Get to Know a Hero: Hawkman
There are both human and Thanagarian Hawkmen (Hawkmans?). They are not the same guy. Most of the time. We’re going human-ish here since Flarrow gave us Carter Hall.
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Name: Carter Hall
Aliases: Prince Khufu Kha-Tarr, Nighthawk (Hannibal Hawkes), Silent Knight (Brian Kent), Koenrad Von Grimm, Captain John Smith (like, the Pocahontas dude), James Wright
Born: Egypt, reign of Ramses II
Died: Again. And Again. And Again.
Abilities: same as Hawkgirl’s plus blessing, ability to breathe underwater by Poseidon (your guess is as good as mine), reincarnated knowledge, accelerated healing, self-sustainance (nom, nom, delicious finger).
First Appearance: Flash Comics #1 (1940)
Affiliations: JLA, All-Star Squadron, JSA, Black Lantern Corps, White Lantern Corps
The Story:
Prince Khufu believed his ka would remain forever on the mortal plane alongside that of his beloved Shiera. He was proven right when he and two others found a crashed Thanagarian space ship, the occupant only just managing to whisper, “nth metal” before she died. The ship was studied and the remains melted down and fashioned into a knife, a scarab that gave Khufu the ability to fly, and a gauntlet called The Glove of Horus. The nth metal strengthened Khufu and Shiera’s souls and bound them together so that when an evil priest murdered them both with the nth metal knife, they were reincarnated and found one another once more. And once more. And once more. Etcetera.
After being reincarnated several times (see above aliases), Khufu was born in the 1940s as Carter Hall. See Hawkgirl for the story of how they hooked up.
Their son, Hector Hall, did some time as The Sandman and also a stint as Doctor Fate. Their grandson, Daniel, was the successor to Dream.
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Following Crisis on Infinite Earths, the Halls became trapped in ever-repeating cycles of Ragnarok. With Odin. Because let’s play some inter-pantheon reindeer games. Again.
Carter got mashed together with Shiera and Katar Hol, a Thanagarian policeman – and yes, the other guy – and become some sort of hawk-god thing for a while. Then Katar’s soul jumped ship, leaving Carter in the driver’s seat once more. He returned to the JSA, fought in the Rann-Thanagar War, and helped negotiate the treaty that ends said.
See Hawkgirl for the events of Blackest Night and Brightest Day.
Not much mention of his place in the New 52.
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Sources: DC Comics Database, DC Comics Wiki, Wikipedia.
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