Reintroduced in the Hawkworld miniseries, the new Katar Hol was both similar but also quite different from the previous incarnation of Hawkman.
Like many characters in the DC Universe, Hawkman has undergone multiple changes throughout the character’s 80-year history. Initially, the concept was (relatively) simple: in the 1940s. Archaeologist Carter Hall discovers that he is the reincarnation of an Egyptian prince, discovers a pair of gravity-defying wings, and uses a stylized hawk mask and ancient weapons to fight crime. This version of the character was later replaced when editor Julius Schwartz reintroduced a number of previous DC characters (such as Flash, Atom, and Green Lantern) with newer, sci-fi-themed heroes befitting the 1950s space age. .
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The Silver Age Falcon, the alien police officer Katar Hol, would endure for many years as a mainstay of the Justice League, but eventually underwent radical changes in the wake of the seminal. Crisis on Infinite Earths. Reintroduced in miniseries in Tim Trumanprestige format Hawkworld, the new Katar Hol was both similar but also quite different from the previous incarnation of the man of interstellar law.
Hawkworld It begins with a Thanagar who is decidedly different from the brilliant sci-fi utopia of the Silver Age Hawkman tales. In this reintroduction of Hawkman, Thanagar is the heart of an intergalactic empire comprised of multiple conquered worlds. On Thanagar, the land masses are not large enough to support both the human population and the aliens who serve at their beck and call. Instead, cities have expanded upward, and wealthy Thanagarians wear gravity-defying wings that allow them to soar between their tall towers and live a life of luxury.
Meanwhile, the conquered aliens live their lives in extreme poverty, subject to the constant theft of food and vital medical supplies by criminals. Young Katar Hol joins the Thanagarian Wingmen as an idealist in love with his world’s noble past, but quickly awakens to the harsh realities of life as an enforcer of politics in a corrupt imperialist system. Betrayed by his superior officer, Commander Byth, Hol is exiled and imprisoned for ten years before returning to the downside as a wingless outcast. Rebuilding his life, he discovers one of the few clean members of the Wingmen in the form of Shayera Thal. The two manage to take down Byth and stop a war between the disadvantage and the towers. Sent to Earth in search of Byth, the series concludes on the same basic premise as Hawkman’s original Silver Age origin story.
Like many revisionist superhero comics from the 80s, Hawkworld it is largely a deconstructionist view of the origin of Katar Hol. The glittering spiers of the Thanagar Silver Age are still around, but the Thanagarians themselves are a people who profit from exploitation, slavery, and colonialism that places them firmly on top and the non-human aliens of their empire very firmly on. base. The Wingmen are not the shining heroes of the Silver Age, but rather a combination of a police force and an occupying army, and tensions between the classes are only exacerbated by the drug-by-weapons trade between the parties in the low and low. the towers. Katar himself is a man who is brought down by the system, but ultimately overcomes it through Shayera’s help and his own drive to find Byth and take revenge. But despite all his triumph and rejoining the Wingmen, the system still endures: corruption and oppression are still there, unabated.
Katar Hol would eventually be included in Carter Hall’s own story when the two characters were retroactively determined to be incarnations of the same man, the Egyptian monarch Prince Khufu. He and his wife Chay-Ra were killed by the evil Hath-Set and trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of death and reincarnation. Like most superheroes, they continually reboot and relaunch themselves over and over again to keep up. Katar Hol and Hawkworld They remain a vital part of Hawkman’s backstory, and the story itself is well told and highly relevant to this day.
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Reference-www.cbr.com
