SOS Hawkman (Part 2)

[iskander]

So, here is where it all went SO wrong. Extent merges the golden age hawks with Katar Hol/Hawkman of Thanagar. Zero hour...

Tags

Carter Hall/Hawkman,Katar Hol/Hawkman,Sheara Hall/Hawkgirl,Char:Extant,Group:JSA,Event:Zero Hour








DC decided that the JSA had just gotten too old and no amount of magic pixie dust could explain how characters in their 60's and 70's could still be in action.







This is it three characters became one 2 guys and woman ( which did make you wonder what was under the Hawk-god"'s loin cloth.

I will admit tho' hawkman didn't get it worst in Zero hour. That would be Guy Gardner and that whole "Warrior" mess...

Comments

[thokstar]

I will admit tho' hawkman didn't get it worst in Zero hour. That would be Guy Gardner and that whole "Warrior" mess...

A bad costume and an ongoing>a convoluted history that causes you from not being published.

(Plus Hal and Hawk got it worse than either of them.)

It always astonishes me how mediocre Zero Hour is. It's either random energy blasts with technocolor or white backgrounds, or Superman and a bunch of other superheroes standing around hoping Waverider will tell them what to do.

[iskander]

I would agree with you. I did a quick re-read when I posted this and the story was truly blank with nothing clever etc. Sold as a CoIE sequel ? It doesn't hold a candle and is forgotten for the most part. Even Final Night ranks better in my mind.

[jlroberson]

And as many excuses to avoid backgrounds as one can think of.

[jaybee3]

Zero Hour was a mess in so many ways and their treatment of the Golden Age JSA in particular (this is the last time we see Shiera, for example, EVER) was deplorable. I know Jurgens was basically a paid hit man in a situation I think even the Powers that Be at DC regret now but it could have been much better carried out. Compare this to the way Robinson and Goyer had Wes Dodds in JSA go out or the way Robinson had Ted Knight go out in Starman as real heroes. But merging Hawk avatars? WTF?

[tacobob]

I always thought it was a train-wreck, but alof of good came from it. Guess DC realized how important the GA characters were to readers, so we got Starman and then we got the JSA. :3

[thokstar]

There's an argument that the single most important panel in Zero Hour is David Knight receiving the cosmic rod from his father, while Jack is all cynical about the moment.

[tacobob]

Well, he did get to be Starman for a whole day at least.

[leorising]

Jack Knight is lurve. ♥

[box_in_the_box]

Actually, I get the feeling that Jurgens was doing it for a little more than just a paycheck, because back when Geoff Johns was still primarily known as "that guy who co-writes JSA," Jurgens was asked something about the longevity of his own stories' impact, and he said, "For more on that, you might as well read JSA, since that's where DC chooses to undo every other story I've written."

He sounded a mite peevish.

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

It wasn't just Jurgens, though. Slightly before Zero Hour there had been a Justice Society ongoing, set in the modern day after the JSA returned from limbo. It was written by Len Straziewski and drawn by the late, great Mike Parobeck and was really entertaining. It also introduced Jesse Quick.

However, the DC powers that were at the time (in the form of some unspecified editors) felt that DC was suffering by showing "old people in costumes", and Justice Society was pulled after only ten or so issues, and then Jurgens was instructed to get rid of the JSA in Zero Hour to pave the way for some "extreme new heroes" to pick up their legacies, like the merger Hawkman (whose title I read and it was really REALLY bad) and "Fate" (the guy who got killed off in the first issue of JSA).

Basically it was the exact opposite situation of today. The golden age and silver age were seen as hokey and undesireable, things to be shuffled under the carpet and forgotten, the characters basically cannon fodder for big events.

At least Zero Hour gave us Starman...

[jaybee3]

And now of course JSA is one of DC's most important franchises and the theme of the legacy from one generation to the other is key to it. Also the evil, evil, evil (this was a point made several times in ZH) Hal Jordan with his urge to create the Multiverse (which of course DC also brought back) is now once again one of the cornerstone "heroes" on which the entire DCU rests.

Seriously, Zero Hour is one of those things that you look at it now and you go - what the hell?

[thehefner]

And that's why I'm not as bothered as many when people complain about DC's nostalgia fetish. Because I remember that era all too well.

[lamashtar]

You know it'll come back. By then, Kyle and Donna and Wally will be too old, of course, and the Young Justice guys a little too overused, et cetera.

[iskander]

I actually like the new Hawkman/Hawkgod book. It was different and totally polarizing to fans (and the subject of part 3) In the end ,and still today DC just can't decide which Hawks they want to go with its back and fourth Carter/Katar...

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

It had potential. Messener-Loebs did a decent superhero book right after (and before) ZH, though most of the artists were pretty mediocre. Then DC started shifting writers every few issues, and the book went off on all kinds of surreal tangents. So yeah, under a more stable team and with some better direction it could possibly still have been salvaged.

[iskander]

They also had Hawkman join the JLA (again ?) and that started the whole , "who was that hawkman from the original JLA mess". They just had to try and fix that..........

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure Ostrander ironed that out in the Hawkworld ongoing? He did use the golden age hawks a few times.

[iskander]

Oh no. Jim Starlin did a one shot about another agent from Thanagar who pretended to be Katar. That was the one in the old JLA (seriously you just couldn't make this shit up)

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, they brought him back for the Johns-era Hawkman as wel. Fel Andar or somesuch?

[iskander]

That's the one...

[box_in_the_box]

Also? It's amazing to look at DC from 15 years ago and realize how much of a go-to guy Dan Jurgens was for them, as both a writer and an artist (Zero Hour, the Superman titles, DC Versus Marvel), even though everything about his style is uniformly mediocre. It got to the point where they hired George Perez to do finishes on his breakdowns in titles like Teen Titans.

[lamashtar]

That's so wrong. The DC versus Marvel stuff looked lovely. Just because something is recognizable...

[box_in_the_box]

Half of the DC Versus Marvel stuff looked lovely, but it was the half that was drawn by Claudio Castellini:



The half that was drawn by Dan Jurgens, by contrast, looked like ass:

[lamashtar]

I'm not liking Storm, but everything else looks fine. Different strokes..

[box_in_the_box]

Castellini's artwork features intricate, multi-dimensional detail and poses that, while they're a bit overly distorted for my taste, nonetheless convey dynamic movement.

Jurgens' art makes his figures look flat, lifeless and posed, with as little detail put into his backgrounds as Rob Liefeld puts into drawing feet. It conveys all the depth of the paper that it's printed on.

[lamashtar]

Oh please.

[icon_uk]

Whereas I'd always found the JSA being young and ongoing heroes 60 years after their time to be a rather irritating clutching at straws, I accept that comics have a sliding timescale, but when your characters' main schtick is that they were active in World War II, there comes a time to just let them retire and die off.

[lamashtar]

Eh, Captain America blends well. And I was so looking forward to the old guys of The Twelve yelling at the young whippersnappers..sigh.

[box_in_the_box]

On the contrary, one of the things I love about the JSA originals in modern times is that they're both old AND still active as heroes. It's like seeing your favorite grandpa looking wrinkled but still spry enough to save the world.

Jay Garrick, in particular, is so cool. When he's written right, he's like a retirement-era Paul Newman showing the kids how it's done, and rolling his eyes when they get all het up. What I love about the Golden Age Flash is that he doesn't sweat the small stuff.

[icon_uk]

Except their ages aren't right. Old superheroes, not a problem, an interesting notion. But the JSA were in their 20's before the 1939, there's not a one of them that should be under 90 years old. I agree jay Garrick is a great character and one or two of them managing to devise a reason not to age as fast (Jay and Alan Scott are the two with the most obvious "out") but when they came up with Ian Karkull slowing down the aging of ALL of them, it just looked like a desperate lack of trust in the concept of new characters using the names.

It's one of the things that made a separate Earth-2 such a good idea, you could have the WWII heroes in JSA and All Star Squadron, and their legacy characters in Infinity Inc. and it didn't interfere with the Earth-1 heroes being the first of their world.

As I've said before it meant that, as an example, Dick Grayson went from being the first sidekick, to just another kid hero who followed in the footsteps of everyone from Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys to Dan the ruddy Dyna-Mite.

[jaybee3]

I have some problems with it but one of the moments I did like in Johns' Flash: Rebirth is when Zoom tells Barry that the reason not only Jay but his wife Joan as well (maybe the happiest and longest lasting marriage in comicdom) look like they're in their 50s when they should be approaching 100 is because of the Speed Force and the reason Iris is now once again a 30-something hottie and not a senior citizen grandmother is because of the speed force. Yeah, it's comic science but at least Johns approached the issue head-on.

Of course with Alan Scott (who is said to be composed of the green ring's power and so is whatever age he wants), Jay (speed force), Wildcat (that whole 9 lives thing), Hawkman (reincarnation over and over again) and Johnny Thunder (merged with the T-Bolt) there is at least an explanation for all the present GAers being alive. Even Rex Tyler who is back because the Android Hourman took his place in ZH, can reasonably be 70-something and have a young son since he explicitly married late to a very young wife. Or you could use the old excuse that the JSA was stuck in Ragnorok-limbo for decades and didn't start having kids until they were back (The Atom/Al Pratt for example was actually the youngest of the golden agers when they killed him in ZH).

[iskander]

Did the Alan Scott being composed of the green flame idea ever come to more than guess work between Doctor Midnight and Mr. Terrific ? It is a cool idea but was it ever fully explored ? I recall in Infinity Inc it was revealed that Alan Scott wore a toupee and held it in place with the ring...

[okkult3000]

My problem isn't so much with the JSAers themselves, but their children. Back in the early '80s, it wasn't so hard to believe that superheroes might wait until middle age to start families, which is why a bunch of 60 year olds had 20-something children. However, while the original JSA team kept getting older (chronologically, if not biologically), their children stayed in their 20s. Therefore, the JSA didn't start having kids until they were in their 60s or older. Most of the Justice Society's spouses and significant others did not benefit from the same rejuvenations that kept the heroes vital for 60 years, yet are just as chronologically old. At least Rick Flagg got retconned into Flagg Sr.'s grandson.

[kainnived.livejournal.com]

Wait I thought Shiera showed up and was uncerimoniously killed in Rann/Thannagar war.

[kamino_neko]

That was Shayera Thol, the thanagarian Hawkwoman, not Shierra Hall, the human Hawkgirl. (Whose soul inhabited her niece Kendra Saunders' body for a time, then went on to its eternal rest.)

[pyrotwilight]

Oh I see it just...I *brain fizzle*

This might be easier if their names weren't all so similar.

Shayera, Shierra, Chayera.

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

Well, they're essentially the same character. Gardner Fox "rebooted" the Hawks into aliens, but gave them the same human names as their golden age counterparts (the reincarnated pharaoh and his squeeze). And then the modern era started messing with it...

[neuhallidae]

Not anymore, it didn't. Apparently the Kendra that got Black Lantern'd had Shiera's soul again.

[kamino_neko]

I'm not sure it's so much 'not any more' as 'everyone ignored it from the moment it was written'.

[iskander]

Nope that was Hawkwoman from Thangar.She gets ditched in the new Hawkman book. She becomes a cop in Chicago or something,then killed off in the Rann/Thanagar war.

[thatnickguy]

Huh. I never noticed that irony before, actually.

Without Zero Hour, which basically trampled over the JSA, we wouldn't have had Robinson's Starman and as a result, the JSA title.

[iskander]

Is it me or does it turn out Shiera does NOT merge with the hawk god but goes into the body of Kendra the new Hawkgirl ????

[hurricane-jam.livejournal.com]

"SCREW THIS! No one's merging me with anybody!" *floats off*

[iskander]

Especially a DUDE! She must have been like "I demand to see your manager !"

[jaybee3]

The way they (Robinson and Goyer and Johns) explained it when JSA first re-started was that Shiera's body was completely destroyed but her soul remained in limbo (because of the whole Hawkman/Hawkgirl fated to die and be reborn at the same time thing) until she took over the body of her great-niece Kendra Saunders, who was a 19-year old who just committed suicide. Kendra's soul had moved on but there was still time for Sheira's soul to take the body as IT hadn't completely died by then. When "Kendra" awakened, she had no idea she was really Shiera since the only memories she had were those of Kendra (and even onto her recent re-death in Blackest Night, Kendra never really remembered much of Shiera's life which is why she hesitant to buy into Carter's we'e fated to be together stuff (that and he's her great-uncle by marriage and chronologically the same age as Jay Garrick). At first, the only one who knew what happened was her grandfather (and Shiera's cousin) Speed Saunders who knew Kendra's soul had moved on and knew about the Hawkman legacy and suspected what happened. It was Speed who led "Kendra" to take up the Hawkgirl legacy. Complicated, no?

And without Zero Hour it didn't have to be.

[iskander]

So you are saying that Extant killed Hawkwoman and did not merge her into the new "Hawkgod" with the other two boys ?

[jaybee3]

Not her soul at least. To accept the timeline of the Kendra origin, her soul didn't go to wherever Carter/Katar went.

[iskander]

That is what I figured . In part 3 (which will go up tomorrow) will deal with the new Hawkman book that came out of this. The new Hawkgod makes reference to being merged with both Hawkman and hawkwoman. the time-stream manages to have the new being willed all of the Halls money and property. At this point Hector was off being the phony Sandman I guess. see you there :)

[jlroberson]

Ah, Zero Hour.

Dan Jurgens: "Ooh, I shouldn't have eaten Mexican. I feel a mighty big shit coming on."

DC Comics: "Here! Use our entire line of comics! And wipe with Hawkman."

[tacobob]

And don't forget they had one cover that was just WHITE. >:|

[icon_uk]

Which tied in with the fading out of the universe that had been going on in ALL their titles.

[lamashtar]

I thought it was clever. Very stark and shocking.

[zordboy]

Yeah, I liked that. I thought it was a nice artistic touch.

[tacobob]

That was two guys, one gal and an anthropomorphic hawk god. You would have thought the new Hawkman would have been really powerful.

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

...

Futamonster Hawkman.

OF COURSE!

[box_in_the_box]

I love the fact that Mark Waid basically set about ignoring Zero Hour in the next issue of The Flash IMMEDIATELY FOLLOWING.

[thatnickguy]

He did? How? Wally was just stuck in time or something and the first issue, he came back.

[box_in_the_box]

Zero Hour also featured the "permanent" retirement of the Golden Age Flash and Green Lantern. The very next issue of The Flash, Jay Garrick is back in costume and still running at top speed. IIRC, Mark Waid himself all but admitted in an interview that this was an intentional "fuck you" to Zero Hour.

[thatnickguy]

Heh, I stand corrected. I love Mark Waid's "fuck you"'s

My all time favourite was when he was writing JLA, post-Morrison. Around the same time, The Authority was the big hubbub of the industry. So, someone asked him if he's thought about writing a team-up.

His response? "I dont know if it'd be much of a team-up. The first page would be the JLA locking up The Authority. The rest of the comic would be a JLA story."

[zordboy]

HAHAHAHAHA!

Most awesome thing ever.

[iskander]

I have forgotten how did Alan Scott get deagedand then then become old again. You are right tho' Jay up and quits at the end of the book and then ...

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

You know what's really sad? The first non-translated DC comic I ever bought was this issue of Zero Hour. On sale, no less. I forget why, I think I read something about it in a comics fanzine.

Back in those days, Dan Jurgens was -huge-. He had the "Death of Superman" storyline under his belt and a long well-selling run on the Supes titles, so DC was basically showering him with titles to write.

Still, the bad decisions and mediocre execution of Zero Hour left me cold. In my mind, none of the COIE remakes have held a candle to the original, quality-wise, but Zero Hour was even worse than Infinite Crisis and Final Crisis.

The best part of it in retrospect is reading about the huge deal made about Power Girl's baby and knowing it vanished into limbo almost -immediately- after.

[jlroberson]

I think two things really irritated me. One was that they bring back Babs as Batgirl--from a different earth--only to shoot her through the middle again, dead this time. It was somewhat typical of the whole thing--needless brutalization of characters and not much else.

A second is...well, I guess I just really, really hate Waverider...

[box_in_the_box]

And even before I new what "continuity" was, I remember reading this and thinking, "Holy shit, they just rendered Hawkman radioactive."

What's his history? What's his identity? How does he relate to the other characters in the DCU? WHO THE FUCK KNOWS???

[icon_uk]

The problem being that by the time we got to Zero Hour, we already had no sodding clue. I can't blame Zero Hour for trying to fix it, even if it didn't work.

[box_in_the_box]

True, the Hawkworld mini, while well-written on its own, had already done plenty of damage to continuity, but Zero Hour somehow managed to make it even WORSE.

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

The Hawkworld prestige series was intended to take place -before- Hawkman's silver age career, covering a period of his history that hadn't been too deeply examined before.

Editorial mandate, however, decided it had to take place when it was published, and decided it was a total retcon of the Hawk-franchise.

AND THUS OUR TROUBLES BEGAN

[okkult3000]

It's funny that one single caption box reading "Ten years ago..." could have saved us from decades of Hawkman continuity problems.

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

I -know- right?

To be honest though, I'm almost certain Tim Truman didn't give a rats ass. His various series have a tendency to ignore continuity pell-mell without explicitly being retcons, so it might also be thought of as a prototype Elseworlds story.

Of course, that's not what happend, but...

[iskander]

I don't balme Hawkworld itself. I think they just needed to leave to two characters alone. They were very distinctive and separate. The Golden age one retired from the JSA and were just fine left as "left for parts unknown"If there can be 4 Green lanterns and Alan Scott why not 2 sets of Hawks ?. Even if they wanted to say Nth metal was from Thanagar, that was ok just don't merge them. The problems were

1) There was supposed to be a Hawkman in the JLA, but the golden age one was in Limbo, so who could it have been ????

2) Golden Eagle. Why they could just say he was eliminated in the CoIE and left it alone I have no idea. Then he was killed in Titans hunt and..... then borught back just to fuck it all up again.

[pyrotwilight]

Ah Zero Hour you destroyed the Team Titans, who I liked and intro'd Triumph who I liked but was later ruined. Sigh.

[thatnickguy]

I...actually like Zero Hour.

Now, before anyone jumps on me faster than Mario on a Goomba, please keep something in mind: I started collecting comics due to the Death of Superman. And Zero Hour, as a result, was my first major crossover. I thought it was huge and awesome at the time, seeing this huge threat and everyone getting together to stop it.

It even got me to try new titles, since I was buying up #0 issues left and right. I'm probably in the minority, for example, that liked the brief Manhunter series that spun out of ZH. And of course, Starman. =D

[lamashtar]

Oh, I like bits and pieces. Of course, I found COIE to be disjointed and confused and drawn out.

[christianconnor]

Back in the day, I liked Zero Hour too. It was my first major crossover, and I'd heard of (but never read) COIE, I was fascinated by a "sequel".

Also, I think it was a nice way of getting rid of the awkward Hawk continuity that COIE and Hawkworld left behind. If only the follow-up had, you know, worked.

The bit with Jay and Alan passing on the torch was good, but (thinking back) it would have been better for the JSA to go out with a victory. They pointlessly got beaten by a new villain...

...Only for the villain to immediately fade in power and threat as soon as Hal turned up. Even as a kid I wondered why everyone was just ignoring him. And Waverider's line when Extant legs it near the end:

"Leave him! That one will ultimately defeat himself."

What? Such a cavalier attitude about the guy who killed half the JSA!

[lamashtar]

Extant somehow came across as a punk who got lucky. I never understood why such a maniac would toady to Parallax, no matter HOW powerful he was, but he did...I guess because the relationship became more of a Leader Bad Guy and his Stalking Horse Second. Classic villain trope but didn't seem to suit the two of them at all. But Parallax did have such a presence as a villain, you just knew he was the one to watch out for...I miss him!

And it's always annoyed me that we get no followup from Hal and Hawk...

[icon_uk]

Hank was dead long before Hal's recovery, and is still dead, isn't he?

[lamashtar]

Dead now, yes, but he was fairly powerful still after Parallax lost most of his power. I always expected, when I was first finding DC back issues, to somewhere find a subplot of Extant hunting down Hal to teach him a lesson. It just seems like we missed all the interesting stuff that must have gone on between them behind the scenes.

[philippos42]

Oh please. I read Hawkworld. I sort of enjoyed it, except where they tried to fit it into the DCU. Hawkman went wrong before this. (And I think alien Guy Gardner was better for DC's line than yet another Green Lantern.)

[iskander]

It seems you missed SOS Hawkman part 1 :)

[philippos42]

I can't even find it.

[iskander]

Oh one question. I noticed while I was scanning this at the end of the book , The Time Trapper has become a woman. Who did this turn out to be ???

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

It did not.

It was never touched upon in the Threeboot. It's just that one panel in Zero Hour.

[kamino_neko]

Of course it was never mentioned in the Threeboot - it was a Zero Hour plot, so if it were addressed, it would be in the post-Zero Hour book (which suggested, at one point, it was a future version of Lori Morning, but as so many other plots, that never really got followed up on).

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, sorry. Never touched upon in the REBOOT. Sigh.

[iskander]

Thanks for the wiki. I had never heard of her before. I did notice in Previews that DC was doing a trade of the original Dial "H" for hero" series.

[silverzeo]

You know, all those other Hawkmen outfits seem WAY cooler than the simple "He-Man" harness Carter has on....

Heh.

[nefrekeptah]

Extant: "I am Extant! I live outside your laws, your rules - your very conception of reality!

Starman (I think): "A chronal blast! Who is this guy?

Extant: "... I just said..."

[jlroberson]

>>This is it three characters became one 2 guys and woman ( which did make you wonder what was under the Hawk-god"'s loin cloth.

Whatever was under Rebis' bandages, I guess.

[iskander]

That would have made great team-up.

[tahngarth.livejournal.com]

As I said above, futamonster Hawkman is a brilliant concept.

Rebis had boobs tho, Hawk didn't!