Brave and Bold 9: Sci-Fi Hawkman Flies Again

Writer: Sholly Fisch
Penciller: Rick Burchett

When DC announced a new Hawkman title in its mega shake-up I was thrilled by the prospect of getting Katar Hol back with his spaceship, ray guns and sidekick wife (with the best helmet in comics) Shayera. No! It’s not to be! Because Tony Daniel is serving up another version of snoozy archaeologist Carter Hall in the new series.

He could have taken inspiration from our old pal Sholly Fisch (who could forget the interview I did with him about DC’s super-pets??) who has done an inspired job with this month’s Brave and the Bold. See! You can have a space-opera Hawkman! Fisch has taken the basis of Geoff Johns’s continuity-fixing origin (Hawkman is an ancient Egyptian pharaoh, reincarnated due to a curse and a brush with superpowered alien metal) and stopped it at Hawkman’s last ‘life’ – as Thanagarian police man superhero Katar Hol! Hooray!

Bats and Katar catch Thanagarian criminal Byth (it’s always Byth), take him back to jail and duff up some space pirates en route. All this AND Fisch manages to shoehorn in essential Hawkman ingredients; space ship, big mace, ray guns, The Atom, wife Shayera (on Earth with the lady Leaguers). Meanwhile Katar does it decked out in his fetching, if seldom seen, shiny gold helmet (last spotted on the Earth 2 version circa 1981).

I’ve always had a soft spot for the space-cop version of Hawkman because he had so much potential. The set-up made absolutely no sense – why would he come to Earth to fight crime using a spear and a mace when he had laser guns and a great big space ship to do it with? Why did he become an archaeologist? But nevertheless I thought an alien policeman with wings and a nifty Hawk motif was pretty cool as a kid (largely because of a Brave and the Bold team up drawn by Jim Aparo which looked great!)

Who knows if the character will find a better reception with the forthcoming relaunch than he did with the last one. Usually Hawkman has a strong start and is then run into the ground. It’s just a shame, on the strength of this story, they didn’t give the regular DCU title to Fisch - it's sci-fi Hawkman we all knew and loved!