#they properly explain Hawkman's origin.

[atomicpatrolcreation]

Retconn that I Liked

¡Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you had a great time with all the people you love (family, friends, and partners).

Well, today I've decided to recommend and reflect on a comic that I’ve realized, unfortunately, very few people have read (which is a shame because it’s really good).

And that comic is Hawkman vol. #5, which was published in June 2018 by Robert Venditti. It ran until 2020 with issue #29, after having 4 great arcs.

I recommend reading it for several reasons, but the main one is the way it narrates and develops this Hawkman, Carter Hall. It also draws from the previous runs of the character and, little by little, as the story progresses, it explains them logically. In other words, it gives meaning to all the versions of Hawkman that DC has given us since his first appearance.

I love that it doesn’t focus on Carter with Shayera or Kendra, but on him as a person. After all, before he remembered his past lives, he already had his own life as an archaeologist and lover of ancient cultures.

This run is fantastic because it focuses on how Carter tries to return to his life as an archaeologist, to the life of his new reincarnation, but deep down he feels that something is missing, which is true because he lacks remembering many things from his past lives.

It's intriguing how, little by little, we explore all of his past lives, from Prince Khufu to Katarthul of Rann, demons, even discovering the true origin of why he is reincarnated.

And let’s not forget the characters that appear from time to time; they’re all fantastic. They’re characters I didn’t think would get along with Carter, but I was wrong—they have great chemistry.

Robert Venditti really made an effort to understand Carter and his complex history, and I think he did it really well. Even his villains feel compelling, so to speak.

The art is good, although some of the colors chosen in certain moments didn’t appeal to me as much, but oh my, there are some gorgeous panels.

In several issues across the 4 arcs, there are surprise connections with various characters.

In conclusion, it’s an interesting comic that clearly explains the origin and all the versions of Hawkman. It’s a retcon, but it’s well done; it doesn’t contradict anything mentioned in previous Hawkman stories, in fact, it expands on them and better develops Carter Hall as a character. And let’s not even talk about his bond with Shayera; from the beginning, it’s sweet, and even more so when we learn that their love came after hundreds of reincarnations.

I didn’t mention Kendra, because remember that while she’s a new reincarnation of Shayera, during 'this life' her soul is split in two, so we could say that she’s separated, and only when she dies for good will their souls reunite and continue reincarnating as before. In other words, Khufu and Chayara loving each other.

[greenlantern89to3]

Where to start?

Finding the starting point for this era is somewhat tricky.  The previous series ended and then Green Lantern started appearing in Action Comics Weekly.  It was in ACW that Katma Tui was killed by Star Sapphire, something that will be a major event referenced throughout Gerard Jones’ run of Green Lantern.   Most of the ACW stories were written by Jim Owsley, who would later go on to rename himself Christopher Priest.  Owsley/Priest would go on to write 2 GL Specials somewhat tying up ideas that came from his stories in ACW. His last storyline for ACW, incidentally, featured Hal fighting the villainous Malvolio who used his father’s GL ring.  At the end of the story Hal ends up using Malvolio’s ring.  Up until Green Lantern Rebirth explained Hal and Parallax, fans believed it was this ring that drove Hal crazy/evil. So one could argue that this era begins with ACW, a drastic shift from the previous series, as well as something that created story points that Jones would pick up on in his series. While that might make sense, I think it’s best to start with the beginning.  By that I mean Hal’s very own Year One/Man of Steel mini-series, Emerald Dawn.  1989 was a few years after Crisis and one-by-one DC’s heroes were getting updated origins.   While tastes and opinions differ, it’s harder to argue the success of the origins. Arguably, the Post-Crisis origins for Batman and Superman were the most successful.  I’d argue George Perez’s Post-Crisis origin for Wonder Woman ranks up there, as well.  Hawkman’s, on the other hand, is generally viewed a the least successful, due to DC’s poor attempts at integrating it into it’s continuity properly.   If we’re going on a scale of Batman/Superman at the successful end and Hawkman at the failure end (again, in terms of how well the origins were integrated, not the quality of them), then Green Lantern fits nicely in the middle. Continuity-wise, Emerald Dawn and its sequel, Emerald Dawn II, don’t seem to create an major issues.   The major issue people have with ED (aside from the unfortunate initials) is that Hal gets a DUI and deals with the legal ramifications of it throughout both minis.  This was the time period in which DC decided to adopt Marvel’s approach of heroes with “"relatable” problems.  To accomplish this, DC decided Hal should be somewhat of a screw-up before becoming GL (as opposed to after, as we saw Hal fumble through many jobs in the 70′s and 80′s). So, we’ll be starting with Emerald Dawn, which starts with issue #1 written by Jim Owsley and then shifts to Keith Griffin doing plotting and Gerard Jones doing the script for issues #2-6.