity either. Hawkman says this is so because SCIENCE agrees with him.
It’s as if science itself cried out in terror, before it was silenced completely.
Hawkman strikes the turbines, breaking the lightning machine. Doc Hastor escapes easily, screaming revenge on Hawkman. He realizes that Hawkman can’t be Anubis (hawk-features aside), and he must be the reincarnation of Prince Khufu. Maybe because both of them are pasty white guys with horrible decision making skills or something. However, he also realizes that Shiera must live too, and this means he can try to sacrifice her once more!
You know, I just realized Hath-Set must have won last time. Why does he need to do this sacrifice again? What was it about in the first place? Also, what’s the name of Shiera’s reincarnated form? Well, none of that matters. This is the Golden Age of Comics, where that all comes later.
Or never.
Doc Hastor doesn’t mess around either. He just straight up goes to the local American Temple of Anubis to worship.
...huh. Maybe the DC’s Anubis really is the Hawk-God. I was not expecting this.
The prayers and offerings of incense work, and Shiera sleepwalks her way to the temple. Hawkman arrives back at home, but notices that Shiera has gone missing. Luckily, Hawkman also knows where the local American Temple of Anubis is, and heads out, but not before gathering more supplies!
Yep, a cloak of sheer metal and a crossbow. Surely, this will stop lightning bolts and SCIENCE in their tracks!
Over at the local Anubis Temple, Shiera has wandered over and laid down in front of the statue like a good victim. Somehow, Doctor Hastor has also brought over some backup electricity generators to the temple, and is readying to fry Shiera in sacrifice to Anubis!
Electricity makes her fly around the room, apparently.
Why? Not explained. And I’m also not sure where Shiera is in relation to anything in that panel. However, Hawkman arrives and brings Doctor Hastor to justice the only way he knows how.
By shooting him dead on the spot. The Golden Age of Comics was a real rough time for villains, even if they did have a reincarnation clause somehow. But Hawkman isn’t as horrible as Khufu was in his previous incarnation, and goes to the side of his foe.
“Or maybe I won’t not never reincarnate ever never ever? Anubis knows. Or not.”
Apparently to brag about winning, and how no one will remember Doctor Hastor, Electrician Extraordinary. Jerk.
I also like how Carter Hall is so nonchalant about brushing aside an actual supervillain in his unnamed city, like the police aren’t going to investigate the entire subway bursting into flames and incinerating a chunk of the population. Carter Hall is a jerk.
And so, Carter drops Shiera off on his sleeping couch and goes to muse about his adventure in his smoking robe.
“I did shoot Hastor in the heart and watched him go to the morgue, but maybe he’ll come back.”
Carter Hall is a horrible human being, it seems.
All-American Publications, the original owners of Flash and Hawkman, would put out quite a few Hawkman stories over the years. Eventually, the guy would become a founding member of the Justice Society of America, the first multi-hero team and book. And yes, thankfully, Carter Hall would become less of a jerk. Shiera would also become Hawkgirl, one of the first female hero sidekicks.
Once AAP was absorbed into the beast that would become DC Comics, Hawkman would be retooled into a different character. This time he would be an alien space cop… who still hit things with maces. Poor Hawkman got remarkably convoluted after the original Crisis in the 80s, when DC rebooted their entire universe to streamline things without a real solid plan on some of the smaller characters. Somehow, both Carter and Space Cop versions existed at once for a while before being combined into one body with several more Hawkmen.
While Carter is the current Hawkman once more, and even has a new ongoing series, he really hasn’t improved since or gained much coherence.
Poor guy.
