DC Relaunch: The Savage Hawkman

If you go up to the average comic book fan with familiarity of DC characters and asked, “Hey, what’s Hawkman’s origin?” they may groan and roll their eyes. It’s true, Hawkman has gone through some complicated changes just about every time there’s an opportunity to relaunch the property. I personally don’t think it’s that complicated, but I’m gonna go ahead say don’t worry about it. No matter what backstory is given for how he’s there with wings on, he’ll end up doing the same stuff. Which is not to say the character is boring! Not at all.

Hawkman is a complicated character, sure. I think some people like that in a character, where the possibilities are not quite limited. He always seems like he’s brooding, thinking in the background about what’s happening before him. Unless Green Arrow is around, in which case he’s like he is in battle, completely unchained, no restraint. That’s what you can expect as far as action: Hawkman uses heavy weaponry, and he is BRUTAL. If you’ve really pissed him off, expect some sort of historic weaponry slamming into the side of your face. On the other side of that, Hawkman finds himself in high-adventure. The sort of archeology-digs-gone-wrong that Indiana Jones has nightmares about. Sudden excursions to alternate dimensions, being swept off to another planet constantly embroiled in war. This is Hawkman.

The Savage Hawkman will be helmed by Tony Daniel and Philip Tan. Daniel has been writing Batman for the past year or so, and previous to that wrote mini-series Batman: The Battle for the Cowl and his creator owned series, The Tenth. He’s an artist as well, having worked on Batman with Grant Morrison and Teen Titans with Geoff Johns.

Philip Tan has had a drastic change of style recently, and it looks fantastic. The cover above is evidence of that. Recently Tan has been working providing artwork for both The Outsiders with Dan Didio, and pages for Eric Wallace’s Titans. Prior to that, he had worked with Grant Morrison on Batman & Robin, and with Geoff Johns on Green Lantern for the story “Agent Orange.” In fact, Tan design all of the constructs that compose Larfleeze’s “corps” of Orange Lanterns. The man’s worked on a lot over the years, and this is just a recent sampling.

Hawkman was recently featured in the storyline Brightest Day, which is a good one check (as I’ve already referenced it!). Here are some other noteworthy picks:

JSA: The Return of Hawkman by David Goyer, Geoff Johns, & Stephen Sadowski
Hawkworld by Timothy Truman
Showcase Presents Hawkman vol. 1 & 2 by Gardner Fox & Joe Kubert

There are also a number of volumes of the last ongoing, which feature writing from Geoff Johns, James Robinson, Justin Grey, & Jimmy Palmiotti, as well as art from Rags Morales, Ryan Sook, Joe Bennett & Chris Batista.

Up tomorrow is Hawkman’s political foil, Green Arrow, where I’ll point out that if he’s such a poor man’s Hawkeye, why’s he had more successful series than ole Clint? Hmm.