HAWKMAN IN THE WOLD NEWTON UNIVERSE

                                                                                                                 By Christofer Nigro

Preface

          The origins of the legendary flying hero commonly referred to as Hawkman, and the ancient lineage that spawned this legend, is a complicated one spanning literally thousands of years and two separate planets. It’s also a legend that neatly skirts both ancient mysticism and advanced alien “futuristic” science. Sorting out the facts from the legend was a difficult endeavor that required years of research and extensive use of the resources available at the esteemed Wold Newton University. The convoluted fictionalization of this legend in the pages of DC Comics since the Golden Age of the illustrated story medium (better known to the public as “comic books”) have further confused the issue for the layman, and it’s only in the past few years that the facts are beginning to come to light.

            As a result, one must expect the research revealed in this particular essay to be necessarily speculative in some places. Further, the previous work of Prof. Dennis E. Power on the general subject of the truth behind crime fighters commonly called “super-heroes” in comic book depictions and tabloids has been invaluable to this researcher, and I once again find myself indebted to his truly pioneering work during the previous decade.

I. The Thanagarian Connection

            Part of this story begins on the planet we call home, in ancient Egypt. Specifically, within the sub-empire of the majestic Black Land known as Kahndaq, long before it separated into the tiny, semi-independent satellite kingdom it’s known as today. [1] The other part, however, is said to originate on a distant planet at least 40 light years distant from the Earth known as Thanagar. Thanks to both a strange twist of involuntary species migration and a strange temporal anomaly, there exists a deep connection between the civilizations and genetic heritage of Earth and Thanagar, particularly in connection with ancient Egypt and its small spin-off kingdom, Kahndaq.

            Like another entirely humanoid alien race which was physically enhanced by advanced outside genetic tampering, known on our files as the Kryptonians, the similarly humanoid Thanagarians are likely not products of coincidental parallel evolution, but the descendants of a large group of Earthlings transported to a habitable but more challenging world by the ultra-advanced race of planetary species pollinators known by various names to different civilizations; among them, the Preservers and the Long Gones (for the sake of expediency, this author will use the former name when referring to this elusive super-species for the rest of this article).

            Exactly how the Kryptonians and Thanagarians received their very distinct enhanced physical attributes is rumored to be the work of an advanced humanoid species, allegedly from another galaxy within the same cluster as the Milky Way, and described in the records of various planetary civilizations as the Kree. This alien race was allegedly actually encountered by Dr. Reid Roberts and his crew of scientific adventurers/explorers known as the Four [2] and few other natives of Earth.

            The Kree are said to be among the earliest and most advanced of all alien races carrying the genetic humanoid phenotype. As such, they have taken responsibility for introducing a genome into the human species countless centuries ago that enhanced Homo sapiens sapiens and enabled them to outcompete now virtually extinct cousin species like Homo sapiens neanderthalis, and to enable a choice minority of contemporary Homo sapiens to develop enhanced attributes with exposure to certain frequencies of radiation and various combinations of mutagenic chemicals. This gives humanity the potential to evolve into early examples of Homo sapiens superior – commonly referred to as mutants (if posthuman traits are evident since birth), or mutates (if posthuman evolving is brought on via radical genetic alterations/modifications that occur to a person well after birth). The natural eugenic improvements wrought by the development of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19^th century, and later the effects on the human genome following the development of atomic power in the early 20^th century, served to accelerate instances of these crude but notable examples of selective human evolution. The supposed program of the Kree evolutionary enhancement of both themselves and fellow humanoids across the known galaxy cluster has been referred to as the Terrigen Project. [3]

            There is some evidence that several centuries before the planet’s destruction and the near-complete annihilation of their race, the Kryptonians achieved their extraordinary physical enhancements due to a particularly vigorous example of Kree genetic enhancement via the Terrigen Project.  Sadly, however, that species was mostly wiped out by an extreme planetary instability just when it was on the cusp of developing mass FTL space travel that may have saved this glorious humanoid race. Some small samples of the specific type of Terrigen chemicals developed by the Kree specifically used to enhance the Kryptonians are said to have secretly found their way into the hands of Earth scientist Abednego Danner just prior to the end of the 19^th century; however, it never went into extremely wide usage. [4]

            The Terrigen enhancement of the Thanagarians took a much different and far less powerful – but arguably no less majestic – form than that of the Kryptonians.

            There were whispered rumors circulating in the ‘Underground Grape Vine’ since prior to World War II that the Kree had experimented with creating amazing races of humanoids who possessed wings that were capable of actual flight. Though humanoid species are not generally designed from a physiological standpoint to achieve flight like avian species or mammalian members of the chiropteran genus, the Kree’s Terrigen-based program allegedly made the modifications necessary to allow this in select human phenotype migrants. The Thanagarians were among the only ones to survive and flourish, which gave rise to universal legends of winged humanoids.

            The rumors contend that early examples of these Terrigen-created humanoid races who successfully developed wings, and accompanying physiological modifications to enable true sustained flight, were given mammalian flight appendages. Their wings thus resembled those possessed by Earthly bats, which it’s said the Kree found aesthetically displeasing. Hoping to create a race of beauteous beings who resembled the visual conceptions of universal angel lore amongst humanoid civilizations, subsequent winged humanoid species were further modified. The result, perfected with the Thanagarians in centuries past, was fully functional pinions resembling those of birds rather than bats. It was relative simplicity for the downy covering on the chiropteran-based wings to be genetically modified to fully resemble a white or gray plumage of avian feathers.

            Thanagar wasn’t destroyed by a horrendous geological disaster as was Krypton, and its civilization is known to continue to exist to this day. However, what exists today is a mere shell of what the Kryptonians achieved prior to its destruction. Though more technologically advanced than Earth at the dawn of the 21^st century’s second decade, and having made forays into FTL travel in space for the better part of a century now (one such jaunt through space would be quite significant to the main subject of this essay; see below), the global culture they have built remains on the same social and economic level of development as contemporary Earth. In fact, some sources claim the global economy of Thanagar has fallen into the throes of Industrial Feudalism. [5] Fully reliable data is difficult to come by due to the obvious distance between Earth and Thanagar, so the best this author can do at the present time is to offer the various reports and caution against interpreting them as gospel.

             Since then, however, rumors of a grim and tragic nature have circulated. These claim that over a century past, the Thanagarians encountered a few other alien races during their early forays outside of their native solar system—not all of them being friendly. This included not only an imperialistic semi-humanoid reptilian race known as the Silurians [6], but a very despotic race of space-faring (possibly interdimensional) beings known as the Daemonites. Wars with the Silurians and Daemonites weakened the fledgling Thanagarian space militia and its world economy, so they attempted to sue for peace. The Daemonites are said to have double-crossed them, however, by pretending to agree while secretly introducing a viral-based devolution pathogen in the Thanagarian ecosystem. This not only resulted in much of the population becoming extremely ill—with many dying before an effective treatment was hastily developed by their medical industry—but this cruel devolutionary pathogen effectively destabilized the Terrigen enhancements to the Thanagarian genome, causing the vast majority of the populace to lose their wings, and thus their natural power of flight. Since the entire genome was affected, subsequent generations of Thanagarians have mostly been born sans any natural wing development. [7]

            To compensate for this traumatic loss, even if only artificially, the Thanagarian Science Council quickly developed an advanced type of artificially created metallic alloy that has been referred to by variant names in Earth files, including “nth metal” (sometimes translated as “ninth metal”) and cavorite. This unique metal was created by a radical irradiation of a few conventional steel alloys via a process that is not yet fully understood by Earth science (with a few notable exceptions; see below). It’s been rumored that a form of mystical spellcasting was used as part of the process, which may not be too strange to consider due to allegations that Thanagarian culture is heavily spiritual. In fact, Thanagarian world culture has a respected Council of Mystics actively encouraging magickal practice amongst the clergy and strict adherents of the main state sanctioned religion, which worships a bird-headed deity believed to be based on the Egyptian deity Thoth (see below).

            The result was a new, non-naturally occurring metallic alloy that had a few extraordinary properties. The main such property was the fact that this metal produced an exotic energy field that allowed any individual equipped with a belt or suit of arms composed of the metal to defy gravity; larger amounts of this metal attached or fused to a vessel could allow it to not only become airborne sans any mechanical means, but even allow it to travel into space.

Another important property, likely due to the mystical aspects of the creation process, caused this metal to become resonant with psychic energies naturally produced at varying levels by all sentient beings, the Thanagarians to a superlative extent (though not at the level possessed by many other humanoid alien races, including the Betazoids).

A third property was that this metal was an effective inhibitor of even potent magickal energies and beings on a level surpassing that of other naturally occurring metals known to be inimical to magickal forces, such as iron and silver.

A fourth property was an extension of its gravity-defying properties: While it didn’t actually enhance the physical strength of anyone wearing the metal, it did allow them to carry more weight while flying than they could lift (press) while ground-bound.

A fifth welcome attribute was the discovery that the energy field emitted by the metal had healing properties. Anyone injured while wearing the metal would heal noticeably faster than normal, depending on the severity of the injury, and could take more physical and mental punishment while adorned with the metal than without—though how much depended on the natural physical and mental resilience of the person in question. As an example of the limits on this property, a stab wound clear through the chest, or severe burns, were still usually fatal to any warrior adorned with the nth metal accoutrements; and sufficient emotional trauma or particularly powerful psychic attacks could still eventually “break” them.  

A sixth attribute of the nth metal was the aura of heat generated by its energy field, sufficient to allow a warrior wearing a belt of the alloy to fly at high altitudes for an extended period of time without major discomfort or freezing; or to resist near-freezing temperatures in a polar region without suffering frostbite or exposure; or being immersed in frigid water for several minutes without suffering hypothermia. And all of the above while the warrior was shirtless or clad in scant garments.

            Consequently, Thanagarian police officers and soldiers could learn, with some training, to once again take to the skies when provided with belts and boot buckles composed of this “nth metal.” Synthetic wings of highly durable material with great aerodynamic properties designed to replicate the features of those possessed by avians were attached to the uniforms of these law-enforcing officers to enable them to negotiate air currents and maneuver much more effectively while in flight; these wings were designed to retract from their uniforms once they became airborne. The psychic connection between anyone who wore the nth metallic accoutrements (i.e., belts and boots, armor, et al.) due to the natural psycho-resonance of the alloy enabled these officers and soldiers to control their lift-off, ascending, descending, and flight speed while airborne. Primitive weapons composed of this metal proved disruptive of natural electromagnetic energy fields, so they were often effective in combat even against opponents utilizing advanced weaponry such as plasma-discharging firearms.

            The spiritual Thanagarians wore a variety of avian emblems and designs on their uniforms, and constructed their helmets to possess avian imagery or to resemble avian features like plumage and beaks. Further, their various flight and space vessels were often designed to resemble predatory avians in flight. [8]

II. Ancient History

            At some point prior to the Daemonite-inflicted tragedy, reports exist that claim a very fateful attempt by a Thanagarian space vessel to travel to Earth and study it slightly over a century ago was launched. The reputed purpose was to learn enough about Earth society and its developed defenses to gain insight into their own genetic history, so as to support some theories by the Thanagarian Science Council that their race was a migrant, genetically modified species not originally indigenous to Thanagar. Rumors of militaristic intentions were also on the vine, but this could never be verified in lieu of what happened to that ill-fated expedition.

            While collecting data from upper Earth orbit, the Thanagarian vessel ran afoul of the mysterious and dangerous Gordian Anomaly, a re-occurring spatial rift in near-Earth vicinity that has not only caused numerous advanced craft from many worlds (including Earth itself)--no matter how sophisticated their technology--to suddenly malfunction and crash; it has also displaced such vessels into other dimensions and time periods. The Gordian Anomaly was partially to blame for the Sarmak invasion of 1898, as the invaders launched from an alternate reality version of Mars called Barsoom, but ended up dimensionally displaced to the Earth of our universe [9] (which we like to call the ‘Wold Newton Universe,’ after our esteemed university and accompanying institute, itself named after the English town where a certain game-changing meteor landed in 1795).

Seven escape pods were able to be jettisoned prior to the full effects of the Anomaly being unleashed on the vessel, with three of their number enabling about 46 Thanagarians to escape to the surface of the Earth. With great effort, the occupants managed to guide the pods into the heart of a large, uninhabited valley in the nation of Greenland, which the vessel’s instrumentation had determined to be bereft of a population shortly before the Gordian Anomaly struck. Stranded on this unfamiliar world, with most of their advanced technology lost to them, these secret Thanagarian refugees nevertheless used their natural resourcefulness and training in teamwork to build themselves a small society hidden from the native human population, which they named Feithera. Turning to the use of their native society’s propensity for mysticism to compensate for their mostly lost advanced technology, they greatly developed these capacities in following generations of Feitherans, finding the Earth environment naturally quite responsive to their system of magick. The rare occasions when the Feitherans encountered or were caught in fleeting glimpses by human eyes contributed much to the legends of winged humanoids in paranormal and underground literature, and they were commonly referred to as ‘Bird People’ in such circles for obvious reasons.

The other four pods were caught in the quantum backlash of the Gordian Anomaly, and displaced into a pocket universe--and quite possibly backwards in time for at least a century or two. That pocket universe evidently contained no version of Earth; instead, in the roughly equivalent spatial area of that parallel version of the Sol solar system was an alien world known as Mongo. Those four pods had a rough total of 104 Thanagarian refugees, who managed to land in a remote area of this otherdimensional, completely habitable planet populated with myriad forms of flora and fauna, and dominated by competing kingdoms of humans and various other sentient species (possibly also otherdimensional migrant races), including three that respectively resembled anthropomorphic lions, sharks, and lizards. Adapting to their new environment as readily as their counterpart migrants to Earth, these Thanagarian refugees on Mongo built their own civilization, one that became a kingdom to be reckoned amongst the global governments of that world, where they were later referred to as ‘Hawkmen’ by a trio of Earth people who traveled to Mongo: Yale University football hero “Flash” Gordon; a woman named Dale Arden; and scientist/engineer Dr. Hans Zarkov, all of whom were displaced to Mongo in the 1930s via the latter scientist’s experimental rocket ship to discover the source of an interdimensional meteor attack projected through the Gordian Anomaly to Earth from Mongo’s location in otherdimensional space.

By that point in time, the kingdom built by the winged Thangarian refugees hovered in the sky due to a form of nth metal that they managed to synthesize in some manner out of metallic alloys native to Mongo, a process they seemed to have kept to themselves, along with a sizable militia that retained the Thanagarian penchant for using a combination of ancient style weapons and advanced technology in combat. By the 1930s, the kingdom of the Mongoid Hawkmen were ruled by a benevolent dictator named Prince Vultan. The Prince ultimately teamed with Gordon and his companions against the most powerful despot on Mongo, a human known as Ming the Merciless, who was responsible for the meteor assault on Earth. But the legend of Flash Gordon deserves its own article in the future.

However, one important postscript related to the above should perhaps be noted here. During the construction of the hovering city by the Mongoid Hawkmen, a dramatic accident occurred where a large chunk of the alloy enabling the city to hover in the sky broke off and floated outside Mongo’s stratosphere. For some reason, its presence in the general trans-dimensional area of the Gordian Anomaly triggered the phenomenon, and caused that chunk of altered nth metal to be displaced into the reality outside our windows. Captured by Earth’s gravity, it landed in an undisclosed area close to England in the mid-19^th century. This chunk of alloy was eventually discovered and harnessed by a scientist named Dr. Cavor, who named the substance after himself, cavorite. This incident was recorded in H. G. Wells’ file The First Men in the Moon. According to that file, Dr. Cavor was able to use this modified nth metal (i.e., cavorite) to line a vessel of his own invention that could break Earth’s gravity and actually enable a trip to the Moon… sort of. In actuality, and unbeknownst to Cavor and his fellow traveler, the vessel’s nth metal alloy triggered the Gordian Anomaly anew, and they found themselves landing on a strange, habitable variation of La Luna that was extant in one of the many otherdimensional pocket universes where counterparts of the Sol planetary bodies exist that apparently operate under alien laws of physics and biology.

According to Alan Moore’s file The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1, some of his cavorite was used circa early 1898 by the first Prof. James Moriarity to create an air ship for the purpose of attacking the East End of London, which was then ruled by his great rival crime lord, Dr. Fu Manchu (who, always, was evidently able to counter the attack with a contingent of enforcers who utilized an early form of hang gliding).

III. The Kahndaq Connection

            Regarding the main Thanagarian vessel caught in the Gordian Anomaly, the flurry of unleashed quantum energies not only severely damaged the ship’s impulse drive, but it tossed the vessel into the timestream. As a result, the craft crash-landed on Earth in Kahndaq at a point in the past earlier than 6,000 BC. Most of the crew had escaped in the seven aforementioned pods, but a portion of the security officers didn’t make it to the pods, and were displaced along with the main vessel. The few survivors amongst the security crew left in the vessel following its crash in the ancient Kahndaqi desert included co-security chiefs Khu-Fu Hol and his lover, Chay-Ara Thal.

After Hol and Thal healed themselves of their minor injuries using a Thanagarian medical kit, they found the tiny remainder of their crew confronted by a sortie of the reigning Kahndaqi sub-pharaoh’s guard. The crashing vessel, ruined well beyond repair by the impact, was believed by the Kahndaqi people to be a celestial chariot of the gods sent down to Earth. The incredible winged people were believed to be guardian deities related to the Apkallu, well known to the people there due to the incorporation of Sumerian beliefs into their worship of the standard Egyptian pantheon.

Taking advantage of this situation out of necessity for survival, Hol and Thal encouraged this belief amongst the Kahndaqi people. When they discovered the Kahndaqi citizens believed they had come to Earth to save them from the sub-pharaoh of their kingdom, who was considered unusually cruel even for one of his station at the time, Hol and Thal led the other few surviving crew members to attack and slay this sub-pharaoh. 

            As the two highest ranking members of the tiny portion of the crew to survive the crash landing, Hol and Thal became the two new rulers of the Kahndaq mini-empire. With the combined help of a universal translator device that wasn’t badly damaged in the crash, and a surviving member of the crew who was a xeno-linguist, Hol and Thal quickly learned the Egyptian language and writing system of the time (which the Kahndaqi people used). They then taught them ways of improving their lives with the assistance of the surviving Thanagarian technology and their advanced medical knowledge. As a result, Hol and Thal were revered as benevolent rulers sent by the gods to advance the Kahndaqi people above and beyond the control of their parent empire, Egypt.

            This continued for about ten years, which didn’t sit well with Hol and Thal’s high priest, the human Hath-Set. He held that same position with the previous sub-pharaoh, and he eventually came to realize the newcomers were not actually divine beings, but members of a purely mortal race with advanced attributes and knowledge. He felt that their imposture of necessity, and how they used it to take over a land not their own, was treacherous and duplicitous; not to mention his viewing the spiritual system they encouraged to be built around them as blasphemous to the standard system of deity worship he loyally practiced. Sidestepping the mighty warrior who acted as the head of their guard, Teth-Atum, Hath-Set decided to use his great knowledge of the occult and herbalism to end the reign of his alien rulers.

            Putting this mutinous plan of his in motion, Hath-Set used a paralytic herb he slipped in Hol and Thal’s wine to render them helpless. He then grasped Hol’s personal dagger, which was inscribed with Thanagarian runes and partially made of nth metal, and angrily slit Thal’s throat right in front of the horrified Hol. The deposed alien ruler swore eternal vengeance on Hath-Set, focusing his emotion into extreme anger and determination to follow him through the ages just before the high priest killed him by stabbing him in the chest with his own blade.

            This focused emotion caused a resonance in the energy field of the nth metal dagger that insured the departing soul of Hol would establish a strong metagenetic connection with his respective lineages on both Earth and Thanagar. [10] It also served to establish a psychic connection with Hath-Set’s spirit via a karmic backlash that occurred due to the fact he was holding the nth metal blade against Hol’s blood when the murdered ruler focused so much psychic energy into his vow of retribution. [11]

            The few remaining Thanagarian crew members fled the kingdom after Hath-Set murdered Hol and Thal, and from there they secretly intermingled with the greater Egyptian society—and later, across the globe--to interbreed with humans. As Hol previously discovered, the genetic kinship between Earthlings and Thanagarians allowed the two peoples to conceive and bear viable fertile offspring, but the Terrigen-based genome enhancements of the Thanagarians (prior to the Daemonite attack) that brought about functional wings and potential psychic attributes proved recessive traits unless children were conceived by two humans who both had sufficient Thanagarian genes. This, of course, was exceedingly rare, though by the 20^th century, lone individuals from a few family lines descended from Thanagarians—most notably, the Worthingtons and the Saunders—would actually develop these now atavistic Thanagarian traits in full.

IV. A Hawkman Descends

            The next major saga in the history of Thanagarian interaction with Earth was the emergence of the original Hawkman as part of the “mystery man” scene circa late 1939. And the first man behind the hawk mask was Carter Hall.

            Hall was born to an upper middle-class Caucasian family in Boston who, unbeknownst to them, were among the familial lineages who had a strong Thanagarian genetic presence in their bloodline. However, the true Thanagarian traits were recessive, as was usually the case. But Carter Hall was unique for a much more important reason: He was the latest in a long line of Earth-born men with a Thanagarian genetic presence to host the reincarnated soul of Khu-Fu Hol; the time-displaced Thanagarian warrior and former ruler of ancient Kahndaq tended to metagenetically be drawn to reincarnate within carriers of his bloodline both on Earth and Thanagar at different times, a status that would have important implications on his history. Thus, he was, in effect, a warrior of two worlds, a spiritual presence who united the people of both planets in a manner indicative of their shared biological heritage.

            A bright and inquisitive child, Carter Hall developed a strong interest in archeology and Egyptology as he grew older. His Thanagarian genetic traits seemed to physically manifest only in the sense that he was also always quite athletic, and part of his studies included a keen interest in ancient weaponry and warrior techniques. He thus trained incessantly, eventually developing a mastery of most ancient weapons known to Earth, including the mace; the sword; the staff; the dagger; the bola; and the crossbow. He often had psychic visions of a hawk, and came to believe that was his totem animal (actually a guise that Khu-Fu’s higher spiritual aspect adopted to guide him), as well as flashes of events—some quite violent—that were suggestive of alternate past lives, occurring throughout the ages on both Earth and Thanagar. As a result, upon entering college, he did quite well as an archeology major with an emphasis on Egyptian ruins and culture, becoming one of the world’s foremost recognized expert on the subject. He also displayed a strong predilection for adventure and wanderlust.

            Hall graduated with honors from Columbia University in New York City at age 21 in 1938, and it was just a few months before he secured a lucrative position as a curator at the Midway City Museum—so named because it was located in one of the neighborhoods making up the ‘Midway City’ section of Manhattan. [12] Placed in charge of the permanent Egyptian exhibit, Hall was unaware that many of his most significant life decisions were being influenced by the “true” identity of the reincarnated soul within his being. Taking the position at the museum was one of these decisions; but perhaps the most significant of them all was the psychic cajoling designed to bring him into contact with a most valuable item on the Egyptian exhibit: The actual ancient dagger of Khu-Fu, still interspersed with large traces of nth metal.

            Upon approaching the dagger, Hall found himself overwhelmed by the psychic waves emanating from the weapon into a compulsion to open the glass case containing it and to touch it. He focused his will into avoiding this just until he could make sure he was able to do so late at night, long after all viewers and most of the staff had departed. Upon finally doing so, he fell into an hours-long cataleptic state as his mind was post-cognitively inundated by the memories embedded in the nth metal alloys of the blade. As a result, he re-experienced the life of Khu-Fu Hol, particularly the final traumatic minutes when he saw his lover Chay-Ara assassinated by Hath-Set, and his previous incarnation moments afterwards. He then fully remembered this past life and all the knowledge he learned during it, including the nature of nth metal and all additional warrior skills that Khu-Fu possessed. This included the knowledge and experience of flight, despite the fact that Hall didn’t have the active traits of pre-Daemonite War Thanagarians that would have enabled him to develop natural functional wings.

            However, Hall—now possessing full knowledge and memory of his previous Khu-Fu identity—resolved to do something about this right after resolving to track down and kill Hath-Set’s present day incarnation for retribution. Fortunately, he had a psychic connection with Hath-Set’s present incarnation due to the high priest slaying him with the nth metal dagger, as described above. He spent the next several months studying the nth metal alloy in the dagger to find a way of creating more so he could use its gravity-defying properties to artificially simulate the natural flying abilities that Khu-Fu had possessed. The secret of this would, at the end of those months, be discovered by Hall in the course of his intensive studies and strong academic contacts across the globe.

            Apparently, when the Thanagarian craft containing Khu-Fu’s crew was analyzing data from Earth orbit roughly 35 years previous—prior to being thrust millennia into the past by the Gordian Anomaly—the vessel carried two nacelles filled with large chunks of nth metal to enable the craft to sail through space with a minimum requirement of energy expenditure. For some reason, when the Gordian Anomaly appeared, the nacelles didn’t pass into the timestream portal, but detached from the craft and came crashing to Earth in two separate locations across the globe:  One in the North African nation of Wakanda, and another in the completely unpopulated frozen landscape of the distant Antarctic continent.

 However, each nacelle of nth metal was affected by the mysterious quantum energies of the Gordian Anomaly so as to alter their basic properties. The nacelle that landed in North Africa had its casing shattered with the altered nth metal fragment embedding itself partially in the earth. This altered nth metal’s properties were such that it now had the disparate but equally invaluable property of absorbing vibratory or kinetic force projected against it, thus making the metal exceedingly difficult to destroy. Discovered by the ruling caste of the Wakandan tribespeople, they would name this new metallic compound vibranium, and parlay it into making the small nation extremely prosperous and advanced by the 1960s, with this metal as the main basis for their economic strength; that, however, is a story for another article. [13]

As it turned out, the revelatory consequences of Hall touching the nth metal dagger caused a psychic “surge” that reverberated around the globe, though it only had major effects on a few relevant individuals. Among them was the German immigrant scientist Anton Hastor, who was the modern era’s reincarnation of Hath-Set; and Kahndaqi immigrant Joaquin Stewart, who happened to be the modern reincarnation of Bashari, Khu-Fu’s ancient security guard/friend and Chay-Ara’s co-lover during their decade of ruling ancient Kahndaq. [14]

Already a man of selfish disposition, the traumatic and abrupt revelation to Hastor of his ancient Kahndaqi incarnation caused him to become truly twisted. Realizing instinctively that the infusion of knowledge and memories of his ancient Hath-Set incarnation meant that Khu-Fu’s present incarnation was likewise now post-cognitively aware of their shared past, he resolved to find out who this was in preparation for defense of the coming attempt at retribution. As it turned out, Hastor’s position as a respected scientist left him with considerable resources at his disposal to prepare for resisting the imminent attempt at his life by an ancient warrior reborn.

In the meantime, Stewart’s status as a scientist left him with strong connections of his own, including a friendly relationship with Wakanda’s new young ruler, King T’Chaka. It was discovered by Stewart that the bombardment of a unique frequency of radiation applied to samples of vibranium converted it back to “pure” nth metal. The mutual research conducted by both Hall and Stewart enabled them to discover each other's existence and renew an ancient friendship. Working together, the two managed to fashion a belt and boot buckles composed of nth metal that Hall would need for his plans of retribution. Though Hall realized he could likely learn, with practice, to fly without the use of any synthetic wings, he wanted to fashion a uniform in rough imitation of the traditional garb used by Khu-Fu in his capacity as both a Thanagarian security officer and co-ruler of ancient Kahndaq. He also felt that the appearance of wings on his person would afford him the full aesthetic majesty and psychological advantage he would need to confront the modern incarnation of Hath-Set, as soon as they discovered who he was. Further, the synthetic bird-like wings that he and Stewart constructed not only enabled him to fully negotiate air currents and provided superior maneuverability while in flight, but they were durable and heavy enough to use as close contact battering weapons when convenient; they weren’t tough enough to stop bullets, however.

Shortly after this was accomplished, it was made clear that the psychic “surge” unleashed by Halls touching of the dagger also set in motion synchronistic events that defied probability to come into motion. One of these was his being at the correct time and place to literally run into a young woman name LeAnn Saunders, who happened to have recessive Thanagarian traits in her lineage. As a result of this, Hall established a powerful empathic rapport with Saunders the moment he first met her, and this caused him to convince himself that she was the modern reincarnation of Chay-Ara Thal. Initially confused when Hall called her Chay-Ara—which she believed to be the unusual but extant human forename “Shiera”—she found herself so intrigued and taken with Hall that she forgave him this, likely at least partially as a result of the empathic rapport established between the two. She agreed to discuss matters with him over lunch, and by the end of the conversation in the diner the two were utterly smitten with each other. As such, she agreed to go with Hall to the Midway City Museum and touch the dagger; the psychic images she received included the murder of Chay-Ara Thal, and this caused her to accept that she may indeed be this reincarnated Kahndaqi ruler that he believed her to be. [15]

Utilizing his newfound memories and knowledge, Hastor modified various advanced technology which he had access to locate the unique wave signature emitted by the nth metal his ancient incarnation had become familiar with. The psychic “feel” of this signature that he gained (or regained, if one prefers) upon receiving the memories and feelings of his previous, mystically adept identity enabled him to quickly learn how to modify the technology for this purpose. Upon succeeding, Hastor was able to do the necessary reconnaissance work to discover not only who Hall was (or once was), but the fact that he believed Saunders to be the reincarnation of his lost lover. Determined to take proactive measures to insure his fending off the imminent retribution of Hall, Hastor’s now psychically imbalanced mind enabled him to justify the kidnapping of Saunders to use as bait to lure his reborn ancient adversary into a trap.

Upon receiving notice of Saunders’ kidnapping by the man who was once Hath-Set, Hall decided to take on the full aspect of his former self to carry out her rescue and planned retribution of his old enemy. Accordingly, Hall donned the sparse costume he constructed, along with a specially designed helmet reminiscent of a hawk to simulate the appearance of certain Thanagarian military head gear. Wearing the belt and boots with buckles composed of nth metal and the huge artificial set of bird wings connected to his chest strap harness, Hall armed himself with some of the huge collection of ancient weapons that he collected over the years and mastered via a combination of a lifetime of intense training, and the recent infusion of Khu-Fu’s postcognitive memories of his own warrior training. For this first mission, his weapons consisted of a ritual dagger strapped to his belt; a crossbow that he had tethered to one of his boots; and a seven-foot long hardwood staff.

Standing atop the roof of the museum in full warrior garb for the first time, the helmeted Hall leapt with full confidence that the nth metal belt and other accoutrements would keep him aloft and grant him the gift of full individual flight. They did, and the synthetic wings he and Stewart developed granted him sufficient air current negotiation and maneuvering capacity for him to approximate the flying skill of a veteran Thanagarian soldier, all of which the psychically infused previous life recall of Khu-Fu enabled him to make use of. Using his skill at flying, combat weaponry, and strategic thinking, he managed to evade all of Hastor’s planned traps and rescue Saunders. The midst of the conflagration, he apparently fatally injured Hastor by shooting him in the chest with a crossbow bolt, thus gaining the retribution his soul spent so many centuries yearning for. However, the perpetual reincarnation cycle would prove to remain intact, for some reason not stopping after being set into motion.

Sightings of this mysterious new mystery man who could soar through the air with the wings of a bird, along with reports of his activity in taking down a corrupt scientist who kidnapped an innocent woman, made the headlines of the New York newspaper known as the Gotham Gazette. The paper christened this new reputed flying hero “the Hawkman.” Inspired by his successful baptism of fire, adventurous spirit, and the seeming heroic actions of many other mystery men making waves in that decade—notably, the Shadow, the Spider, the Green Hornet, the Phantom Detective, and the Bat-Man—Hall felt he should continue his activities as Hawkman against the forces of crime and injustice. LeAnn, whom he had now fallen in love with and vice versa, gave her new boyfriend her blessing on this, having a strong adventuress spirit of her own. Assisting him on many of his subsequent cases, the two became engaged. Moreover, she was so enamored of the name “Shiera,” and the possibility of that being her original name in an ancient incarnation, that she adopted it as her middle name and preferred to be addressed by it from then on.

Hawkman proved to be a welcome addition to the mystery men of America, particularly the number concentrated across New York’s five boroughs and surrounding vicinity. This was especially true since his unique ability to fly—even if by artificial means—gave him a unique attribute and vantage point among these early 20^th century masked crime fighters. He began training Shiera in his flying and combat techniques, which she quickly learned to a fine degree, possibly aided by her own Thanagarian genetic heritage. Soon after they were married, she insisted on aiding him in his crime fighting ventures in a more direct capacity, so he had her crafted with a duplicate of his nth metal belt and artificial wings, as well as a rather alluring “feminized” version of his sparse costume and helmet. She then joined him on many occasions in the identity of Hawkgirl.

When America’s entry into World War II soon commenced, Hawkman’s noted strategic abilities and leadership skills caused the U.S. government to draft him into service to lead some of the early “All-Star” or “Justice Battalion” contingents of mystery men and other specially skilled individuals who periodically operated as soldiers for the Allied side. Hawkman proved an able leader in these periodic forays. Like most other major mystery men of the time, he found his exploits recorded by various biographers—the first and most renowned of them being Gardner Fox—in periodicals published for the reading consumption of the masses. However, while many masked mystery men of the times had their exploits translated into prose form for publishing in the pulp magazines popular in the 1930s and ‘40s, Hawkman was among those mystery men who instead had his exploits translated into illustrated story format, i.e., the comic books, in his case by All-American Comics--which would eventually merge completely with National Periodicals to form DC Comics--for a popular run in Flash Comics, and a bit later in All-Star Comics.

The often more colorful mystery men who were published by the many comic book companies to compete with each other on newsstands back in that era found their exploits presented in often a much greater exaggerated, romanticized, simplified, and outright fabricated manner than their counterparts whose adventures were translated in the pulps (of course, some of those who appeared in the pulps eventually found themselves also depicted in comic book format, which were often predictably more simplified and less than accurate than those told in pulp format).

V. Finding Feithera

One of the first Hawkman’s most spectacular exploits occurred in the late 1940s. Halls stringent archeological research and the strong empathic connection he had with the Thanagarian race enabled him to locate Feithera, its hidden encampment in a remote valley of Greenland now developed into a small city, whose rumors he heard of through his civilian membership in the Explorer’s Club. Locating Feithera in his Hawkman guise, Hall helped the winged Thanagarian migrants drive off a group of human invaders who sought to hunt members of their race for glory and profit, along with a traitorous member of the Feitherans named Trata, who helped these human hunters find the hidden city. While there, he became friends with the spiritual leader of Feithera in that decade, a man named Worla. Earning the friendship of the Feitherans, partly as a result of his distant genetic but strong spiritual kinship with them, as well as the fact that he helped save several of them from the hunters, he was accepted as an honorary member of their society. He would subsequently visit them at periodic intervals, sometimes bringing both his wife and their young son Carter Jr. (born circa 1941; see below).

At the time of his first meeting with the Feitherans, Hall noticed that some odd chemical elements in the valley seemed to combine with their intense mystical practices to further promote the Terrigen-based alteration in their genome, causing the feather-like follicle coverings on their wings to spread so as to cover other parts of their bodies, such as portions of their arms and as a plumage-like covering on top of their heads. [17] Further, they developed an empathic rapport with all species of avian native to Earth, an attribute they taught to Hall, which his Thanagarian heritage may have given him the latent ability to develop with the training he received from the Feitherans.

Eventually, Hall convinced the Feitheran Leadership Council to allow him to bring a trusted human friend, anthropologist Fred Cantrell, who wanted to live with the Feitherans for a time to study them on their own terms. Shortly after Cantrell’s arrival, Worla’s daughter Osoro fell in love with him, a feeling her attentions soon caused him to reciprocate. Despite the lack of support from most Feitherans, Worla took the shared heritage of Earthlings and Thanagarians—including the latter’s migrant spin-off race, the Feitherans—into account, and argued to allow a marriage between the two to be allowed. His influential position in such matters prevailed, and Cantrell was accepted as an honorary member of their society after his marriage to Osoro, even if only grudgingly by most of the Feitheran tribal society. Within several years, the two would have a son, Norda, who was born with his mother’s physiological traits due to the normally recessive Terrigen gene base of the Thanagarians being strengthened by the recent mutations the Feitheran spin-off race had undergone. [16]

About a decade after the establishment of Feithera, a small minority of the gradually growing city became dissatisfied with the fact that the majority decided to build a peaceful society that dispensed with the former martial ways of Thanagarian culture.  They were led by a dissident named Ramphastos, who convinced his fellow dissenters to leave Feithera, all of whom were determined to build a new hidden society elsewhere on Earth that would follow the standard of Thanagar much more closely. They eventually found a remote island off the coast of Europe in which to settle. On this island, they discovered a true treasure trove:  A hidden cavern featuring examples of Kree technology that had been left there for the emergency use of any Kree who might be left behind on any give covert mission to Earth. Evidently, the Kree did not anticipate that the Terrigen-based genome of the Feitherans, after being further mutated, would allow them to psychically “home in” on such a large cluster of Kree psionic “imprints” if they came close enough.

Establishing a new kingdom on this island they named Aerie, these Feitheran refugees studied and rapidly learned how to use some of the limited Kree technology they found. Thus, they worked to establish a kingdom based on scientific principles rather than resorting to one based largely on mystical practice, another thing Ramphastos and his fellow dissenters had never liked about Feithera. Among the technology they discovered was a device capable of generating varied types of exotic radiation frequencies, most of them still unknown to mainstream contemporary Earth science as of the second decade of the 21^st century (the time period which this author typed these words). This included the frequency with which they could irradiate and convert various metal alloys they found on the island to true nth metal. They thus found a way to escape the surface of the Earth altogether by lining the small island with enough nth metal to allow the atoll to float high above the surface of the planet; they also devised a means of generating an artificial cloud cover that concealed their hovering island haven from both the naked eye and the radar technology being developed by Earth science.

Prior to this, the Aeriens found a means of synthesizing rock into a transparent but highly impenetrable substance via the Kree technology. They forged this material into a dome-like cover that, with the help of internal environmental regulation devices they discovered among the technology in the cavern, gave them the ability to indefinitely maintain a comfortable environment for themselves and all forms of life on the island at high altitudes in the sky, or even if submerged underwater.

VI. Another Winged Wonder Emerges

Sometime during the early 1920s, after the Aerie atoll had been successfully suspended above the Earth, the then relatively new invention of airplanes caught them unawares when a small early commercial flight crashed into the dome, the pilot believing he was flying through a simple cloud bank. The plane was forced to make an emergency landing in the water below, and upon investigating, a group of Aerien rescue officers found that the sole survivor was a human infant, entirely unscathed. Feeling they were responsible for the infant’s welfare, they decided to raise him in their society rather than attempt to covertly venture to a human population center to deposit him, none of which were anywhere near their general location (they also since resolved to move the Aerie to higher altitudes, to avoid further such destructive accidents). The boy grew up happily in the Aerien society, and when he was a few years old his benefactors compensated for his lack of natural wings by giving him a uniform with nth metal fused into its fabric, as well as synthetic wings composed of a metallic substance to enable him to navigate air currents properly. The boy learned to fly as well as any Aerien with natural wings, and spent his youth in the same security service that rescued him, learning their methods of armed and unarmed combat that were specifically tailored to aerial fighting.

Upon reaching his late teens, the young man elected to leave the Aerie to travel into the human world and explore the civilization of his native race, hoping to possibly find a place for himself within it. What he did professionally and socially while living there upon his arrival in the city of Seattle circa late 1930s, or even what civilian identity he took or how he forged reasonable false credentials, remains unknown. What is known is that when the closing months of 1939 rolled around, and he learned of the debut of the original Hawkman as a crime fighting mystery man in the city of New York, he was struck by what he clearly recognized as (in his own words), “an artificial Aerien warrior.”  Considering himself something similar, he felt he could perform the same function for his own adopted Earth city. He thus fashioned himself a scarlet-hued costume that incorporated his nth metal boots and gloves, along with his similarly hued synthetic metallic wings. Armed with an Aerien hand-held weapon that projected a bolt of low-level plasma that caused burning injuries to anything it was fired upon (which the Aeriens created by reverse-engineering more advanced Kree energy-generating technology), he took to the skies to battle crime in the identity of the Red Raven.

This he continued for about two years, but without generating nearly the amount of publicity that Hawkman received (whether he ever approached Carter Hall to learn the true nature of his artificial flying ability has not yet been determined). Beginning shortly after American entry into World War II, the Red Raven served on a few occasions as a member of a stateside unit of mystery men working with various American law enforcement agencies, who were led by the mystery man called the Patriot (Jeffery Mace) that wore a uniform with the American flag design in imitation of the far more famous mystery man battling directly in the war, Captain America. The activities of this sporadic team succeeded in breaking up a few Nazi fifth columnist saboteur plots across the U.S., and one time actually freed a covert “All-Star” team led by Captain America as part of the Ordnance’s “Project: Invaders” unit from brain washing by the Red Skull, but achieved no major recognition to compare with the reports of the “All-Star” units who operated in the actual war theaters overseas. [17]

Before the war ended, Red Raven became disgusted with the level of disharmony he saw amongst the various nations of human civilization, and he abruptly dropped out of sight, returning to the home where he grew up, the Aerie (this caused the relatively few newspaper articles and books that mentioned him to spread a theory that he may actually have been Hawkman in an alternate costume when visiting a city other than New York). Shortly after the end of World War II, however, he learned that the people of Aerie were making plans to launch military assaults on various human cities across the globe, with the intent of taking advantage of the weakened state of the world militias and industries following the several years of a major war. The Aerien ruling council was evidently growing weary of their hidden city being threatened by the wars regularly fought by the human nations against each other with ever-advancing technologies, especially following the development of the atomic bomb and the many models of missiles whose range and accuracy were constantly increasing.

Red Raven was horrified, having spent several years among human civilization, and tried in vain to argue that despite the aftermath of a global war, the human race and its nations’ armed forces still vastly outnumbered the Aeriens, and would likely wipe them out in a military conflict. Determined to save those whom he considered his true people, Red Raven broke into an installation housing canisters filled with huge amounts of a rapidly expanding, experimental gas that could put any living being exposed to it in a state of permanent suspended animation, with all their vital bodily processes being slowed to a crawl, until they were exposed to a counter-agent. When he dropped a gas canister in the center of the small but thriving city and activated its release valve, all the Aeriens were put into suspended animation before they realized what was happening. Red Raven then directed the island to descend and submerge well below the ocean depths, where he believed they would be safer from human discovery.

 However, the atoll was preprogramed to rise again in two decades time, when he planned to revive them in the hope that the human civilizations had changed sufficiently that the Aeriens would no longer perceive a military assault as the best option. After this was done, he placed himself in a suspended animation chamber and exposed himself to the gas, where he planned to “sleep off” those two decades; the chamber was programmed to wake him with a spray of the counter-agent after the Aerie lifted back out of the ocean depths following the pre-programed ascension date. [18]

VII. And Yet Another…

            Another flying hero to appear on the scene in the days of World War II is yet another who’s true history is shrouded in mystery. Hopefully, this author can offer some answers by gleaning the available information. This new sky-borne hero would be Richard Grey Jr., the first individual to call himself the Black Condor.

He was a Native American hero whose totemic-based power of natural unaided flight seems to have been a result of a familial heritage who have a powerful metagenetically inherited mystic rapport with a Native American deity of unclear identity who represents certain avians of relevance to Native spirituality, such as the condor and the crow. Another such Native American hero called the Black Crow would be reported in a few accounts during the early 1980s, including an alleged encounter with Captain America, a story chronicled in a file compiled by Mark Gruenwald for an issue of Captain America that was published by Marvels Comics in 1982.

The initial whispered reports of the first Black Condor were published in fabricated, sensationalized form by Quality Comics for their super hero mag Crack Comics, starting with the first issue, and alleged that he was a meteor mutant along the lines of the Wold Newton Family [WNF], though being one of the rare members to actually develop true posthuman abilities rather than “merely” peak human attributes. It’s possible, however, that Grey is a legitimate member of the WNF who developed further mystic abilities of a unique sort due to the metagenetic heritage of his family that goes back in time much further than the fateful meteorite landing in Yorkshire, Wold Newton, England circa 1795.  This matter has been further confused after DC Comics started publishing stories about Grey in the early 1970s, when they gave a different convoluted explanation for his powers. Further complicating matters are the allegations that he took over the identity of a murdered senator named Tom Wright, whom he supposedly failed to save from his killers, to use as a cover for his activities to uncover corrupt politicians who were causing harm to the Native reservations.

Nevertheless, it’s known that the Black Condor seemed to possess the ability to fly naturally by means of the rare psychic power known as levitation. He wore a large wind-navigating cloak that served largely the same purpose as the artificial wings of Hawkman and the Red Raven. He had many attributes that one would imagine a member of the WNF to have, including a natural propensity to master combat and athletic training, both of which Grey acquired courtesy of the elders of the tribe his father belonged to. Primed as the champion of his people and protector of the Native land, he took on a costumed though not masked identity as a flying mystery man. However, like Red Raven before him, the press he received was very local ,and interpreted by the national media as a legend. This is because he was quickly conscripted by Uncle Sam into the “All-Star” unit serving covert missions for the U.S. government under their “Project: Freedom Fighters” program. He continued in that capacity for the duration of his career, keeping well out of the public limelight while doing so. As a result, it’s unknown if he ever met Hawkman to “compare notes.”

What happened to Grey after that is largely unknown, but an individual claiming to be him briefly turned up in the company of the Uncle Sam of the 1970s, only for this group to go into hiding after being accused of criminal activities. The true identity of this individual is unknown, as he appeared to be too young to be Grey; though he could have been a descendant, or the actual Grey having had his aging retarded by unknown means, something that certain mystical forces are known to be able to accomplish at times. These appearances were recorded in fictionalized form by DC Comics at the time in their short-lived Freedom Fighters comic.

Rumor has it that one of their World War II missions consisted of their thwarting the depredations of the infamous Nazi scientists Baron Heinrich Zemo and Baron Blitzkrieg, who had jointly developed a prototype sliding technology, thus gaining access to an alternate Earth where the Axis Powers were making considerably better progress against the Allies than their counterparts in this reality, all in the hope of gaining interdimensional assistance from those alternate reality Nazis. The sliding technology was purportedly destroyed after a costly conflict, thus denying the Nazis from each Earth further access to the other. However, Uncle Sam allegedly felt it was the solemn duty of champions like him to aid the beleaguered Allies of that alternate Earth, so he led the team—including the Black Condor—along with a host of other mystery men he recruited to that other Earth just before the sliding technology was destroyed, with each of them knowing it would therefore be a one-way journey. Rumor has it they failed to stop that Earth’s Axis forces from winning World War II, or the Nazis of that world from similarly conquering their former allies in Japan and Italy following the defeat of the Allies, and then establishing a terrifying global Aryan empire. The surviving members of Uncle Sam’s interdimensional team were then said to have joined an underground resistance movement against the reigning Third Reich, but what happened after that is unknown, and not of any major relevance to this article (though another essay covering it in the future may be warranted).

The next Native American hero to carry on the legacy of the Black Condor was an adolescent Native American idealist named Ryan Kendall. Also growing up on a reservation west of the Mississippi, he emerged on the scene circa 1992. He is believed to be of a lineage closely connected to the Greys, where the propensity for mystical and psychic abilities are great. Hence, he inherited the apparent psionic power of controlled levitation, and constructed a colorful Native garb with artificial wing-like projections in imitation of those used by Hawkman and the Falcon (but of inferior grade to either) to aid his maneuverability and air negotiation while in flight. DC Comics published a short-lived Black Condor comic that gave another spurious scientific explanation for his powers, though there may be some truth to that, in that some experiments conducted by his alleged crooked scientist grandfather, Crieghton Kendall, served as a means of stimulating his pineal gland and releasing his latent genetic potential for levitation. The comic also stated that Ryan had the psionic power to telikineticaly lift and propel objects other than himself, but this may be an exaggeration of the fact that his psionic defiance of gravity simply allowed him to lift and carry objects while in flight that were heavier than he could carry on the ground. Apparently he also developed low-level empathic abilities and healing powers.

Kendall actually sought out Katar Hol to ask him for advice and training tips, and assisted him in capturing a masked female criminal named Karen Ramis, the most recent individual to take the identity of the Lion-Mane.  The two heroes maintained a friendly correspondence after that, but rarely teamed up again, as both were situated in different parts of the country, and followed very different paths. Eventually, another version of Uncle Sam showed up to recruit Kendall and other new versions of certain masked heroes who first worked under “Project: Freedom Fighters” in World War II, and to perform sporadic covert missions similar to those in the past. Tragically, Kendell was among several members of one of these teams to be killed in action in 2006 when they were led in a mission against a dangerous terrorist group called “The Society,” which had several dangerous masked criminals amongst their ranks.

Since then, rumors abound that a third man wearing the mantle of the Black Condor has appeared on such covert missions, but only a few reports have described him thus far. His name is allegedly John Trujillo, and it may be conjectured that he is of a Native American bloodline related to those which produced Richard Grey Jr./Tom Wright and Ryan Kendall.

VIII. Later Career and Katar Hol

By the time of the early 1950s, Carter and Shiera Hall decided to retire their costumed identities as flying crime fighters due to a combination of factors, including political pressure from the McCarthy controlled Senate based on all the typical rumors of communist affiliations; advancing age; and Carter’s desire to devote full time to his archeological career in the hope of making significant discoveries that he could share with the world in his civilian identity. However, circumstances would soon allow a new Hawkman to appear on the scene and carry on the Hall legacy.

The story of this second Hawkman began circa 1941, when Carter and LeAnn “Shiera” Hall welcomed the birth of their first son, Carter Jr. Soon after their initial retirement, the Halls managed to use a special signaling device they acquired from their intense studies of nth metal, both in concert with Prof. Stewart and the Feitherans, to actually contact a Thanagarian science vessel that passed in close spatial proximity to the Earth. They made peaceful contact with the craft, whose crew was delighted and intrigued to meet a human family with Thanagarian genes who battled crime on their world in the manner of Thanagarian law officers. The Halls were extended an offer to make a brief visit to Thanagar, which they considered their “second homeworld,” and they enthusiastically agreed. They took Carter Jr. with them, as they considered his Thanagarian heritage to be important for him to learn.

The stay on Thanagar ended up lasting for nearly two years, and it was a fruitful one. During that time the Science Council was astounded at the seeming coincidence that Carter Hall’s Earth surname was so phonetically similar to that of Hol, the Thanagarian lineage his ancient incarnation belonged to. The spiritual leader of the dominant Thanagarian clergy, who worships a Thoth-like being who appears in a form reminiscent of a giant bird of prey, assured all that it was not a mere coincidence, but an act of sacred synchronicity by the universe, a message from the gods to symbolize the familial unity of the people from both worlds. Due to his sharing some of the Hol clan DNA, Carter Jr. was made an official member of the family via a ritual communion. Not only was he permitted to adopt their name while on Thanagar, but he was given the legal forename of “Katar,” the closest approximation of a Thanagarian forename to his Earthly equivalent. Accordingly, Shiera gladly took the new name of “Chay-Ara Hol” for the same reason.

Just before being returned to Earth, the Halls were surprised to learn that Carter Jr. had become so enamored of Thanagar that he wanted to remain there on a semi-permanent basis, to study its police techniques. Though he wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps, he also wanted to get the remainder of this training from the Thanagarian academy system. Acceding to their son’s wishes, Carter and Shiera Hall returned to Earth to renew a career in archeology, while Carter Jr.—now Katar Hol—got to know members of his distant family there while learning everything he could about the globally governing yet multi-cultural ruling system of Thanagar, in addition to training in their combat system and police methodology. He became one of the finest students of the Thanagarian academy, and a few years later he graduated with high commendations and immediate acceptance into the Thanagarian police force, whom he served with for about a year.

After achieving the required training and a year of on-the-job experience, he elected to return to his native Earth circa 1961 at the age of 20 to begin his career as the second Hawkman. But he didn’t come alone. Having already met the Thal clan, whom his mother was distantly related to, he found that one of them, a young woman his age, was also in police academy training. Upon meeting her a year prior to returning to Earth, he found that the fore portion of her clan name was Shayera, which is a variant of “Chay-Ara” from a different language native to Thanagar. Seeing this as another great synchronistic event, he wasn’t surprised when the two fell in love and underwent the traditional marriage ceremony before the year was over. Shayera Thal also proved a very promising student, and she spent a year gaining experience as a police officer on Thanagar in the planet’s dangerous slum areas beside her husband, whom they realized made a fine team. When Katar elected to return to Earth in 1961, Shayera eagerly agreed to travel there with him, as she had a great interest in learning Earth’s police and criminology methods first hand.

Returning to New York City on Earth in a small Thanagarian personal transport craft, Katar and Shayera quickly donned the costume, helmet, artificial wings, and code names of Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Since they knew they couldn’t use advanced Thanagarian weaponry on Earth to avoid any chance of losing it and having it recovered and reverse-engineered by any Earth government, they adopted modified ancient Earth weapons, much as Katar’s parents did years earlier. Thus did a second Hawkman and Hawkgirl (who later modified her code name to Hawkwoman) appear in the skies of New York City to defend a new generation of citizens, often from monsters and certain exotic menaces in addition to standard Earth criminals. They took on the civilian identities of Carter and Sherri Hall, and the former was soon given the job of his father’s old position as curator of the Midway City Museum, and Shayera as a security guard there. [19]

IX. Rogues and True Colors

Among the most dangerous foes this new generation of the Hawks battled was Byth Rok, one of The Hundred, whose numerical epithet represents the number of cast-off members of the shape-shifting alien race called the Founders, who rule an empire located in a distant part of the galaxy known as the Dominion. Around the late 20^th century, the technology of the Dominion had just reached the point where long range impulse drive space craft were created, and The Hundred were individually sent out to as many different parts of the galaxy, all in their infant stage and none knowing their true nature and heritage. Landing and growing to maturity on Thanagar, one of these displaced juvenile Founders took on the shape and identity of a Thanagarian male, who eventually took on the identity of Byth Rok and grew to hate the militant society in which he felt like an outcast. Later stowing away aboard the vessel Katar and Shayera used to fly back to Earth, Byth wreaked havoc on Earth, leading to the first of several times that the second generation Hawks clashed with and defeated the dangerous shape-shifter. Byth was portrayed as a native Thanagarian who gained shape-shifting powers from exposure to some type of chemical in his various fictional depictions in DC Comics from the 1960s to the present; in actuality, he wasn’t Thanagarian, or even truly humanoid, at all.

Another of the Hawks’ most dangerous foes was a career criminal named Carl Sands, who was extensively trained in martial arts by the League of Shadows, a splinter group of the much feared clan of ninja assassins known as the Hand, and he particularly excelled in stealth techniques. He later stole the plans for an experimental extreme light-absorbing black uniform that covered him head to toe, and which enabled him to virtually disappear from unaided sight when he stepped into shadow. As a result, he became known in the media as the Shadow-Thief, and Hawkman had no end of difficulty in penetrating his great stealth capacity. His granddaughter would eventually take up the name and suit.

 Also contrary to his exaggerated depiction through the years by DC Comics, Sands’ suit did not enable him to literally become a living shadow who was fully intangible to all physical harm, nor did it give him the powers to literally merge with shadows, change shape, or “capture” and turn other people’s shadows against them.

X. A Tale of Two Hawkmen

Interestingly enough, just a few years after Katar and Shayera began their careers as high-flying super-heroes, Carter Hall Sr. was to resume his own career, occasionally accompanied by Shiera. As it turned out, the apparent combination of Thanagarian genes with the forces emanated by the nth metal they used for flight had kept them in a state of perpetual good health, resisting (though not altogether halting) the detrimental physical effects of aging. A case involving a group of occult villains working in tandem resulted in the Ordnance calling upon Carter to lend his great strategic skills to lead another group of masked heroes to defeat the menace. After successfully doing so, he realized that he wanted to remain semi-active as Hawkman. Discussing this with his son, the two agreed to alternate as Hawkman from time to time, though by the beginning of the ‘70s decade, Katar and Shayera resolved to move to Chicago and establish a Hawkman legend there, leaving the Big Apple to Carter and other heroes of that time period. This is believed to be the reason why the newspapers promulgated the belief that there was only one Hawkman and similarly named-and-attired female ally, who divided their time between different major cities; and this despite the fact that their fictional representation by DC Comics clearly featured two different heroes by that name in the mid-1960s, though alleging they respectively inhabited separate parallel Earths.

XI. An Angel in Their Midst

Interestingly, a few years into the early 1960s, another new flying hero with Thanagarian connections was to raise his wings:  This being a young man named Warren Worthington III. The Worthington clan were inheritors of the fortunes made by certain entrepreneurs during the Gilded Age, and the parents of Warren resided in a highly affluent area of Connecticut not far from the city of Bridgeport. What they didn’t realize is that the family also inherited something else: The recessive pre-Daemonite War Thanagarian genome acquired from the various offspring of the time-displaced Khu-Fu Hol, Chay-Ara Thal, and the few other naturally winged Thanagarians who were stranded on Earth thousands of years in the past.

Because the wife of Warren Worthington Sr. also carried the recessive Thanagarian gene, Warren Jr.—born circa 1947—was to have the extraordinarily rare occurrence of an active Thanagarian gene sequence. He was born with unusual protrusions on his back that seemed to continue re-growing no matter how many times his parents had physicians surgically remove them. The extremely proud family didn’t want Warren Jr.’s budding wings—which they considered a freakish deformity—to be publicly known, so they went out of their way to keep it hidden. This partially necessitated that he be kept in frequent isolation and discouraged from making friends; he was given a first-rate education almost entirely at home by privately hired tutors.

By the time he reached pubescence, Warren found that his wings had matured to the point that he could take actual flight, something he often practiced doing in the solitude of the Worthington’s vast acres of private property. He grew quite adept at flight, and came to revel in this ability, as it quickly became the only thing he ever looked forward to in his pampered but alienated life. Warren dutifully followed the demands of his parents to stay isolated from the world save when in their company, but the lonely lad gradually came to resent them and their rules, and longed to be accepted on his personal merits, not physiological characteristics. 

As he grew into early adolescence, Warren noticed that he never seemed to get ill, even from typical youth ailments like the common cold, ear infections, or even acne. It also became clear that he was quite physically strong, eventually reaching a peak human level of strength, as well as unusually light for his build. Finally, many years into his full adulthood he would later display the Thanagarian propensity for psychic abilities, in his case the power to heal others with his touch. Having too much time available to devote to his studies, he spent his entire childhood reading about the exploits of Hawkman, whom he imagined (incorrectly) to have natural wings like himself, and he longed to be admired in the same manner as this hero was. As such, he decided to emulate him fully.

As 1962 rolled around and Warren turned 15, he secretly had a costume made for himself, along with covertly hiring a scientist in the employ of his parents to construct for him a gun-like device that projected spheres constructed from modified ping-pong balls that broke on impact to emit an anesthetic gas. He then took to the skies under the identity of the Avenging Angel. After several months of smashing criminals in the seedier areas of Bridgeport, Worthington crossed paths with the first few members of the group of metahuman misfits who would become known as the Legion of the Strange [LotS]. Feeling kinship and acceptance by these noble but displaced beings--the first time he ever felt this way in his young life--he decided to become a member of their group, leaving his home in the process. His parents hardly argued with him about his departure from the mansion, as long he promised not to reveal himself publicly as a Worthington. He was given a generous monthly allowance by his parents to fend for himself very well, and he used part of this stipend to fund the activities of the LotS team. [20]

By the time the early 1970s began, Worthington left regular active involvement with the LotS to move to Los Angeles in order to take over the branch of Worthington Industries his now deceased parents had left to him. He used the great resources of this innovative company to push for legislation that was friendly towards the emerging metahuman population, which proved mostly fruitless. However, he knew better than to rely on legislation alone to improve the lot of metahumans, so he started a “Champions” advocacy group in LA for such beings. He led several of them in a team designed to prove their worth to society by battling evil in a more high-profile capacity than the largely secretive LotS. Hoping for an extra bit of positive publicity, he agreed to let Marvels Comics publish a greatly fictionalized but positive comic book about this team. Instead, it had the opposite effect of convincing the public—who then largely believed comic books to be puerile entertainment for very young non-thinkers—that Worthington’s group was just a shameless publicity gimmick to increase the profitability of his company; and that he was using artificial wings in an attempt to come off as a cheap knock-off of a true hero like Hawkman.

Though disappointed by the failure of his LA endeavor, Worthington continued to use the funds of his company to both publicly and secretly benefit posthumans, including using some of his personal funds to convince PBS to include versions of heroes Spider-Man, the Blue Beetle, and Col. Steve Austin (i.e., the Bionic Man) on their popular 1970s educational children’s show, The Electric Company (as well as a version of a hero called Letter Man, which strange circumstances allowed him to discover the existence of in the bizarre electroplasmic reality known as the Looniverse). This was done in the hope of bolstering the admiration of posthuman heroes in the eyes of the public, and hopefully to garner acceptance of metahumans in general. However, the existence of posthumans/metahumans (the terms can be used interchangeably) continued to remain largely unknown or overlooked by the public at large--especially since the vast majority of actual costumed heroes and masked vigilantes were not metahuman. The latter fact was made especially clear with the very public revelation of the real identity of Steve Nichols, who won the heart of the public as the costumed “everyman” hero of the late ‘70s known as Captain Avenger. [21]

By the early 1980s, Worthington again tried to lead his own high-profile team to bolster the public image of metahumans when he was given field leadership over Dr. Strange’s Order of the Secret Defenders after Kyle Richmond, a.k.a., the masked hero Nightwing--who was also a wealthy industrialist that funded much of Strange’s hero-recruiting activities--had recently disappeared and was feared dead (he would later resurface alive). Needing a new wealthy sponsor, Strange tricked Worthington into taking Richmond’s place as his fiscal benefactor by convincing him that the team would be used for the purposes Worthington wanted. In actuality, Strange manipulated events so that the activities of his ever-changing team of recruits remained largely secretive, and he covertly circumvented Worthington’s decrees whenever necessary or convenient.

Discovering Strange’s deception after about three years of this arrangement, Worthington paid the sorcerer supreme off and severed his ties with the mage, taking a few of their recruits with him. He then experimented for a few years with lending fiscal aid and direct muscle to the government’s “Project: X-Factor,” a program designed to “rescue” troubled metahumans, and to recruit and train them to use their abilities for the public good. After being seriously injured during a mission with the team in 1986, Worthington discovered the true motives of this project following his recovery:  It was to remain largely out of the public eye, and to merely use its metahuman recruits as “posthuman resources” for the Ordnance. [22]

After his full recovery and the debacle with the government found out, Worthington decided to devote his time to furthering the protection of the Legion of the Strange, the underground team he considered nothing less than family. He also had the special resources department of Worthington Enterprises craft for him a special armored suit with blade-firing capabilities to protect him—especially his wings—on particularly hazardous missions. He did this for the first time when the LotS found themselves subject to attack and conscription by the dangerous metahuman being of alleged ancient origin who calls himself Apocalypse. This powerful being hoped to further the evolution of the human species by way of studying and enslaving metahumans, particularly those of the Homo superior species, and the LotS team managed to escape his thrall and cause the ruination of his plans on more than one occasion. It was after this that Worthington viewed himself as spiritually “reborn” by going back to his roots, and to commemorate this he re-christened himself Archangel. [23]

Thanks to Worthington’s fully active Thanagarian genes, his hardier-than-human physiology has enabled him to age “better” (i.e., suffer a somewhat slower physical deterioration) than a typical Earthling of the present era would. Thus, while currently in his late 60s chronologically, he physically appears to be about 20 years younger and in robust health. He has spent the late 1990s on through the first decade of the 21^st century pouring his resources and direct muscle into keeping the LotS team well-equipped to stay one step ahead of public surveillance, and fiscally supported in their missions and general living comforts whenever needed.

He actually did meet his childhood idol Hawkman (Katar Hol, in this case) in the mid-1990s, but found himself disappointingly turned off by his personal politics. Since then, he has eschewed any deliberate contact with anyone wearing the mantle of the hawk, and has returned to a semblance of his early days, except for some rather dark covert missions alongside a few of his more bloodthirsty allies to act in “extreme” ways for the purpose of defending his fellow metahumans if need be. He has still lent aid to CIALD and other government-sponsored teams of heroes if they are led by an agent he trusts, and he still helps various metahumans in trouble whom he thinks deserves to be helped, as when he worked with his old ally Hercules and a teen genius named Amadeus Cho to help the David Banner version of the Hulk (i.e., the Green Hulk) when they believed the jade powerhouse was being hunted unjustly by a government unit.

XII. The High-Flying Harlem Hero

In regards to heroes who specialize in the art of artificial flight, the late 1960s would bring another one to light, who also took a bird of prey as his totemic symbol. The Rocketeer is well known to have begun his career around the same time that the first Hawkman did, and he has had his share of successors, including the construction of various modes of ‘Iron Man’ armor by Howard Hughes; both the jet pack and the suit of powered armor enabled an individual to achieve sustained single-person powered flight, but they will not be counted in this article, and have in fact already been covered elsewhere. [24] This is because their means of flight, however impressive, was by way of obviously jet-powered technology that utilized the burning of combustible fuel to achieve thrust and propulsion. This fuel supply would have to be periodically renewed, and they could, of course, achieve flight speeds considerably greater than the winged flying heroes—regardless of whether the latter’s Thanagarian-derived flight was achieved by natural or artificial means. The winged heroes, on the other hand, had no need to periodically renew a liquid fuel supply or technical maintenance of a mechanized operating system, and could achieve superior maneuverability.

The new aforementioned hero who took to winged flight would have the unique quality of combining the methods of the winged heroes and those who used mechanical thrust conveyances to achieve sustained flight. This man would be Samuel “Sam” Wilson. One of the African-American heroes to begin appearing on the scene during the late 1960s once the civil rights achievements of that decade made public acceptance of such heroes more likely, Wilson was the first of them since Will Everett two decades earlier to rise from the impoverished inner cities of America. This was in contrast to the foreign royalty that King T’Challa represented.

Growing up on the harsh streets of Harlem during the 1950s, Wilson often engaged in petty crimes and gang activity. In the process, he became one of the toughest fighters in his area of the Big Apple, having a natural alacrity for fisticuffs, and he was exceptionally athletic. Despite his walk down the dark path during his early adolescent years, he had the saving grace of a strong conscience and sense of responsibility to those he cared about. Seeing the effects of the violent criminal life he was beginning to embrace on people he loved and respected in his neighborhood, he was convinced by his mother and a local pastor of a Baptist church who cared for many wayward ghetto youths to use his great potential to be a positive example for his people. He then began doing his part—sometimes using his pugilistic skills—to help his neighborhood watch group clean up the gang activity he was once a part of.

When he turned 18 in 1968, Wilson found himself drafted into the Vietnam War. He felt that serving his country in such a fashion, even at a time when the war was beginning to become extremely unpopular at home, would give him opportunities to be more of a role model to African-Americans who were struggling to elevate themselves out of impoverished conditions. His natural talent for fighting, acumen for tactical thinking, and great courage enabled him to take to the military training he received in the U.S. Marine Corp. with aplomb. He soon distinguished himself amongst the troops, but quickly began to dislike fighting the Vietnamese people, whom he realized had living conditions very much in common with those he, his family, and friends had to contend with in the Harlem ghettoes.  This caused him to begin embracing popular American ideals while disliking the methods used by the government that he felt were inimical to achieving them, both at home and abroad. Further, he was inspired by the speeches he read and listened to via radio and television by former Marine turned social activist John Stewart, whom he felt grew up on the streets of Detroit in much the same conditions that Wilson did in Harlem.

Wilson’s life was to change dramatically 11 months into his combat service in a most spectacular manner. Becoming an adept pilot, he was permanently pulled out of Vietnam and sent on a relief mission to North Africa to provide aid to an “All-Star” contingent of masked heroes serving a mission for the Ordnance under the leadership of Captain Steve Rogers, famously known as the first Captain America. Wilson’s copter was shot down by an agent of the recently revived, infamous masked Nazi warrior known as the Red Skull during his mission. Wilson thus fought side-by-side with Captain America and his small team of heroes to prevent the Red Skull’s troupe of hired agents from absconding with Wakandan vibranium. Wilson’s skills proved of great assistance to Captain America’s group, even saving the star-spangled soldier’s life at one point.  Defeating the Red Skull’s agents and escaping unscathed from a dangerous island where they were trapped thanks to expert teamwork, Captain Rogers and Sergeant Wilson formed a strong bond of friendship. He also made the acquaintance, and earned the respect of, King T’Challa for his assistance in helping the “Justice League” unit and the Wakandan security forces—personally led by T’Challa—in fending off the Red Skull’s hired agents.

As a result of this mission, Wilson was given an honorable discharge from the military, and Captain America asked him to become his partner and ally. Enthusiastically agreeing, Wilson began a demanding training regimen with Captain Rogers, who was one of the greatest hand-to-hand combatants in the world, and he swiftly mastered the lessons. Because he was aided at one point of their mission by a hunting falcon--which he rescued after the bird was injured—Wilson saw this as having symbolic significance, and he thus took on the masked identity of the Falcon for his fight against injustice beside Captain America. He spent the majority of 1969 battling crime with just his natural fighting skills, along with accoutrements like grappling hooks for swinging, as he grew to share Captain America’s dislike for firearms and other lethal weapons he used in the military. But Fate would prove to have another spectacular opportunity in store for him towards the end of that year.

Both Captain America and the Falcon were again called into a mission at the behest of the Ordnance’s “Project: Avenger,” where they would be part of another “Justice League” unit. This mission would have them work with Katar Hol in his role as the second Hawkman. At one point in the mission, Hol was injured (though he soon fully recovered), and was unable to perform an important rescue that could only be done by a single flying person. Impressed by the Falcon’s skill as a pilot, Hol concluded that of all the heroes assembled, only Wilson had a chance of taking his place with any degree of competency. Wilson thus donned Hawkman’s nth metal belt and artificial wings to perform the difficult mission in question, which required him to fly to a great altitude and quietly intercept and board an enemy aircraft.  Using his trained hunting falcon as a guide, the Falcon successfully accomplished the mission in Hawkman’s stead.

So impressed was Hol that he offered to share the secret of his flight with Wilson, something that he and his father before him very rarely even considered doing for anyone. Acquiring small amounts of vibranium from the Wakandan government by special permission of King T’Challa, Hol showed Wilson the process by which he could convert it into a “pure” form of nth metal. T’Challa then used his engineering expertise to design a sophisticated jet system for the nth metal belt that Hol crafted for the Falcon’s new costume, and designed a pair of synthetic artificial wings based on Carter Hall’s design that would provide him with the air navigation he needed. The Falcon was therefore able to achieve similar sustained flight to that of both versions of Hawkman, only in his case aided by a system of rocket tubing on the belt that harnessed carbon dioxide in the atmosphere so as to forcefully release it as oxygen in a form that achieved thrust in a non-combustible manner. Using this jet belt in tandem with the nth metal and artificial wings, the Falcon could achieve the graceful and maneuverable flight patterns of the winged heroes, while achieving a degree of speed that was much closer to that which could be achieved by the complex propulsion units used by the Rocketeer and “Iron Man.”

Now an airborne hero, the Falcon remained a stalwart ally and partner of Captain America throughout most of the 1970s decade, once even briefly taking on the identity of Captain America himself when the latter temporarily abandoned the identity due to patriotic disillusionment in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. By the last few years of the ‘70s decade, Wilson wanted to return to his roots and directly assist the people in his native Harlem. Having spent the previous several years studying civil rights law, after earning his degree circa 1978 he established an office close to Harlem and helped the people there in that capacity, as well as in the additional roles of a social activist and a flying champion/crime fighter, as needed. He thus only periodically assisted Captain America during the 1980s, with one several week long exception being in the mid-‘80s when Captain Rogers again briefly abandoned the mantle of Captain America and took up a different identity, albeit this time involuntarily (but that’s another story for a different article).

By the mid-1990s, the original Captain America had disappeared and is believed to have been killed. Around that time, Sam Wilson retired from active crime fighting to concentrate entirely on his law and social activist careers. However, a few years prior to his full retirement as a costumed flying crime fighter, he trained his brilliant and also athletically gifted nephew, James Samuel Wilson, to take his place as the Falcon. James took well to the training, and he even had an upgraded suit with both standard vibranium mesh and “pure” nth metal alloys weaved into it by a special process developed by the Wakandan government working with the assistance and permission of Katar Hol.

The suit was part of a program the Wakandan government called “Project: Redwing,” after the name of the elder Sam Wilson’s favorite among the several red hunting falcons that he had assist him through the years. This new suit has fully retractable, scarlet-colored translucent vibranium mesh synthetic wings that are entirely bullet, blade, and fire proof. Moreover, the metallic feathers have razor sharp tips for close quarters slashing, or what James Wilson calls “swoop slashing,” if done in combination with dive bombing an opponent or object from the sky. The red and white suit also has various non-lethal weaponry built into it, such as a retractable grappling hook from his right hidden gauntlet composed of a particularly strong but flexible titanium alloy called omnium, which can be used to entwine an adversary. Its cowl also has retractable lenses to artificially endow him with thermal or telescopic vision when pushed into place via a simple cybernetic command, thereby allowing him to simulate the amazing ocular capacity of an actual hunting falcon when needed.

Beginning his career circa 1994 at the age of 17, James Sam Wilson continues his work as a high-flying protector of Harlem today, occasionally taking missions on periodic “Justice League” teams, and also having achieved a law degree in civil rights legislation. He spends much of his time working at Sam Wilson’s law firm, which he will take over upon his uncle’s retirement. [25]

XIII. Return to Hawkworld

Getting back to the Hall/Hol family, as the 1970s decade progressed, Katar and Shayera continued battling both conventional crime and paranormal menaces that cropped up in Chicago. Katar continued to work at the Windy City branch of the Midway City Museum, while Shayera refused to do the same; in order to study Earth policing methods closer, she acquired a job on Chicago’s police force. The combination of these two jobs enabled them to know whenever a particular menace of any sort was threatening their urban turf. At the same time, Carter Hall Sr. found himself becoming active more often in New York City, effectively carrying on the legend of the Hawkman in the Big Apple. Now in his 50s, he easily had the vitality of a man at least ten years younger thanks to the combo of forces explained above.

Further into the ‘70s, Katar and Shayera discovered that a new regime had taken over their home away from Earth, Thanagar. Moreover, this new regime had declared war on a planet in a nearby star system, Rann, which was also home to a race of advanced humanoids who happen to be ancient involuntary migrants from Earth, courtesy of the Preservers.  Rann, however, was a non-imperialistic and peaceful world of scientific and artistic achievement that achieved a harmonious world government, which is why the new, even more militaristic Thanagarian government considered it a threat to their imperialist interests in that sector of space.

Beginning in the 1960s, a human scientist and astronaut known as Adam Strange (an article dealing with the important Strange lineage will appear in the future) found himself involuntarily transported back and forth to Rann at periodic intervals due to his cellular structure becoming saturated with exotic energies when his orbiting space capsule was caught in a powerful interstellar teleportation technology developed by the Rannians; this teleportation energy was somewhat whimsically referred to as a “zeta beam” by Strange himself. He found himself enamored of the advanced and prosperous human civilization of Rann, as well as fascinated the advanced science they possessed. Strange became a celebrity on that world, even marrying a Rannian woman named Alanna, whose father was one of the most renowned scientists born on that world. He used his own skills along with Rannian technology to develop weaponry and stealth technology for the sole purpose of fending off various home-grown and extraterrestrial threats, the latter often by the fascistic races that existed in that space sector. During one of these conflicts coming close to Earth during the late ‘60s, Katar and Shayera were called upon to aid one of the “All-Star” government teams in fending off the threat, and they met and became friends with Adam Strange during that incident.

Having great respect for the peaceful but valiant scientist-and-astronaut-turned-champion-of-Rann, Katar and Shayera were appalled to learn what the new regime of Thanagar had done to the peace-dedicated Rannians. Putting their principles before politics, the spousal warrior duo turned against Thanagar. A few years later, as the First Thanagar-Rann war intensified, with much atrocities committed by the Thanagarian regime, Katar and Shayera departed Earth for several years to aid the reluctant but determined Rannian troops to overthrow the truly despotic regime of the then-prevailing Thanagarian world government, before it could besmirch the name of that world any further.

XIV. Not Worth His Weight in Gold

Earlier in the ‘70s, an adolescent member of the esteemed Parker lineage (who will also be subject of another article) named Charley Parker took a stab at carrying the mantle of the hawk… though he would take a different bird of prey as his totemic symbol. A fan of the masked heroes, the Brooklyn lad discovered one of Katar Hol’s costumes, nth metal belt, and set of synthetic wings that were stolen by the Shadow Thief to sell to the highest bidder on the black market.

After he had the costume purloined by the Shadow Thief, the second Hawkman insured that the dark criminal lost possession of the spare suit, but was unable to regain it himself.  It was dispatched into a junkyard in the heart of Brooklyn. Donning the suit and wings after discovering it, and practicing with intensity, Charley Parker modified and donned the armored uniform to become the flying hero called the Golden Eagle.

Though the Golden Eagle traveled to Chicago in order to gain the attention of the second Hawkman and ask to work alongside him as a partner/sidekick, Hol responded in the negative, feeling his world was far too dangerous for someone so inexperienced. Nevertheless Parker strove to become an effective crime fighter as the Golden Eagle, sometimes assisting Hawkman, and other times one of the “Kid Commando” or “Teen Titan” team units (depending on which tabloid was reporting the incident) comprised of adolescent heroes on either coast who would get together to prove themselves as effective as any adult hero. While many of them succeeded, Charley Parker was not among them, and was, in the honest opinion of this author, a second-rate hero, at best.  A few near misses with death during his activities caused him to largely suspend his activities as the Golden Eagle and spend more time on his day job. During one of his increasingly fare forays into action circa 1982, he was murdered by an assassin who called himself the Wildebeest… though the nth metal of his belt would later prove to have other plans for Charley’s soul. 

XV. A Knight in Silver Armor

            The true history of the mysterious young member of the family named Hector Hall is shrouded in too many claims and counterclaims for this author to fully make sense out of. That doesn’t mean I won’t try, albeit with an admitted degree of speculation and educated guesses based on the available evidence archived at the Wold Newton Institute, of course.

Suffice to say, Hector Hall appeared on the scene early in the 1980s at the age of 16, said to be a second child of Carter Sr. and Shiera, who was born circa 1966.  Despite receiving the same training as his older brother Carter Jr./Katar, Hector felt that his parents greatly favored their oldest son, even when his sibling was living in Chicago and he in New York City. Believing that his parents didn’t think he had the potential to be a hero like Katar, Hector nursed a strong jealousy for his brother and a bitter resentment towards his parents that festered within his psyche throughout his formative and early adolescent years. This developed into a rather obsessive need to prove himself every bit as capable as his brother in carrying on the family legacy as a crusading masked hero. That being said, however, his bitterness prompted him to ignore the Hawkman tradition entirely while still using the amazing resources at the Hall family’s disposal to achieve that goal.

According to the reports received—which were not helped by the fictionalized versions recorded by Roy Thomas in the early ‘80s for publication purposes in the DC Comics series Infinity, Inc.—Hector managed to construct for himself a silvery-lustered suit of body armor that included a heavy degree of nth metal composition. Training for flight without the use of wings, he eschewed the hawk totemic symbolism in favor of embracing his love for Egyptology—as well as his admiration for the costumed hero, the Blue Beetle—and instead took on a sacred insect motif with the identity of the Silver Scarab. Despite his degree of contempt for his immediate family, Hector had always been close to his Feitheran godbrother Norda Cantrell, and the two would go on to have a significant influence upon each other.

By 1982, Norda had journeyed to New York City to study the human world in the company of his adopted family, the Halls, only to be unable to locate them in a city so huge, as a human metropolis was something he was completely unfamiliar with. Due to a variety of circumstances, he found himself on the streets of Times Square, aiding a group of despondent young runaways. It was after a few months of living under these conditions that Norda was located by Hector, who informed him of his plan to prove himself a hero in spite of what he considered his parents’ indifference to him in favor of his older brother. Excited to see a familiar face that he considered family after so many months in such an alien environment, Norda was happy to join with Hector in his plans to fight crime as the Silver Scarab, himself taking on the code name of Northwind.

Of course, Norda—much less volatile than Hector—hoped to do what he could to reconcile the troubled but ambitious young man with his immediate family, whom the youthful Feitheran greatly respected. To aid him in his new crime fighting identity of Northwind, Norda used a type of herbal mixture whose composition was taught to him by his grandfather which, when blown through a plastic tube into the face of a person, had the immediate but brief effect of upsetting their equilibrium. The Feitherans called such a tube a “globlass,” and Roy Thomas mis-translated it as a gun-like weapon that fired a beam of vertigo-inducing energy rather than the much simpler but equally effective herbal dust it actually was.

Hector and Norda then gathered a group of young heroes they called the “Infinity Squad” as a sort of makeshift “Teen Titans” unit under his direction, who  were similarly wayward and in need of recognition and success. Ultimately, Hector’s career as the Silver Scarab was to last no more than a few years, as he later abandoned the teen team group idea when he was conscripted by Dr. Strange for a series of missions with his Order of the Secret Defenders. Finding an astute mentor in Strange, Hector elected to stay with him and aid him on a regular basis. As a result of his missions on behalf of Strange, Hector was eventually manipulated into sacrificing himself for the greater good during a battle between Strange and the dream demon known as Nightmare. His consciousness trapped in the Dream Dimension as a result of this sacrifice, Hector’s soul was to become an agent of the mighty abstract entity known as Dream, also called Morpheus or the Sandman. In this capacity, Hector spent many years as an inhabitant of the Dream Dimension operating on behalf of the Sandman, often taking on that name himself, and sometimes taking brief sojourns into the waking world in a quasi-solid, apparently ectoplasmic body.

Later in the 1990s, however, Dr. Strange needed the services of Hector Hall in a different capacity, and thus maneuvered his consciousness into leaving the Dream Dimension and merging with a powerful mystical artifact in Strange’s possession called the Helmet of Nabu, which is said to have a direct connection to the universal force of Order. Having taken possession of this object after its previous owner, mystic Kent Nelson, had died, Strange acquired a new living body for Hector Hall’s consciousness to inhabit so he could return to an active existence in the material realm. Using the Helmet of Nabu and merging his consciousness with that possessed by the sentient helmet itself—which claimed to be an ancient human sorcerer called Nabu who became an agent of Order, hence how it acquired its name—as well as those of other previous users whose souls were now absorbed by it, including Nelson—Hector Hall became the latest individual to take on the identity of the mystic guardian using the name of Dr. Fate. 

He remained beholden to Dr. Strange as a result of this action, and spent the rest of the ‘90s and well into the ‘00s serving on and off with the Order of Secret Defenders, sometimes aiding other mystics of great power, like Dr. Druid and Dr. Mist, against various menaces. Hall’s tenure as Dr. Fate was to last until the end of the first decade of the 21^st century, after which the Helmet of Nabu was passed to other hands, though this is a story for another article.

As for Northwind, after a single mission of conscription for the Order of the Secret Defenders, Norda found that he utterly despised the manipulative Dr. Strange and refused to work with him ever again. Since Hector disagreed with this assessment of the Sorcerer Supreme, Northwind elected to break off his association with his erstwhile godbrother. Nevertheless, that single mission exposed Norda to mystic forces that made him realize his full magickal potential. This experience having piqued his sense of responsibility, Norda decided that he had had enough of the human world, and returned to his native Feithera to receive training from his grandfather Worla, finally deciding to embrace his destiny to one day succeed his grandsire as the spiritual leader of the Feitherans. Of course, this mystical awakening for Norda Cantrell would prove to have bizarre consequences for him and certain other Feitherans some years down the line.

XVI. Last Days of a Hero

Following the departure of his oldest son to the Rann-Thanagar battlefront in deep space, Carter Hall Sr. carried on the legend of Hawkman more or less alone into the first few years of the 1980s; Shiera had by now mostly retired in full. He did a respectable job despite being in his early 60s by this time, but he realized that his mounting age was beginning to catch up with him. Still, he was determined to carry on the mantle of the hawk until his son returned from Thanagarian space, though he did wisely curtail the extent of his activities, leaving other New York heroes to carry the slack.  He donned the costume in earnest during the tumultuous, reality-threatening event of 1985-86 known as the Crisis, which was a precursor to another such event known as the Harmonic Convergence later in the decade. Carter Hall availed himself with great honor despite his advancing age, assisting several other heroes and paramilitary forces to deal with a slew of interdimensionally spawned paranormal menaces that began appearing on Earth in massive numbers as one of the effects of that event. Several people were saved as a direct result of the first Hawkman’s valiant actions, but the flying hero was very seriously wounded when his body was doused with highly corrosive acid from a being that duplicated the physiology of a Mongolian death worm.

Carter Hall managed to hold on in hospital for several weeks, struggling to get his affairs in order before his injuries—their severity too great for the energies of the nth metal to heal—claimed him. His wife and close friends scrupulously followed his request list, and had his outfit and wings repaired and secured in a certain area below the Midway City Museum in New York as per his instructions. His final wish was to have his old ritual dagger of nth metal be placed at the side of his bed during his final hours. This was done, and in May of 1986, Carter Hall passed on. However, as would later be discovered, due to his final instructions being set in motion, the nth metal would turn out to have a strong influence on what befell his soul after it left his body. Wanting her soul to cross over in the same manner as her husband, a few weeks after his passing, LeAnn “Shiera” Saunders Hall took preparations of her own during that time, and then committed peaceful ritual suicide by ingestion of poisonous herbs, also with the nth metal dagger at her side.

Sadly, Katar was still away on Thanagar at this time, participating in the final battles of the Rannian resistance that would overthrow the prevailing regime of his second home. It would be at least a month after the death of both his parents before word got back to him on Thanagar through his friend and ally, Adam Strange. [26]

XVII. Meanwhile, Back on Hawkworld…

A new regime arose on Thanagar following the overthrow of the previous one, which was less (ironically enough) hawkish than the last, making no plans to attack any other nearby inhabited world. However, this new regime proved no better in regards to domestic policies, as the world government was by now a full industrial feudal system. Katar and Shayera had grown apart during the resistance while spending so much time battling on different fronts, and having many disagreements in the meantime. As a result, their official married status was annulled, as was the right of either to request from the Thanagarian government. Nevertheless, despite Shayera’s request for this annulment, they agreed to remain friends and work together in the Thangarian law enforcement system as peacekeepers. During their time there, they agreed to don regular Thanagarian police uniforms, which included metallic wings whose design resembled those of an Earthly hang glider than feathered bird wings, a tradition that the new Thanagarian government abandoned in favor of what it believed to be practicality. The traditional avian symbolism in regards to the helmet design and decorations on the suits remained, however.

Depressed over the loss of both of his parents while he was off-world, being unable to fight at his father’s side one last time and be there to support his mother, not to mention being unable to attend either of their funeral services, Katar’s emotional health took a downward spiral. It was exacerbated by the fact that he was now forced to take a hard look at what Thanagar’s domestic policies had become, something he scarcely paid attention to during rebellion against the previous regime; the severe urban blight affecting not only the Thanagarians, but various refugee species who requested asylum there in exchange for their cheap labor to help rebuild following the war. The fact that vast areas of Thanagar’s cities were nothing more than dreary slums amidst such advanced productive capacity came off as intolerable to Hol. Shayera’s main concern was to keep the rampant crime and corruption that resulted at bay, as this was the world upon which she was raised, which caused another ideological rift between her and Katar.

Determined to use his influence as a law officer to improve conditions rather than simply battering and arresting those who turned to crime and graft as a result of living in such an environment, Katar elected to remain on Thanagar for what he considered the foreseeable future.  He also found himself too emotionally distraught to return to his homeworld of Earth after the way he felt he let his parents down in the worst way. However, he wanted the mantle of Hawkman to be carried on in honor of his parents’ memories. To that end, he asked a personal favor of a Thanagarian government agent named Fel Andar that he knew was about due to be sent to Earth on a surveillance mission.  Giving Andar his traditional spare costume and synthetic wings, and allowing him to operate in the guise of his Earthly civilian identity of Carter Hall Jr. as a cover for his activities, he asked the talented Thanagarian special agent to operate as Hawkman, allowing the public to think it was actually Katar resuming his career. Since Andar would be taking a female colleague with him along as back-up, Hol convinced Shayera to allow him to have the costume and wings she wore on Earth as well, so this female agent could periodically operate as Hawkwoman in public as needed.

Andar agreed to the interesting requests, and the chance for excitement on an otherwise tedious observation mission to operate as a “super-hero” on the setting of Earth greatly appealed to his adventurous side.  Since he was in charge of the mission, his female partner followed his orders to aid in the Hawkwoman imposture. Hol clearly wasn’t thinking when he made this request, considering he was only acquainted with Andar in a minor capacity, instead focusing his mind on how the agent’s exemplary record as a government operative would make him an ideal interim Hawkman. At this time, though, Hol had begun experimenting with the readily available supply of recreational drugs that the law officers had access to. It was his intention to drown out the sorrows and guilt he was suffering on many levels by partaking of the artificial euphoria-inducing drugs. He was soon addicted, and struggled to keep his ethical principles as his prime motivation in operating within the bleak urban areas across Thanagar.

Upon arriving on Earth, Andar and his female assistant settled in the city of Chicago and did an admirable job of respectfully substituting for Hol and Thal as Hawkman and Hawoman… as well as Carter Hall Jr. and his wife Sherri in their civilian identities. This state of affairs was to last for a few years, finally ending in 1992 when Hol decided he couldn’t make a difference on Thanagar and instead wanted to take an extended leave of absence from the force to return to Earth and make his peace with that world. He also wanted to resume the career of Hawkman in honor of his parents’ legacy. Since his increasing reliance on drugs began to inhibit the effectiveness of his work as a law officer on Thanagar, his request to take an indefinite leave of absence to Earth in order to get “clean” was granted. Fel Andar and his partner were recalled to Thanagar, and Shayera was sent in their stead as the new surveillance agent on Earth, who was asked to keep tabs on Hol as well.

XVIII. Hero Interrupted... and Strange Alterations

Resuming his career as Hawkman and his human identity as Carter Hall Jr. after returning to Earth, Katar retained the new uniform of the contemporary Thanagarian law enforcement due to its greater efficiency. Though Shayera obeyed the Thanagarian parliament to keep an eye on Hol, she still genuinely cared about him, and helped him deal with his drug addiction, finally convincing him to spend a few weeks going “cold turkey” until he fully recovered from the withdrawal symptoms and finally kicked the drugs. Believing he well deserved the suffering he would undergo, he pooled all of his considerably strong will into dealing with the three weeks of agony that encompassed the withdrawel, while Shayera took over his role as protector of the city in her guise of Hawkwoman while he was indisposed.

At the end of that time, Katar Hol/Carter Hall Jr. recovered and resumed his role as Hawkman in Chicago, with Shayera continuing her spy mission there while looking after her former husband as Hawkwoman. The two never elected to reconcile their previous relationship, with both finding other romantic interests. In Shayera’s case, it was a relationship with Grant Stewart, while Katar took a few different lovers. Their professional partnership as a crime fighting duo continued until circa 1994, when Hawkman was conscripted into one of Dr. Strange’s “Secret Defenders” contingents, which turned out to be one of the largest such groups ever gathered. Its extremely important purpose was to tackle Henry Jordan, an insane descendent of pilot Hal Jordan who gained incredible power as a result of stealing a Cassiopian device called the “Parallax Device” that he located on Earth through a complicated series of events. Trying to use this quantum-field manipulating device to alter the timeline so that his familial lineage would have an illustrious future career as members of the space police corp. known as the Lensmen (it allowed him to see numerous possible alternate future timelines), Jordan was halted via a last ditch effort by Hawkman working in concert with the then-current Green Arrow, Alex Harper (son of Roy Harper), to smash the casing that allowed Jordan to stabilize and control the device. This caused a quantum rupture that affected anything or anyone caught in the immediate area, which included Hol, who was at its “ground zero.”

Though Jordan was effectively dimensionally displaced by the effects, Hol found his entire being brought into “sync” with the vibrational signatures of numerous alternate reality counterparts of both himself and his father, all from timelines that the destructive quantum breach apparently caused to collapse and lose their independent potentialities. This caused each wave function collapse to be projected into the core quantum essence of Carter Hall Jr., a.k.a., Katar Hol. The result was a composite dimensional variant of Hawkman who was tethered to this reality alone, with his costume greatly altered into a new, polyglot variant of all other quantum possibilities. This quantum-altered version of Hawkman declared himself an avatar of the Egyptian hawk-headed god Thoth, who was worshiped as the major deity in ancient Kahndaq, with a similar “Hawkgod” being worshiped by the main religious system of Thanagar.

Believing that the man she once knew as Katar Hol was gone and replaced by what she considered an entirely different being, Shayera Thal returned to Thanagar, since the length of her mission had run its course at any rate. She resumed her career with Thanagarian law enforcement and worked her way up the ranks, and today she is said to hold a high position as a commander of an important vessel in Thanagar’s space fleet.

As for this new version of Hawkman, he used the personality amalgamation of both Carter Hall Sr. and Jr. across many different realities to resume his career as a flying hero, this time remaining in Chicago. The quantum incident caused by the destruction of the Parallax Device reacted with the nth metal in a bizarre way to somehow merge the alloy with this Hawkman’s life force, so he could displace it into the quantum field and summon it—along with his costume and wings—at will, in a manner vaguely reminiscent of a shape-shifter. However, the career of this bizarre version of the hero lasted barely two years.

Circa 1996, his unstable personal quantum matrix was triggered during another conscripted mission with Dr. Strange’s Order of the Secret Defenders. For this exploit, he came into close contact with another conscripted member of this particular group, a man who had a major quantum instability of his own due to his operating with a quorum of individuals who participated in the Harmonic Convergence event of 1988. The result was this version of Hawkman apparently dying when his entire essence dispersed across the timestream, putting an explosive end to this iteration of the hero. [27]

For several years, the world would operate without any version of Hawkman. This would change, however, with the turn of a century into the new millennium.

XIX. Return of the Hawk

As it turned out, the soul of Carter Hall Sr. remained bound to the Thanagarian blade via a sympathetic mystical connection to its psychically resonant nth metal. Apparently, it wasn’t affected in any way by the quantum merging of so many alternate reality versions of himself and his son Katar during the “Zero Hour” incident. As he had previously planned, Hall’s soul was able to psychically influence the mind of any male who happened to carry recessive Thanagarian genes. Possibly using his full psychic faculties, now increased due to his soul being merged with the energies of the blade’s nth metal, he was able to influence the probability fields around him to make certain a fortuitous synchronistic event would occur that led to the emergence of a new Hawkman.

That synchronistic event turned out to be a young archeologist named Joseph Gardner, who happened to carry the recessive Thanagarian gene, choosing to attend an important Midway City Museum exhibit. Entering the museum, Gardner was influenced by psychic compulsion to seek out the hidden location of the dagger. Finding it via its psychic trail, he had but to touch it in order to have his own consciousness merge with that of Carter Hall Sr. Now sharing full memories, knowledge, and skills possessed by Hall, Gardner took up the mantle of the fourth Hawkman circa 2004.

Hall merged with Gardner only with the latter’s permission, so he didn’t gain a new identity and material body at the expense of another person’s freedom. In fact, Gardner eagerly gave that permission after learning the nature of his true heritage, and realizing the type of life he could lead as a flying hero, in addition to the amazing boon to having Hall’s great knowledge of both human and xeno-archeology added to his own. It was soon after this, however, that the new Hawkman discovered by psychic means that a young woman who had just turned 19 possessed the extraordinary gift of having a dominant Thanagarian gene sequence. This girl was Kendra Saunders, who was not coincidentally a great-niece of LeAnn Shiera Saunders.

Believing that she may be LeAnn Shiera Saunders reincarnated, Hawkman tracked her down, told her of her heritage, and offered to train her to use her powers of flight and to build her innate warrior and psychic skills to their fullest. She accepted the offer, and over the course of several months, mastered the armed and unarmed combat and flying lessons as well as her great-aunt ever did.  However, she didn’t reciprocate the feelings that Gardner had for her; nor did she believe she was the reincarnation of her great-aunt, and thus destined to be his romantic life mate. Taking on the identity of Hawkgirl, Kendra resolved to only work beside Gardner if one really needed the other. Under normal circumstances, though, she would relocate to Chicago to carry on the Hawk legend there, leaving New York City under Gardner’s watch… and him to his own devices. Believing New York had too many bad memories (from the perspective of Hall’s aspect of the psyche,that is), Gardner chose to take a job at a museum in his own home city of New Orleans, in a section known as St. Roche.

Two of the fourth Hawkman’s most difficult adventurers after relocating to the St. Roche Museum in New Orleans, both of which are highly relevant to the topic of this article, are as follows.

The first was his leading of an “All-Star” contingent of heroes against a terrorist party called the Sons of Adam (an English interpretation of “Atum”) that took over his ancient home of Kahndaq and threatened to attack the United States and Israel as part of its goal to take over the entire Middle East. This Kahndaqi organization, led by an apparent reincarnation of Khu-Fu Hol’s ancient security chief Teth-Atum—who had now become a powerful sorcerer—offered refuge to a group of Feitherans led by Northwind, all of whom were subject to some mystical force that caused all of them to fully transform into were-hawks. Kahndaq was freed after this battle, and the soul of Teth-Atum driven out of the body of the descendant that he took over. Northwind was badly injured in personal battle with Hawkman, but his life was spared; what happened to him after that has yet to be recorded.

The second such adventure was the apparent return of Charley Parker, who had his spirit take over the body of a young man of unknown identity that happened to find his discarded suit and touch its nth metal. He convinced Hawkman that he was naturally reincarnated in that body, and fought for a few months at his side as Golden Eagle. When Gardner went missing in action for a time, the increasingly fanatical Parker took over his identity to become the fifth Hawkman, attempting to carry on his crime fighting career in New Orleans. However, the process of the involuntary possession further unbalanced his untrained, already traumatized psyche, and he grew increasingly violent in his attacks on criminals, insisting he could be a “better” Hawkman than Gardner, whom he was now thankful to be missing in action.

Gardner was rescued from foreign detainment by Hawkman’s old ally the Falcon, however, and he returned to New Orleans. After a brutal confrontation, Gardner was forced to kill the resurrected Parker, apparently finally sending his spirit to its proper place in the hereafter, and reclaiming the mantle of the hawk.

In regards to the fourth Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s attitude towards Thanagar, both of them feel a spiritual kinship to it, yet lament another descent by its world government into total imperialism with the newest regime takeover during the late ‘00s. In this case, the new magistrate of the Ruling Council of Thanagar’s world government declared war on Rann, just as a previous regime did three decades earlier, and for much the same reason. Both Gardner and Saunders spent a few weeks in space alongside the Rannian forces and a few other heroes culled from both Earth and elsewhere in the galaxy to attempt to stop the Second Rann-Thanagar War—which was again started by a fascist Thanagarian regime initiating an attack on an equally advanced but peaceful Rann. After the war ended, the two of them returned to their separate careers on Earth. This story was recorded in a highly fictionalized account by DC Comics in their Rann-Thanagar War mini-series published in 2007.

In the several years since then, Kendra Saunders has come into her own as an independent hero, battling the same combination of conventional criminals and paranormal menaces in her native Chicago that Katar Hol once did. As for Joseph Gardner, the fourth Hawkman, he has done the same, having left New Orleans following its destruction by Hurricane Katrina and returning to New York City as a local hero, having fully recovered from Kendra’s rejection. He remains there at this writing, having recently encountered Shayera Thal in an adversarial roll when she was sent on another surveillance mission to Earth circa 2012. [28]

XX. Future Flights

Since gathering reports of various alternate future timelines that have been glimpsed by precogs and alleged time travelers has long been a past time of those studying at the Wold Newton University, this author did his best to track down any possible reports suggesting what the future may potentially hold for those who carry the genetic legacy of Thanagar. Thus far, two intriguing reports have been chronicled and collected by our database, both of which hail from a specific timeline that Prof. Dennis E. Power has identified as the Star Trek/Legion Timeline in the course of his invaluable research.

In the first such report, circa the late 23^rd century of the above mentioned timeline, there exists a technologically advanced alien race known as the Skorr. They are not only a naturally winged warrior race that has since achieved a relatively peaceful society, but are much more fully avian than the naturally winged Thanagarians; they instead resemble the Feitherans under Northwind’s leadership who suffered a mystical transformation into full were-hawks circa the first decade of the 21^st century. This was believed to be caused by such mystical energies stimulating the remaining the residual Kree-influenced, Terrigen-enhanced genome of the Feitherans’ heritage, thus acting as a catalyst to advance the genetic alteration to an extreme extent.

Other reports suggest that at some point in the future on the above timeline, Northwind’s group of Feitherans were invited to travel to Thanagar so their radical mutation—which included the restoration of their natural wings and flying ability—could be studied in-depth. The means to re-activate the Terrigen-enhanced genome that was their gift from the Kree was discovered from this scientific analysis of the Feitheran volunteers, and the Science Council was able to restore wings to the mainstream Thanagarian race. However, the extreme variant of the genome proved dominant, causing a proportion of the Thanagarian population to mutate into the full perpetual were-hawk phenotype. The Science Council managed to find a way to stabilize the genome, so that subsequent applications of it only resulted in the restoration of avian-phenotyped wings, with no other avian aspects in evidence.

As it turned out, however, the minority segment of the full perpetual were-avians among the Thanagarians displayed a fast propensity for breeding, so their numbers swiftly began to increase to a great degree. Moreover, the subsequent generations following the first had a strong, prideful aesthetic appreciation of their anthropomorphized avian form, refusing and resisting any suggestion by the Science Council to have it reversed or stabilized. The resulting conflict between the standard Thanagarians and the new sub-species caused the latter to ultimately decide to leave Thanagar and seek out a new habitable world to establish their own society.

This Thanagarian sub-species would christen themselves the Skorr, and quickly populated their new world and created a technologically advanced society. All of this had occurred on that timeline at some point in the mid-21^st century. Initially, the Skorr retained the militant ways of their Thanagarian forebears, and they waged wars with different political factions that emerged amongst themselves, and with other neighboring races, including the felinoid race known as the Kzinti. This would change circa 2069 due to the emergence of a peaceful political and spiritual leader of the Skorr known as Alar. Alar would become so revered as a result of his speeches and teachings that upon his passing decades later, his brain waves and thought processes were recorded in digitized form and preserved in a sculpture composed of a psychically resonant substance called indurite; this holy object was called the “Soul of Skorr.” The sculpture was considered the most important preserved object on the new united world government of the Skorr’s first independent planet before they established colony worlds.

Within 200 years into that timeline, the Skorr were allies of the United Federation of Planets, and Skorr scientists would assist the Federation in their various studies, including an analysis of the mysterious time-anomalous object known as the Guardian of Forever. Late in the year 2269 of this timeline, the Soul of Skorr was stolen, and in order to prevent what might become an interstellar holy war, the Federation sent the two chief officers of the Constitution-class starship U.S.S. Enterprise--Captain James T. Kirk and Commander Spock--to aid a trio of individuals from other worlds to find it, one of which was a Skorr official named Tchar. [29]

Further into the future of this same timeline, specifically circa some point in the early 31^st century (some sources have alleged the late 30^th century), the female champion Dawnstar, a resident of the lush world of Starhaven, made her debut. The people of Starhaven were a prominent example of the several instances of Native American (a.k.a., Amerindian) tribes culled from Earth having established their own habitable world with a Class M, Earth-like environment where they could live in accordance with their traditional cultural and spiritual ways… specifically a strong harmony with nature. Although none of these interstellar Native American societies were anti-science in any way, they often chose to live with a minimum amount of industrialization, preferring their world remained as pristine and untainted as possible. Though they generally had no objections to working with individuals and groups from other worlds, and some of their societies joined the United Federation of Planets (sometimes shortened to simply the United Planets), they were to some degree isolationist in regards to the internal affairs and conservation of their own worlds, and had strict policies as to visitors.

At least some of these Amerindian interstellar migrants are believed to have been transported to their vibrant worlds by the Preservers, and lived an uninterrupted life in accordance with their traditions, some of them never progressing beyond the technical level of production they had prior to the 19^th century on their homeworld of Earth. One of these particular migrant Amerindian worlds was discovered in the late 23^rd century of the Star Trek/Legion Timeline by the starship Enterprise under the command of Captain James T. Kirk.

Other Amerindian interstellar migrants appear to have voluntarily established such colonies in the hope of being able to live according to a culture and lifestyle that was harmonious with their traditional ways. At a point circa the late 24^th century of the above timeline, one such world existed in a star system that was acceded to a claim by a militant reptilian race known as the Cardassians, who insisted that the Federation remove the Amerindian Earth migrants from that world. The Galaxy-class U.S.S. Enterprise of that era, commanded by Captain Jean-Luc Picard, was given that task, but the people refused to leave their world, having established strong spiritual roots there. Aided by a dissenting member of the Enterprise’s crew, Wesley Crusher—who gained a strong rapport with the people there, and quit Starfleet to take their side—Captain Picard was convinced by Crusher and the chief of that world’s culture to negotiate with the Cardassian officials to allow the people to remain there despite now living in Cardassian territory, and that the fact that they would have to voluntarily relinquish support and protection from the Federation. Tragically, however, these migrants were oppressed by the Cardassian government, and even more tragically, were wiped out a few years later after the Cardassians agreed to join the Dominion, a powerful imperial empire from a distant part of the galaxy (who were eventually defeated in a war with the combined might of the Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Star Empire; they were in turn aided by the fact that the Cardassian fleet under Dominion control chose to mutiny against the empire during the final battle of the war).

One of these Amerindian migrant societies were living on the planet they called, in their own language, Starhaven, said to be located towards the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Numerous contradictory claims in the available reports—some claiming they were a voluntary spin-off colony of the Federation, others suggesting they were involuntary migrants courtesy of the Preservers—make it difficult to assess the precise origin of the Starhaven people. However they arrived there, what is clear is that at some point further in the above timeline, the Starhavenites made contact with a Thanagarian envoy. These were of the standard humanoid Thanagarian civilization, who had had their natural wings restored to them, as described above. At this point in time, the Thanagarians appeared to have at least some degree curtailed their imperialistic and militaristic ways.

Appearing reverential towards the Starhavenites, the Thanagarian Science Council of that time period offered to share their own improved genetic enhancements with the people there; though some have suggested their seemingly generous offer was, in actuality, a feint for using the peaceful but tough Amerindian society as an experiment to see if the enhancements to the Terrigen-based genome would work successfully on humanoids with shared genetic heritage to the Thanagarian people. Whether or not the Starhavenites agreed to the offer, the enhanced gene sequence was nevertheless introduced into their collective DNA matrix. The end result was fully successful by the Thangarian standpoint:  The Starhavenites not only developed the fully functional avian-like wings while otherwise retaining their human appearance, but their physiology was enhanced in such a manner that they could sustain themselves solely by absorbing various forms of stellar background radiation, so they could survive unprotected in the vacuum of outer space; this meant, of course, that their physiology needed to be proof against the extreme cold and the explosive decompression, which would normally cause their blood to boil, not to mention an inherent ability to evade the numerous micro-meteorites and potential solar flares that would have presented an extreme potential hazard to unaided space flight. They were also alleged to be able to somehow tap into this absorbed background radiation and use it as a form of thrust to achieve flight speeds considerably faster than other winged beings, apparently far faster still outside of an atmosphere. [30]

Also along with these genetic enhancements for the Starhavenites came the potential for various types of psychic abilities, a trait common to Thanagarians and humans carrying either the recessive or active Terrigen-based gene sequence. Dawnstar, the daughter of tribal elders Mistrider (mother) and Moonwalker (father; perhaps a distant descendant of 20^th-21^st century celebrity Michael Jackson), was born with a most unique and useful psychic power:  The ability to psychically “track” individuals, even those she never met simply by contact with an item they once touched for a short period of time, across great distances (even light years, according to some reports).

At first Dawnstar was urged by her parents to aid starships searching for missing individuals, or to guide them through difficult areas of space, and she always fully agreed. Developing a strong sense of responsibility, the winged lass was pleased to accept a membership offer from the Legion, a team of youthful agents of Starfleet who opposed the actions of various imperialistic and fascistic races that sought to impose their hegemony on the peaceful civilizations who were members, or under the protection, of the United Planets. They also guarded against the various attempts to use growing access to the timestream for selfish or destructive purposes, as a conflict known as the Temporal Cold War had begun ensuing across time and space once time travel became regularly available despite its difficulty and regulation by the Starfleet Time Authority. Dawnstar’s often underrated tracking ability frequently proved of great assistance to the Legion, and she has made brief forays into the past with various anachronaut missions alongside them, including (according to a few recent reports) an involuntary, year-long jaunt to the years 2010-2011 of the timeline this author belongs to.

Footnotes

[1] Kahndaq presently exists as a tiny satellite nation attached to the southern type of modern Egypt. It’s a Third World nation governed by a puppet parliament largely under the hegemonic auspices of the present day Egyptian regime. It’s frequently subject to internal civil wars despite its largely secular government. Nevertheless, it’s often accused of being the spawning ground for the terrorist organization known as the Sons of Adam, adherents of a minority fundamentalist, deeply nationalist religion based upon a mythological historical figure similar to the Roman Hercules and the Biblical Samson, and which purports to fight for complete independence from its parent nation of Egypt.

[2] The famous, legend-ridden quartet of adventurers known as the Four have had an illustrious career spanning many decades, which includes their familial and ideological successors in the Future Foundation. Their exploits have been heavily fictionalized in illustrated story format by both DC and Marvels Comics, as the “Challengers of the Unknown” by the former and the “Fantastic Four” (and recently, the “Future Foundation”) by the latter. The full truth of their legendary adventures was first uncovered via research by Prof. Dennis E. Power, to whom this author is indebted.

[3] The Kree, in whatever form their civilization may or may not take in reality – assuming they actually exist – have been both demonized and romanticized in fiction, particularly throughout the various fictionalized tomes published by Marvels Comics since the 1960s. They are said to have spies operating covertly on Earth, and the second costumed crime fighter known as “Captain Marvel” – also the subject of highly exaggerated and fictionalized exploits published by Marvels Comics since the latter half of the ‘60s decade – is said to be of the Kree race. His actual name is alleged to be Mar-Vell, and the explanation given for his heroism on Earth is that he eventually mutinied against his own people. The more recent hero who calls himself “Marvel Boy” is also said to be of the Kree, and to be operating on Earth as a result of being sent to this world on a benign mission. This author, and the university funding my work, has yet to be able to substantiate such claims, or to determine if the actual Kree (assuming they exist as such) have any connection to other humanoid alien races of advanced science who have interacted with Earth in clandestine fashion, such as the Eridani and the Capellas.

Rumors of their Terrigen-based enhancement also found their way into the hands of writers working for Marvels, who fictionalized the Project by personifying it in a hidden race of Terrigen-mutated beings called the Inhumans. In reality, the Four’s allies Medusa and her younger sister Crystal were mutants whose family carried the genetic propensity for psychokinetic abilities in the females of their lineage, much as the White family is known to possess. For more on the latter clan, see Stephen King’s file Carrie and a few slightly fictionalized subsequent files in film format.

[4] See Phillip Wylie’s file Gladiator; and Dr. C. Wildman’s book Man-God: The Unauthorized Biography of Hugo Danner and His Iron Lineage, Omnibus Press, 1976, 2000.

[5] Conflicting reports of the Thanagarian civilization have resulted in varying depictions of the culture in popular fiction during the late 20^th century to the present, mainly in the pages of DC Comics. During the 1960s, DC writers and artists romanticized the Thanagarian society despite making it clear that the world had a thriving criminal element and militant police force to combat it. This depiction began to change beginning in the ‘70s, and by the late 1980s depictions of Thanagar were presented in a highly unflattering, advanced but dystopian light, as seen in the Hawkworld master files of that era. This depiction has continued to varying degrees up to the present. Of course, the general public believes that the Thanagarians, like the Kryptonians, are the fictional creations of the creative minds at DC Comics.

[6] The Silurians have been depicted in fictionalized form under different names in popular Earth culture. For a few notable examples, they have been referred to as the Gordanians in files published by DC Comics and as the Badoon in files published by Marvels Comics; both have given what might be furtive glimpses into the reputedly strange, dictatorial Silurian society. It’s been suggested by some underground researchers that the Silurians are related to another extraterrestrial species of sentient reptilians known as the Gorn, possibly the result of a migrant colony transported to another world by the Preservers long ago. There have been whispered rumors that the Silurians actually launched an invasion of an alternate Earth during the early 1980s, initially disguised as humans, who referred to them simply as “The Visitors”; and other rumors allege that they have secretly infiltrated the upper echelons of Earth governments, including the White House in the United States (where they are often referred to simply as ‘Reptoids’ or ‘Reptilians’).

[7] A fictionalized account of this horrific tale was recently compiled by Rob Liefield and published by DC Comics in The Savage Hawkman #0.

[8] A design interestingly duplicated and aesthetically and/or spiritually favored by other star-faring races, including Klingons, Romulans, and Shi’ar, according to certain written reports. See Who’s Out There? by Prof. Reid Roberts and Prof. Adam Strange, Prometheus Press, 1984.

[9] Information on the Sarmak invasion of 1898 can be found in H. G. Wells’ file The War of the Worlds. Thanks to a highly elaborate cover-up endeavor conducted by the governments of the United States and Britain working in concert, no proof it ever actually happened remains available to the contemporary general public, and the citizens of the world have been convinced that the continued wide reports are simply fiction embellished by the wild claims of conspiracy theorists (a remark this author resembles, because I know it actually happened! I just need to find proof, and I’m working on that…).

See also the book Alien Tripods and Saucers: A Cover-Up?, Prof. Reid Roberts, 1979.

[10] Khu-Fu Hol fathered several children with Earth women in his kingdom during his decade of Kahndaqi rulership to insure the continuation of Thanagarian bloodlines on Earth. During this time, Chay-Ara Thal is believed to have had at least one child by her human lover, the royal security guard Bashari, which also helped disseminate the Thanagarian gene amongst the human populace, specifically across the African continent.

[11] Versions of this tale, with varying degrees of accuracy and creative license, have been told in various files, the first of them being Gardner Fox’s file “The Hawk-Man” published by DC Comics in Flash Comics #1. Another notable version was told in Geoff Johns and Matt Wayne’s file “Ancient History,” released by Warner Bros. as an episode of their TV series Justice League Unlimited.

[12] ‘Midway City’ is a section of the borough named as such because its location was nestled in a series of six blocks situated in the ‘mid’-center section of Manhattan known for their artistic array of offerings to the community, including the museum named for this section of the borough.

[13] The availability of vibranium to the outside world in limited, carefully dispersed amounts by the Wakandan government in the early 1960s caused both the reclusive nation—with only scarce facts known about it at the time—and its mystery metal to be heavily romanticized and fictionalized in the pages of Marvels Comics and elsewhere. Soon after this, it became known to the outside world that the brilliant and adventurous King T’Challa established a friendship with Prof. Reid Roberts and his fellow members of the Four. The ruler of Wakanda found it amusing to allow Marvels Comics to depict a fictional version of himself in their books as the “Black Panther,” due to the reports of the Wakandan ruling caste following a spiritual system that centered around a deity in the shape of a panther (which they soon came to regret when this name was taken as the nom du guerre of a militant black activist group ensconced in the intense civil rights battles of that decade). It would be another decade before a U.S. research installation in Antarctica discovered the altered nth metal fragment that landed there, and unfortunately it was found to have an instability that made it far less valuable than its Wakandan counterpart—let alone its far more rare “pure” nth metal form.

[14] Joaquin Stewart is the uncle of the future U.S. Marine Corporal John Stewart, who was a decorated war hero from Vietnam that later became a renowned social activist. DC Comics funded some of his civil rights and neighborhood clean-up endeavors in exchange for letting them romanticize and fictionalize him in their comics in a most interesting fashion. When interviewed about this fictional iteration of him by DC, Stewart flippantly told the Detroit Herald, “No doubt this depiction of me will go on to make many of my adversaries and allies alike absolutely Green with envy.” Needless to say, Stewart’s military training allowed him to lead a few special “All-Star” operations composed of uniquely skilled and posthuman individuals, something that would be repeated by his son, John Jr.—a vehement opponent of apartheid in South Africa—in the 1980s, and to this day by his grandson, Grant. Grant Stewart happens to be a veteran of the Iraq War that, repeating genealogical history, has since become an architect who opposes social and legal injustice at every opportunity, often in his capacity as leader of Detroit’s branch of North American urban vigilantes, the Justice Corp.

[15] In actuality, there was never any convincing evidence that LeAnn Saunders was a reincarnation of Chay-Ara Thal, or that Thal’s spirit was caught in the metagenetic perpetual reincarnation cycle rather than simply going to its proper place in the hereafter following her murder by Hath-Set. It’s likely that Carter Hall developed the strong conviction that Chay-Ara Thal was reincarnated as LeAnn Saunders by a combination of the sheer power of their empathic rapport and his strong emotional need to believe that he could be rejoined with his cherished lover after he gained full access to Khu-Fu Hol’s memories, which included the feelings he had for all involved at the time (e.g., not only strong love for Chay-Ara, but hatred for Hath-Set).

[16] Contrary to the exaggerated depiction of the legendary Feitherans in DC Comics over the decades, their further mutated form—at least for conventional Feitherans at that point in time—didn’t include avian features such as a beak in place of a mouth, nor other unusual features like bright yellow skin. Norda’s use of Egyptian magicks to transform himself and a small contingent of Feitheran followers into were-hawks by tapping into the power of Thoth just prior to settling in Kahndaq during the early ‘00s caused them to actually develop such extreme avian characteristics as a truly bird-like head and beak, taloned bird-like feet, and a greater bodily coating of feathers--albeit with a dark skin tone rather than yellow.

[17] These periodic teamings of usually American established “All-Star” units from the time just before America’s entrance into World War II up to the present—often under the auspices of the Ordnance, which was in the infancy of its present form at the onset of World War II—may one day warrant an article all their own. They generally consisted of various mystery men and other individuals with specialized skills who were willing to work under the direct command of the U.S. government or local and national law enforcement agencies, something many of these masked crime fighters were not actually willing to do. There were generally three sub-sets of U.S. government created and commanded “All-Star” units (a general term given to these teams by an exhilarated, patriotic media, but the term was used much more frequently during World War II and just a few years afterwards than any time since; war in general lost its popularity amongst the general public following the defeat of the Axis powers and the beginning of the Cold War era conflicts).

The initial “All-Star” unit established by the government occurred during the closing months of 1939, before America actually entered World War II, but directly as a result of England’s involvement. At the time, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt stuck to his promise not to lead America into war unless it was attacked, but still sought to answer Britain’s plea to offer aid against a major impending attack on London by Nazi Germany. As a result, the President asked for the aid of various American local police administrations to gather a small unit of mystery men who would agree to aid British forces in stopping the Nazi plot to attack London, but acting under the orders of the American government while ostensibly serving in the “official” capacity of private citizens. When no more than two mystery men could be found who were willing to work under government control, the President asked NYC Police Commissioner James Gordon if he could convince the dark vigilante Batman—known to be a personal friend of his—if he would agree to lead the other two on the mission as a personal favor to Gordon. With some cajoling, Batman reluctantly agreed to lead the mission, but in the course of the conflict, other mystery men from America ended up joining the conflict, including the Sandman, the Atom, and Hawkman.

Thanks in part to a mysterious intervention of allegedly truly cosmic proportions, the Nazi plot—which grew to include an attempted assassination attempt on Roosevelt in the White House itself—was thwarted. Batman only rarely agreed to participate in such “All-Star Squads” again even after America entered World War II, preferring to work alone or with those of his own choosing, and under his own direction and terms. Hawkman was soon wisely chosen to lead subsequent “All-Star” gatherings when needed, referred to in one media newsreel as a “Justice Society,” and he did so for two less important missions by U.S. law enforcement agencies prior to America entering World War II.

Beginning just after America entered World War II following the brutal attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor circa December 7^th, 1941, the government agency known as the Ordnance (and later, CIALD), began forming its official “All-Star” units on a sporadic but recurring basis. As mentioned above, it was then that the U.S. government decided to separate these periodic recruitments of mystery men willing to follow government orders into three distinct programs.

The first, “Project: Justice Battalion,” was the most high-profile of them all, and was most often used for missions in the Pacific Theater of operations. These units were sent on missions that were generally under the direct control of the White House at all times. Hawkman was elected to lead these particular teams when they were gathered. The second, “Project: Invaders,” was more often under the direct control of a military general of the Army Air Force who was stationed overseas, usually in the European Theater of operations, and led by a one of the few mystery men who was trained as a soldier directly by the U.S. government, Captain America (Steve Rogers, before he was thrust into involuntary suspended animation for two decades towards the end of the war). The third, “Project: Freedom Fighters,” was used for covert and very low-profile missions overseas, and was generally under the direct control of American intelligence agencies, particularly the CIG, the predecessor of the CIA. These units were led by an eccentric but effective patriotic mystery man who operated in the guise of the American government’s official recruiting mascot, Uncle Sam.

These units of mystery men were clearly designed to supplement and assist the wartime missions performed by specialized units composed entirely of enlisted soldiers such as Easy Company, the Howling Commandos, the “Losers,” the Leatherneck Raiders, and the Boy Commandos. All of the above were additionally served by more covert units of mostly non-human enlisted soldiers, particularly those gathered under programs such as “Project: Creature Commandos” and “Project: G.I. Robot,” as well as singular soldiers of a strange nature such as Jeb Stuart and the Haunted Tank, the Unknown Soldier, the Viking Commando, and the Mighty Destroyer.

Finally, a few units of mystery men would operate under the auspices of local or national law enforcement for strictly stateside missions. One of them was sometimes referred to in the media as a “Liberty Legion” to inspire patriotic fervor, and another was referred to as the “Seven Soldiers” to provide inspiration by using a motif that evokes the spirit of the ancient Knights of the Round Table of Camelot. The former group was most often led by the Patriot; the latter group most often by a sword-wielding mystery man called the Shining Knight, who actually claimed to be a time-displaced knight of King Arthur Pendragon’s court. A British version of such a stateside group of mystery men, created by the parliament’s “Project: Crusaders” and operating under the direction of Scotland Yard, appeared on the scene for a few years, but to only minor publicity. It was initially commanded by an American mystery man import who also followed Captain America’s patriotic theme, the Spirit of ’76 (William Nashland), before being taken over by Britain’s homegrown patriotic hero, Union Jack, who often fought alongside the “All-Star” teams who operated in the European Theater. The role of Union Jack was first played by Lord James Montgomery Falsworth, then taken over by his younger brother Brian Falsworth when James was seriously injured in action; Brian had previously served behind German lines as one of the specially trained Allied agents appearing in the guise of the Mighty Destroyer, with American soldier Kevin “Keen” Marlow and British soldier Roger Aubrey also spending time in the role. A fictionalized version of the Destroyer was portrayed by Marvels Comics’ predecessor, Timely Comics, as the lead feature in their Golden Age era comic anthology Mystic Comics, beginning in issue #6. Curiously, the British team of “All-Stars” had a winged hero called (appropriately, if uncreatively) Captain Wings. Little is known of him at this writing, other than that he appears to have been a pilot for the Royal Air Force who acquired his artificial flying apparatus as a rare, generous donation from Hawkman in exchange for faithfully serving the Allies in Britain. The suit was returned to Hawkman’s possession as per his request immediately after “Project: Crusaders” was discontinued by the British Parliament.

As one might expect, highly exaggerated and greatly fictionalized depictions of these teams appeared in the comic books, most often by DC Comics published anthologies of the time like All-Star Comics; and anthologies published by Timely Comics, such as All-Winners Comics. Wartime reports of these World War II mystery man units under the government were parlayed into highly fictionalized files for publishing in comic book formats by Roy Thomas (often co-collaborated with his wife, Dann Thomas), for books like The Invaders during the 1970s by Marvels Comics; and All-Star Squadron and The Young All-Stars during the 1980s by DC Comics. Other “retro” comic book format series by DC and (less often) Marvels appeared to chronicle accounts of varying accuracy of the other above mentioned units, along with certain isolated incidents of note from World War II (the more “super-hero” oriented, the less accuracy could be expected) from the 1950s onwards, such as Sgt. Rock; Weird War Tales; G.I. Combat; Star-Spangled War Stories; Our Men At War, all by DC; and Battle Action; G.I. Tales; Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos; Captain Savage and his Leatherneck Raiders; War Is Hell; all by Marvels (with series from the ‘50s published under its predecessor from that decade, Atlas Comics). Warren Comics also recorded certain memorable incidents from World War II (along with various incidents from prior and succeeding wars up to and including the Vietnam War) with its short-lived Blazing Combat; and EC Comics up to and including the Korean War, with its Two-Fisted Tales. Others were chronicled during the 1960s for the TV format in the series Combat!; and films designed for the cinema during the 1970s like Apocalypse Now.

[18] The Red Raven’s poorly documented media appearances were compiled into comic book format by Timely Comics for the lead-featured role in their single issue wonder, Red Raven Comics. Some of his recorded exploits with the “Liberty Legion” unit were told in highly fictionalized “retro” stories in comic book format during the 1970s, such as in Marvel Premiere #’s 29-30 and Marvel-Two-In-One Annual #1. Rumors that the Red Raven and his fellow Aerians resurfaced during the last decade have yet to be fully confirmed, but were reported in doubtlessly highly fictionalized form by Marvels Comics in Vol. 2 of their series The Defenders and in the interrelated mini-series The Order.

[19] The second Hawkman and Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman likewise had their exploits depicted in files published by DC Comics that were often greatly exaggerated or even outright fabricated, starting soon after their debut appearance in 1961, beginning in The Brave and the Bold Vol. 1 #34. Much of their life details were changed around in the comic version, however, often due to an array of confusion connected to the conflicting and garbled accounts collected by the various chroniclers. For example, the comics of the 1960s-1980s depict Katar Hol as being born a native Thanagarian, and many later DC sources incorrectly concluded that the first and second Hawkman, as well as the first and second Hawkgirl, were one and the same individuals respectively. Katar’s renown surpassed that of his father to some degree, and he was also later asked to participate in various “All-Star” teams periodically grouped together by the government for certain missions. During the ‘60s and ‘70s, such groups were often nicknamed “Justice Leagues” by the press, or by their official CIALD designation, “Project: Avengers.” However, lacking much of his father’s famous leadership skills, Katar Hol was much less often the field commander of any of these teams.

[20] Marvels Comics was quick to take advantage of the reports about the Avenging Angel that the fledgling company’s writers and researchers gathered. Eager to have a winged hero of their own to feature in their comics to rival DC’s modest success with Hawkman, they nevertheless didn’t think  the less headline-grabbing Avenging Angel would garner any major sales in a book of his own, so they featured a fictionalized version of him in the debut of their 1963 comic book The X-Men, which was based on extremely fictionalized versions of the Legion of the Strange’s reported exploits, as were the titular characters of DC’s rival book, The Doom Patrol, first introduced in DC’s title My Greatest Adventure. Marvels’ gimmick, though, was that their fictional and greatly exaggerated version of the LotS team wasn’t simply that they were all metahuman misfits who felt rejected by society, but all of them were members of the Homo superior spin-off species of humanity—i.e., posthuman mutants—who were outright actively persecuted by a society fully aware of their existence as a rival species. Worthington’s code name was shortened to simply the “Angel,” though his full actual code name of the Avenging Angel was briefly used for a fictitious retelling of his origin in a later back-up feature for their comic.

[21] For the full story of Steve Nichols and how he stumbled into his career as Captain Avenger, refer to AJ Carothers’ file Hero At Large.

[22] Worthington’s work with Dr. Strange’s Order of the Secret Defenders during the early 1980s was heavily fictionalized by Marvels Comics for their series The New Defenders. Strange hid his role in running the team over and above Worthington so well that Marvels’ researchers and troubleshooters were entirely unaware of his behind-the-scenes manipulations. Hence, his fictional presence was nowhere to be seen in that final sequence of the series; it was originally chronicled and fictionalized by Marvels as simply The Defenders (Vol. 1), but later temporarily revived on different occasions with snippets of its actual title being present, such as The Secret Defenders and The Order. Many thanks to my colleague Keven Heim for discovering the real nature of Strange’s organization, helping this author sift the facts from the fictionalizations—at least to whatever degree possible when dealing with the likes of Dr. Stephen Strange.

“Project: X-Factor” was also fictionalized by Marvel Comics with different versions of the organization interpreted in comic book format under the rubric of X-Factor. 

[23] Marvels Comics’ fictionalization of Worthington’s transformation from the Avenging Angel (or in their stories, simply the Angel) to Archangel in their X-Factor comic book distorted many of the facts, likely on purpose. The comic book version had Worthington lose his wings after they were skewered by energy emitting harpoons, only to have them artificially regrown in a techno-organic form with metallic feathers that could be fired at opponents by the seeming hundreds, along with his skin turning blue and his temper becoming much more violent as a result. This was done for him by the radical gene-enhancing technology of Apocalypse, in exchange for the traumatized hero agreeing to become one of his thralls that personify the concept of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (in Worthington’s case, Death). 

In actuality, Worthington simply had an armored suit constructed for him to face off against Apocalypse and other menaces where he would be in exceptional danger, this following the severe injuries he received to his wings during a late ‘80s mission (which grew back quickly after being amputated, a benefit of his Thanagarian genes). This armored suit included a chrome-colored metallic covering with a bluish luster over his wings that rendered them bulletproof, fireproof, blade proof, shrapnel proof, and much more resistant to breaking due to impact-related injuries. His synthetic chainmail costume over the rest of his body was mostly blue, and included a face mask of the same color, which Marvels Comics writers and artists interpreted as his skin having turned blue. He did have small turrets in the metallic covering over his wings that enabled him to rapid-fire several of the razor-sharp blades with great force at an opponent, but his wings didn’t have natural metallic feathers that he could displace and regrow in seemingly countless numbers like the spines of a porcupine. He also carried with him a belt where several throwing blades were sheathed, which he had long ago trained himself to hurl expertly at targets, or use as hand-held slashing weapons. The armor covering over his wings also had razor sharp tips that he could use for slashing an opponent at close range; he could use them to outright eviscerate an opponent when used in conjunction with his dive bombing technique.

[24] For the story behind the heroes utilizing mechanized forms of flight, such as the Rocketeer, Commando Cordy, and the various men wearing the “Iron Man” suits—as well as the aviator heroes, like Captain Midnight, Airboy, and Hank Stover--see Prof. Dennis E. Power’s old yet important articles on Iron Man, both Part 1 and Part 2. Other heroes who used mechanical means to gain single person flight, including Adam Strange and the Space Ranger--both of whom utilized jet packs created by the advanced technology of Rann—will likely be taken up in a future article.

[25] As most of my readers will know, the exploits of both Sam Wilson and James Samuel Wilson as the first and second Falcon were chronicled in often greatly fictionalized and exaggerated form by the staff at Marvels Comics from the late 1960s to the present. Of course, due to the time crunching done in the fictional comic book stories, the Marvels staff have implied that Sam Wilson the elder remains the one and only Falcon, something his real life counterpart cannot actually be due to the natural aging process (and Wilson, despite his great athletic prowess, has no Thanagarian genes to offset the process to even a marginal degree).  Sam Wilson’s origin account was distorted and made much more convoluted by the Marvels writers who introduced him in Captain America Vol. 1 #110. The popularity of his partnership with Captain America soon after this resulted in the book title being expanded to Captain America and the Falcon for most of the 1970s, before going back to its original version when the duo ceased working together on a regular basis. A mini-series devoted entirely to the Falcon was published in the early ‘80s, and his fictional counterpart was sporadically featured in Marvels’ long-running comic series The Avengers.

Contrary to what was claimed in the comic books, Sam Wilson wasn’t artificially endowed with a psychic bond to his hunting falcon Redwing via the power of the Cosmic Cube; he simply had a strong rapport with the bird, who was unusually intelligent. He was able to train Redwing to aid him in various ways, including the delivery of messages; guiding him to certain areas while in flight; or to attack his adversaries upon command. Since he obviously didn’t have the same bird for two decades, as was implied by the time-distorting comics, he actually had Redwing breed, passing on his intelligence to a new generation of birds, and trained several of his progeny in succession. James Wilson never used hunting falcons to assist him, since he lacked his uncle’s natural rapport and ability to train such birds, instead choosing to compensate with the paraphernalia built into his costume’s gauntlet and cowl (e.g., with his thermal and telescopic lenses, and with the GPS system also built into the cowl, he doesn’t need the use of such a bird’s natural incredible eyesight and directional abilities, but can simulate them himself).

Interestingly, plans for the suit were copied in unauthorized fashion by an operative of the French government, who had legally acquired a small amount of vibranium from Wakanda (France is an ally of the North African kingdom), and found the means to convert it to pure nth metal, apparently by confiscating notes from Carter Hall. For a time during the early 1980s into the early ‘90s, various trained agents were given the suit and acted on behalf of the French parliament under the code name of Le Peregrine (which is, of course, French for “The Falcon”). One of these early agents was said to have actually had a skirmish with Warren Worthington circa 1981, and though he gave the hero a good fight with his well-honed martial arts skills that he combined with his flying technique, the Avenging Angel’s superior experience in aerial combat ultimately won out. Marvels Comics incorporated a close version of what is said to have actually happened in the first issue of their 1982 mini-series Contest of Champions.

[26] As one may expect, DC Comics was quick to fictionalize the Crisis into a 12-issue maxi-series titled Crisis On Infinite Earths in regards to its emphasis on parallel worlds to explain different versions of the same character; this was due to the company’s refusal to follow standard time in the real world and take a generational stance on the continuation of a hero’s career over a very lengthy period. The first Hawkman’s serious injuries by acid burns were depicted as occurring at the hands of a super-villain called Plasmus. The means of his final passing was kept from the DC staff, so they fictionalized it in a highly symbolic form via a one-shot comic called Last Days of the Justice Society Special, published shortly after Carter and Shiera Halls’ actual demise in early 1986.

[27] DC Comics told the story of Katar Hol’s and Shayera Thal’s late ‘80s to early ‘90s exploits in a fictionalized manner starting with a prestige format mini-series called Hawkworld, followed by an ongoing comic with the same name published in standard format. The greatly fictionalized and exaggerated account of the quantum incident that merged numerous parallel reality versions of Hawkman into one was told in DC’s 1994 mini-series Zero Hour: Crisis in Time. Of course, DC left out all references to Dr. Strange, and wrote the story in a manner that only depicted heroes under license for DC to publish, and had many of them take the place of several actual participants. Other “personnel changes” also occurred, such as portraying Alex Harper as his uncle, Oliver Queen, when depicting Green Arrow’s role in the events. A new, third Hawkman comic was then published by DC to present highly fictionalized exploits of the “Hawkgod,” though it was ended as soon as reports were made of Hawkman’s death.

As for the nature of the ultra-advanced Cassiopian race, see this author’s index to “The Pie” series, published by Warren Comics in their magazine Eerie Vol. 1 during the 1970s, along with my index to “Vampirella and the Time Force,” published by Warren circa 1982 in Eerie Vol. 1 #130, both of which are on my website The Warrenveerse.

[28] A distorted and exaggerated version of the story of Joseph Gardner, the fourth Hawkman, and Kendra Saunders, the fourth Hawkgirl/Hawkwoman, has been told in various files, most of them compiled by Geoff Johns. DC Comics recorded such a tale in various files published in the fourth volume of their Hawkman comic during the early ‘00s, which often spilled over into their super-hero team title JSA. In these files, Kendra was depicted as having artificial wings like Gardner and every Hawkman before him, when in actuality she had natural wings like Warren Worthington III. Up until 2013, DC published highly fictionalized versions of Gardner’s exploits since his return to New York City in their now canceled series The Savage Hawkman. The same has been done for Kendra Saunders, the current Hawkgirl, for their ongoing title Earth 2, though she is now finally depicted with her natural wings.

Another fictionalized version of the Gardner/Saunders story that appeared in an entirely different medium are “Shadow of the Hawk” by Geoff Johns and Matt Wayne; and “Ancient History” by J.M. DeMatteis and Dwayne McDuffie. Both of them appeared in the animated television format by Warner Brothers for their TV series Justice League Unlimited. 

[29] See Stephen Kandel’s file “The Jihad,” as well as Dorothy C. Fontana’s file “Yesteryear,” both of which are stored under the master file known as Star Trek: The Animated Series.

[30] When some of these alternate future reports of Starhaven were recorded by writers and artists working for DC Comics beginning in the late 1970s—ostensibly for DC’s fictionalized Legion of Super-Heroes series of titles—it’s quite likely that the abilities of the Starhavenites in general, and Dawnstar individually, were greatly exaggerated. Though it’s impossible to predict with complete accuracy how advanced all forms of science, including genetic engineering, will become in any given timeline a thousand years into the future, it seems unlikely from this vantage point that a typical humanoid organism can be enhanced to the point where they can access, let alone withstand the rigors of, travelling through warp space without cosmic-level modification or the aid of highly advanced technological accoutrements. Even traveling unaided at extreme sub-light speeds in a frictionless environment of a vacuum would be harsh on any humanoid organisms, no matter how enhanced. Doubtless Starhavenites could achieve considerably greater speed in a vacuum than an atmosphere, but achieving a velocity approaching the speed of light, let alone warp speed, stretches rational credulity quite a bit.

The same can be said regarding the extent of Dawnstar’s psychic tracking ability. It undoubtedly had very lengthy parameters, but whether she could trail individuals from literally light years away may have been another exaggeration. In regards to her accessing warp space and traveling interstellar distances unaided, it’s possible that her highly evolved tracking skills were sensitive enough to enable her to detect sporadic but naturally occurring wormhole openings, and thus to traverse vast distances across space in an instant with little or no time dilation effect as a result. Of course, in order to return to someplace close to her starting point, her migratory navigation ability would have to be extraordinary (though it quite possibly was), and she would have to be able to detect and access a wormhole opening that led back to the same spatial coordinates in which she left, presuming that wormhole would continuously open in the same space like a sort of “quantum geyser,” and wouldn’t open at completely random locations each time. However, it must be conceded that there can be no doubt that the understanding of what we today call string theory and the concept of wormholes will be far better understood in the 31^st century than today, and Dawnstar would have that advantage. It may be possible during that era to use technology to artificially “summon” a wormhole opening, and even “pre-program” its specific coordinates.

It’s also well known that acquiring entirely accurate reports from glimpses of events and individuals extant in alternate futures is an inexact science that is wrought with numerous difficulties. Among these are the fact that countless different possible future timelines exist “simultaneously,” with alternate versions of themselves frequently diverging from each other due to the constant flux of events occurring in those futures. Another is the fact that the chroniclers of these reports will often exhibit anachro-centric attitudes when recording what life is like in these futures, often altering the reports so that the values and practices in the non-dystopian alternate future cultures and organizations tend to resemble those that exist at the point in the past that the chronicler happened to live.

Another consideration is the fact that temporally destructive Crisis events can occur unexpectedly, and timelines can be “rebooted” as a result, which will cause more conflicting accounts for precogs and time travelers who may have experienced the “original,” pre-Crisis (i.e., virgin) version of that timeline. Finally, there is the matter of the law of quantum physics where an observer of events can inadvertently alter the projected outcome and cause the various wave collapses to occur differently than they would have otherwise, or “previously did” (from the vantage point of a simultaneously existing future timeline), due to the mere fact that someone was observing it. And since time is not truly linear, and observed future events can be altered by actions in the past, accurately predicting or detecting events occurring in future timelines can be extremely difficult, which reminds one of an expression coined by the ever-witty Prof. Dennis E. Power for one of his reports: “Wasn’t the future great?”

Clearly an article covering these difficulties in-depth is in order for the future (pun intended, sorry).