Brightest Day Profiles: Hawk

(Standard disclaimer: I have yet to read any of Brightest Day and won’t get a chance until after FCBD, so our nifty Editor In Chief JLo will try and catch some of my mistaken assumptions… even if I still know vastly more than him).

Get prepared for your head to hurt. Its time to look at the return of Hawk.

Hank “Hawk” Hall continues the legacy of characters prefixed with the name Hawk that have confusing backstories at DC. Created by Steve Ditko, Hawk was an agent of the Lord of Chaos, and his brother, Don, was Dove the agent of the Lord of Order.  Hawk was portrayed as quick to anger, and having the taste for violence, while Dove was portrayed as being timid, and a subscriber to the school of ‘ a good defense is a good offense’. 

Separate, they were weak, but together, they balanced each other out and were strong.  This was a theme touched upon the relation of the two roles when Don died in Crisis, and was later replaced by a new female Dove. 

The story of Hawk can best be summarized as the story of what happens when one doesn’t have their balance. While the Hawk / Female Dove team was to be framed as a love story, it quickly became a tragedy when he lost his balance for a second time during the events of Armageddon 2001. 

This is the point where all things involving Hawk get even messier.

In the Armageddon 2001 event, Waverider comes from a dystopian future, where a villain named Monarch controls the world. All he knows is that in 1991 (the year the event was set) events unfold, and one of the heroes would, in the future become Monarch.  By touching each hero, Waverider could view their future, and determine if they were destined to become Monarch.  The future for Hawk and Dove? Fighting the dictatorship of Monarch.

In the conclusion of Armageddon 2001, Monarch comes from the future to stop Waverider, and in the process kills Dove. Without Dove to balance him, Hawk snaps and kills Monarch. Removing the mask of the dead villain, it is revealed that Monarch was Hawk. This fact causes Hawk to snap further and become Monarch. Still with us? This was a twist ending that creates a few problems with the story, but seemed like a good enough end for a reasonably good enough event.

Interesting point, while the future showed Hawk and Dove alive leading a resistance movement, what Waverider’s touch didn’t show was the more immediate one playing out in the DC Comics head offices. The original hero under the Monarch mask was supposed to be Captain Atom, but once the powers that be felt that the information was significantly leaked and common knowledge amongst the fanbase, they made a last minute decision to change who was under the mask of Monarch.  

So who killed Hawk? You would think the answer is that Hawk did, but  you’d be wrong. Things are about to get even more confusing.

Due to the event surrounding the ending of Armageddon, the new Monarch was lost in the time stream. During this time, Monarch meets a version of Nathaniel Adam (another version of Captain Atom) who is also in the time stream, and through him learns how to manipulate time. As a thank you, he gives his armor to Adam, making him the Monarch and in-turn Hawk becomes the villain Extant, who went on to cause much havoc with Parallax in the company wide event Zero Hour.  Extant was responsible for re-aging the JSA, killing many of the original members in the process.

So to recap, at this point, Hawk killed Monarch (himself), and then became Monarch, then became Extant, while a version of Captain Atom becomes Monarch— so Extant should become Monarch again at some point to complete the circle, right? You would think so, but this isn’t how it worked out. Instead, with all the changes made to Hawk, It was clear that at this point the post Armageddon 2001 creative teams at DC were determined to ‘fix’ the editorially mandated change of Monarch.

The Many Faces of Hank Hall
(L to R: Hawk, Monarch, Extant)

So if you have a big continuity/retcon need in DC, who do you call? Geoff Johns. In one of his first attempts to fix DC, Johns tried to work his magic to fix the character of Hawk, Dove and Dr. Fate all in a series of quick pen strokes.

His solution? The evil sorcerer Mordu faked Dove’s death so he can keep her captive in a magical coma, and impregnate her with a rage-crazed Hawk (that he can control). The baby would be a child of both Chaos and Order, and thus be a ‘strong’ vessel that Mordu can posses. As expected, this plan fails, and the chaos-order love child becomes the new Dr. Fate. Hawk, who is still Extant, is sent back in time by the JSA, and finds himself powerless on a plane that is quickly blown out of the sky. Whew! Glad we got that cleared up!

Writing that above paragraph made all of this really silly, and has made me question why I read comics… but let’s continue.

Overall this wasn’t one of John’s best clean up jobs (if that’s what you can even call it), but for a fist attempt we’ll count the positives. Dove was back. Hawk was dead. And there were some future stories that can be taken out of the events for the JSA book. The only plot left dangling was Hawk being the original Monarch which set him along this whole path in the first place.

Speaking of Monarch, where is he at this point? During the One Year Later period of the DCU, we see the ‘real’ Captain Atom that we’ve known since the 1980‘s has become Monarch. The other Monarch that was created by Hawk when he became Extant is still floating around out there.

So with the complicated history of Hawk, it was exciting (and surprising) to see him return in the final pages of Blackest Night. It was clear that this Hawk we saw at the end of Blackest Night was clearly neither Extant nor Monarch. This was a Hawk from before Armageddon 2001. Does this mean that the returners are not all from the the moment of their death, but from various moments in their life, moments before Nekron laid claim to them?

So what does the return of Hawk mean for the DCU? At the surface, he represents a chance for Johns and company to finish cleaning up one of the last outstanding ‘character assassinations’ from the early 90’s DCU.  He’s set to appear with Dove in the relaunched Birds of Prey title, which would be a good place to explore his return, establish his character and relationship with Dove. 

Ultimately, I think we’ll have another story of redemption (a predicted theme of Brightest Day), but it will end with Hawk becoming Monarch, and going back in time, to be killed, completing the cycle, and finally straightening this mess out.

Or maybe a Superboy punch erased the whole Armageddon 2001 from the DCU and part of Brightest Day will be learning how Hawk truly died…? Because that’s not confusing at all!