Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Hawkwoman vs Hawkgirl?

Could someone enlighten me? I don't follow the Hawkman book, but I do follow JSA. As far as I know, this Kendra is Hawkgirl, who Hawkman believes to be his former wife in another life?

But in the DC Countdown, I read the Martian Manhunter talk about Hawkwoman. What's going on?

Owl Lad...the Hawk's are so messed up you have no idea.

Kendra is Hawkgirl, who Hawkman believes to be his former wife in another life.

This is correct.

Hawkwoman is from Thanagar the ex partner of the former Hawkman Katar Hol.


IMO Kendra won't remember who she really is until Hawkwoman dies. But that is just my theory.

Hawkgirl teenager with soul of an ancient queen.
Hawkwoman cop from Thanagar.

Shall I confuse things more? I believe I shall. The cureent Hawkman (Carter Hall) is a reincarnation (of sorts) of the Golden Age Hawkman who himself is a reincarnation of Khufu (I think that's his name) who was an Egyptian Pharoh. Kendra is the sort of reincarnation of Khufu's wife, but she's actually the soul of his wife in the body of Kendra Saunders who tried to commit suicide when she was younger. Kendra's soul left her body and the soul of Hawkgirl entered in it's place, meaning that Kendra mostly has her memories as being Kendra but also occassionally has Hawkgirls' memories. OK so far?

The silver age Hawkman (Katar Hol) was a policeman from the planet Thanagar who died at some point (uh... Zero Hour maybe). Katar's memories are *also* included in Cater Hall's, although he doesn't seem to be exactly a reincarnation/preincarnation of Carter. Hawkwoman (Shayera Thal) was Katar's partner (possibly his wife as well, I forget) and she *didn't* die so we don't know if she has ties to Hawkgirl (as in the one who keeps being reincarnated) or not.

Thanagar also has ties to Hawkman (as in the reincarnated Pharoh) in that a Thanagrian ship crashed in ancient Egypt and it was from there that Khufu got the Nth metal which allows him to fly and be extra strong and not get cold even when running round with his big manly chest exposed.

See, nice and simple. This version of the story (and I've missed out lots of details) is actually the simple, tidied up version of Hawk continuity. It all got horribly messed up by Crisis and then even more so by Zero Hour, but Geoff Johns has done a pretty good job of trying to tidy it up a bit. Really, for most purposes, Jorg-EMs two line sumation of it pretty much tells you all you need to know.

See, and I didn't even have to get into all the stuff about Black Adam and Doctor Fate or anything like that. Ooh, bring on Donna Troy and Power Girl and Supergirl. I can explain them all simply too.

And just to get more confusing...

Kendra Saunders is cousins with the original Hawkgirl whose soul is in Kendra.

Hawkgirl I later called Hawkwoman and the one that reincarnates is called Shiera Saunders Hall.

Hawkgirl II is Kendra Saunders and I think her middle name may even be Shiera.

Hawkwoman II from Thanagar is called Shayera Thal.

Is it a small universe or what? Two red heads team up with two different Hawkmen from two different worlds and they have similar names!

And the dead one's soul jumps into her dead cousin's body!

I like how they tied together the Egyptian and Thanagar connection. Fits awesome. Katar being named after Carter cause Katar's dad was friends with Carter makes kinda sense.

But Shiera and Shayera? Hmmm. Interesting. I always thought they should change Hawkwoman's name and make her another hero.

And, of course there's the whole thing with the current Doctor Fate (Hector Hall) being the son of Carter and Shiera Hall, which makes him the cousin or something of Kendra (the ucrrent Hawkgirl) but in a way Kendra is also his mother. Nabu (the wizard behing Doctor Fate's magical abilities) was also an advisor to Khufu back in ancient Egypt, which obviously ties back into the Hawk mythology.

Hector and his wife Hippolyta Hall aka Fury II are also the parents of Daniel, who became the second incarnation of Morpheus aka The Sandman (from the Vertigo series). Hector at one point was also going by the name of Sandman while he was dead and trapped in the Dreaming. Before that he was the Silver Scarab and as part of the curse on the Hawks was born without a soul. I'm not sure if he has one now or not, but he might do. When he was reborn (after properly dying in the Dreaming) his birth mother was Dawn Granger aka Dove II, although she was in a coma and under a magical disguise which at first made her appear to be an unknown woman and then Hippolyta Hall herself.

And who put her under this disguise? Why none other than our very own Mordru.

Thus, so far, Hawkman and Hawkwoman have pretty direct links to Doctor Fate, Sandman, the LSH, Wonder Woman (through Fury II, whose mother, the original Fury, believed that Wonder Woman III (Queen Hippolyta) was her mother and was adopted as an Amazon) and the Marvel family. In terms of the superhero community they're pretty well conected really.

Oh, and Hawk and Dove as well of course.

Heck Owl Lad the poster is actually Hector Hall reincarnated as a Legion fan in the real universe isn't he???

I thought that was Lash? Isn't Owl Lad the reincarnation of Diana (as in the Goddess) split from her Athena persona and killed a little while back in Wonder Woman?

But how does Tony Hawk fit into it all?

What about Hawk from SPENCER FOR HIRE ?

Both reincarnations of Hawk of Hawk and Dove, obviously.

Was Spencer Dove?

No, he was a preincarnation of Dawnstar.

He DID carry a pretty big gun, didn't he?

You know, as a longtime JSA reader and monthly Hawkman collector I read the question and thought to myself, "Oh, that's simple!" Then I read the explanations (knowing that I couldn't make it any simpler) and realized continuity is way too complicated....Even after it's been simplified.

How DOES continuity get complicated...?

First we had Hawkman (Carter Hall) & Hawkgirl (Shierra Sanders) in the 1940s, who joined the JSA.

Then we had Hawkamn (Katar Hol) & Hawkgirl (Shierra Hol) in the 1960s, a married couple of police officers from Thanagar, who joined the JLA. (It was determined the 1960s characters existed in the Earth-1 universe, while the 1940s characters existed in the Earth-2 universe. Naturally, this did not stop a great many interdimensional team-ups from happenning between the JLA & JSA.)

CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS happened, and after, we were led to believe that somehow several different universes were "merged" to create a new one ("the New DCU") which "had always been that way". Yeah right.

Timothy Truman did HAWKWORLD, a 3-issue prestige-format series, which told the never-before-revealed "origin" of the Katar Hol Hawkman. It was designed to take place before the 2nd Hawkman ever came to Earth. Simple, right?

Mike Gold decided, when the story continued on Earth, that it should take place "today"-- Post-CRISIS-- and thereby in one move totally screwed up and confused things. Writer John Ostrander, unfazed, kept telling readers, "Don't worry. It'll all make sense." Ostrander was true to his word-- though a multitude of fans complained endlessly about the "fixes" required.

For instance, NOW, it's the Carter Hall Hawkman who joined the JLA years after the JSA disbanded. When the bulk of the JSA was yanked into some limbo after the CRISIS, apparently a SPY from Thanagar, claiming to be Carter's son, took his place. During the INVASION! storyline, he was killed. And shortly after this, Katar Hol first came to Earth.

OY!

This, by the way, does not get into the INFINITELY complex character relations on Thanagar that John Ostrander established over the course of the monthly HAWKWORLD series. Most of it doesn't matter outside the series itself, so no worries! I've long felt Ostrander's run may be the BEST in the history of the character, and ironically, by the end of 3 or 4 years' worth of stories, Katar & Shierra (Hawkwoman) had finally evolved, more or less, into modern versions of the Earth-1 characters they were supposed to be in the first place. So Ostrander's ENTIRE run on the book could be looked at as one collossal epic "origin" story.

Which would have been fine, except the minute Ostrander (& Truman, who'd come back briefly to help) left, Bill Loebs came along and SCREWED everything 10 times over. He destroyed Thanagar, introduced the "Hawk-God" creature, and "merged" several different characters as a tie-in with the already ill-conceived ZERO HOUR "event". (sigh) Things got SO bad on the monthly HAWKMAN book, they eventually killed off the mutant "merged" version. Too bad, he had SUCH a cool costume...

Thank goodness for writers like Geoff Johns... eh? He brought Carter back in JSA and followed it up with the new HAWKMAN series. (And now, he's doing the same kind of thing with Hal Jordan. Only MORE so.)

I thought Kendra was fully aware of her "past life" as Shiera. She certainly knows that her suicide led to Shiera's soul inhabiting her body.

Anyway, I don't think Hawkwoman is going anywhere anytime soon, just based on some of what I know about the Rann/Thanagar War.

Hawkwoman's definitely appearing in that mini. Is there something else you've found out that you can share?

Heck I think last issue Carter had problems remembering a past life. He is suppossed to remember all of them currently. He's like the "ultimate Hawkman" so he isn't even really "Carter Hall".

Kendra on the other hand may know she's his wife but has no memories of any of her past lives...except Kendra's. Sure she may slightly remember something here or there...but not really.

Not complicated at all.

In past incarnations Carter hasn't remembered any of his previous lives fully, although when he was Carter before (as in the Golden Age Hawkman) he did have some memories of his first life. After being reborn in JSA a while back he got almost all of his memories back (although there do seem to be a few gaps). Kendra, on the other hand, only has a few memories of previous lives and a few more of her life as Shiera, but not a huge amount of them. She seems to get more memories every now and again though.

Thanks for all the "explanations".

Why do I see little hawks circling around my dizzying head?

Now who is this new Hawk in the Teen Titans? -And is that still Dawn Granger as Dove?

HAWK-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!

(oops, wrong comic!)

Not, but it looks like she might have a prominent role and I figure there's some set-up to potentially use her again.

Hawk & Dove spoilers, I guess...
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The new Hawk is Dove's sister. Dove is still Dawn Granger.