In spite of all the rectonning gymnastics, I still have trouble thinking that the current Hawkman, the JSAer called Carter who's obsessed with being the reincarnation of Khufu and destined to love his reincarnated hawkbabe through all eternity, can be the Hawkman shown in all those flashbacks to the Satellite Era JLA, who looks and talks like the Thanagarian Katar Hol who was in that era of the JLA the first time around. For some reason the special focus on the Satellite Era over the past four years has made me less willing than I used to be to accept the Carter-Katar substitution. (It doesn't help that the purpose of that substitution had been to let us have cool new Ostrander Katar stories, and then that character got limbo'd away.)
Well, Batman's right. Reagan isn't QUITE as good as Lincoln, at least in fist fights, and Rannians aren't smart enogh to catch babies. Batman does miss those ten minutes, though. He never could quite find out that middle section of that Gilligan's island episode.
You've seem to have gotten a lot farther than I did in making sense of the new Hawkman. The Katar Hol aspect never made sense to me, and is doubly puzzling now when I re-read old Sat. Era and Silver Age stuff...was pre-Crisis Katar a reincarnation of Golden Age/Modern Carter or....?
All I know for sure is that Hawkman hates shirts and Democrats, and loves violence and weapons.
Anon. #2,
Geo-Force is on tap for tomorrow...by Monday we'll be done with the Justice League and start tackling the current Outsiders membership.
Chance,
I think DC would ask me to stop if I ever tried...I do hope to be able to sell you something self-published sometime soon(-ish) though...like, sometime in '08. I hope.
Original story: The JSA Hawkman on Earth-2 was the Egyptian reincarnation guy whose helmet had a whole hawkhead on it that shaded his face, Carter Hall. The JLA Hawkman on Earth-1 was the Thanagarian cop who got into political arguments with Green Arrow, who had a beak-faced mask, Katar Hol, who made up an earth identity as Carter Hall. Then Crisis happened, the JSA got shunted into Limbo, and the Thanagarian Katar stuck around.
Then, an inappropriate number of years after Crisis, Hawkman got a reboot in Hawkworld. The new Thanagarian Katar Hol came to earth well after Invasion!, in Year 8 or 9 or so. It was retconned that in the unified history of post-Crisis Earth, Carter Hall had come out of postwar JSA retirement to join the Silver Age JLA, serve as liaison between the JLA and JSA, modernized his costume, and got into political arguments with Green Arrow. We also got retconned links between his history and wings and Thanagar-- eventually we got retconned history of family links between the Halls and the Hols.
We also got a variety of patches to cover up the fact that this didn't quite work. I was satisfied with the patches-- Ostrander is good at that kind of thing. Far as I was concerned, things were fine, even though it meant that the Golden Age Hawkman had to have received a personality transplant during the Silver Age.
Then Zero Hour made a huge deal out of the fact that it all didn't quite work; and bad things happened involving hawk avatars, and bad things happened to Thanagar, and the Egyptian Carter and Shiera got merged into the psyche of the Thanagarian Katar, and the merged-Hawkman-with-Katar-dominant grew real wings and showed his nipples while Nth Metal ceased to work and so the very cool Ostrander Hawkwoman lost her powers. It was a total disaster, and then eventually in the 90s the merged Hawkman got explicitly placed into Limbo. He was considered broken and irretrievable-- which provided the opportunity for Morrison to create Zauriel when he couldn't have Hawkman.
Then, early in the last volume of JSA, Geoff Johns extracted a merged-Hawkman-with-Carter-dominant from Limbo-- on Thanagar. So in current history, the current Hawkman remembers being the Egyptian Carter during the Golden Age JSA and the Silver Age JLA (even though *we* remember the Silver Ager being Thanagarian), and he also remembers being the Ostrander Thanagarian Katar in the 80s and 90s-- even though both those characters existed at the same time for a while.
So the same guy goes and fights in the Rann-Thanagar war *and* creeps out Kendra by talking about their endless reincarnation as destined Egyptian lovers. And in flashbacks, we get Satellite Era JLA stories that are supposed to evoke our memories of the Thanagarian, but that are officially supposed to be the Egyptian, because the Thanagarian hadn't come to earth yet.
heh.
ReplyDeleteIn spite of all the rectonning gymnastics, I still have trouble thinking that the current Hawkman, the JSAer called Carter who's obsessed with being the reincarnation of Khufu and destined to love his reincarnated hawkbabe through all eternity, can be the Hawkman shown in all those flashbacks to the Satellite Era JLA, who looks and talks like the Thanagarian Katar Hol who was in that era of the JLA the first time around. For some reason the special focus on the Satellite Era over the past four years has made me less willing than I used to be to accept the Carter-Katar substitution. (It doesn't help that the purpose of that substitution had been to let us have cool new Ostrander Katar stories, and then that character got limbo'd away.)
I'm starting to think that getting a present from Batman isn't that great - what a jerk! :)
ReplyDeleteWell, Batman's right. Reagan isn't QUITE as good as Lincoln, at least in fist fights, and Rannians aren't smart enogh to catch babies. Batman does miss those ten minutes, though. He never could quite find out that middle section of that Gilligan's island episode.
ReplyDeleteMan, I can't wait until the Geoforce strip. Caleb, you better include Geoforce!
ReplyDeleteThat's it. Make this into a book and sell it online.
ReplyDeleteJacob,
ReplyDeleteYou've seem to have gotten a lot farther than I did in making sense of the new Hawkman. The Katar Hol aspect never made sense to me, and is doubly puzzling now when I re-read old Sat. Era and Silver Age stuff...was pre-Crisis Katar a reincarnation of Golden Age/Modern Carter or....?
All I know for sure is that Hawkman hates shirts and Democrats, and loves violence and weapons.
Anon. #2,
Geo-Force is on tap for tomorrow...by Monday we'll be done with the Justice League and start tackling the current Outsiders membership.
Chance,
I think DC would ask me to stop if I ever tried...I do hope to be able to sell you something self-published sometime soon(-ish) though...like, sometime in '08. I hope.
XDDDD
ReplyDeleteAwww I luff that :D
<33333
It's like in CoH when I wonder why using maces, broadswords, guns, etc are a good idea for superheroes >.>
May I just say that your characterization is just dead on?
ReplyDeleteExcellent.
If you really want to know anything more than "Meanwhile, Superboy-Prime's been punching a wall, and that's why Donna Troy doesn't make any sense. Also: Hawkman.":
ReplyDeleteOriginal story: The JSA Hawkman on Earth-2 was the Egyptian reincarnation guy whose helmet had a whole hawkhead on it that shaded his face, Carter Hall. The JLA Hawkman on Earth-1 was the Thanagarian cop who got into political arguments with Green Arrow, who had a beak-faced mask, Katar Hol, who made up an earth identity as Carter Hall. Then Crisis happened, the JSA got shunted into Limbo, and the Thanagarian Katar stuck around.
Then, an inappropriate number of years after Crisis, Hawkman got a reboot in Hawkworld. The new Thanagarian Katar Hol came to earth well after Invasion!, in Year 8 or 9 or so. It was retconned that in the unified history of post-Crisis Earth, Carter Hall had come out of postwar JSA retirement to join the Silver Age JLA, serve as liaison between the JLA and JSA, modernized his costume, and got into political arguments with Green Arrow. We also got retconned links between his history and wings and Thanagar-- eventually we got retconned history of family links between the Halls and the Hols.
We also got a variety of patches to cover up the fact that this didn't quite work. I was satisfied with the patches-- Ostrander is good at that kind of thing. Far as I was concerned, things were fine, even though it meant that the Golden Age Hawkman had to have received a personality transplant during the Silver Age.
Then Zero Hour made a huge deal out of the fact that it all didn't quite work; and bad things happened involving hawk avatars, and bad things happened to Thanagar, and the Egyptian Carter and Shiera got merged into the psyche of the Thanagarian Katar, and the merged-Hawkman-with-Katar-dominant grew real wings and showed his nipples while Nth Metal ceased to work and so the very cool Ostrander Hawkwoman lost her powers. It was a total disaster, and then eventually in the 90s the merged Hawkman got explicitly placed into Limbo. He was considered broken and irretrievable-- which provided the opportunity for Morrison to create Zauriel when he couldn't have Hawkman.
Then, early in the last volume of JSA, Geoff Johns extracted a merged-Hawkman-with-Carter-dominant from Limbo-- on Thanagar. So in current history, the current Hawkman remembers being the Egyptian Carter during the Golden Age JSA and the Silver Age JLA (even though *we* remember the Silver Ager being Thanagarian), and he also remembers being the Ostrander Thanagarian Katar in the 80s and 90s-- even though both those characters existed at the same time for a while.
So the same guy goes and fights in the Rann-Thanagar war *and* creeps out Kendra by talking about their endless reincarnation as destined Egyptian lovers. And in flashbacks, we get Satellite Era JLA stories that are supposed to evoke our memories of the Thanagarian, but that are officially supposed to be the Egyptian, because the Thanagarian hadn't come to earth yet.