A flying gladiator weighed down by his origins - DC's New 52 Review #6: "The Savage Hawkman"

I don't think I ever knew a thing about Hawkman's origin story, and I know I never bought any Hawkman books as a kid. But he still made an impression on me. As a team member of the Super Friends in the 1980s, I remember most that my Hawkman action figure was the biggest one. He was taller than Superman. More ripped than any of them. And with those huge wings that flapped when I squeezed his legs together? Kick ass.

Reading "The Savage Hawkman," one of the New 52 titles in the DC Universe, was therefore something I was really looking forward to. But I got lost quickly, and frustrated in my confusion.

We begin the story of Hawkman with a man who will do anything to deny his past and start clean. Through narration, Carter Hall tells us that he was once known as Hawkman but "that's ancient history...that ends right here, right now." Pulling his pickup truck to the side of the road in a remote location, Hall starts a fire and throws each piece of Hawkman's uniform into the fire. But the costume, made from a property called "Nth metal," reacts in the fire, causing an explosion. Hall is engulfed in flames but wakes up somewhere else to find that he's not only alive, but healing.

It appears that Hall wakes up at a lab where he works. He puts on a hazmat suit and joins other scientists in viewing some sort of alien life form. One explodes from its trappings and begins killing, and Hall, while trying to fight one off, feels his body changing. The Nth metal, it seems, has morphed with his muscles and he transforms mid-battle into Hawkman (in a way that sort of reminds me of how Bruce Banner becomes the Incredible Hulk). His foe, we learn, is Morphicius, an alien that feeds off of energy and, upon grabbing Hawkman, is delighted by the unique and power Hawkman is giving off. But the Nth metal is too powerful for Morphicius, burning him but also empowering him.

The scene moves to Manhattan and the Non-Lethal Alternative Studies headquarters, where Hall is recuperating. Here, he wonders if since he can't escape the Nth metal, he can learn to control it. When he returns to the place where Morphicius first escaped captivity, the Nth metal triggers Hawkman and a hologram appears to warn him of Morphicius's power. Inside the lab, Dr. Hoarth Kane and an assistant named Askana appear to be helping Morphicius. Instead, they are dissecting him, and yet he survives the dissection. Once again, Morphicius engages Hawkman in battle and refers to Hawkman's powers as being "Thangarian." (This perked me up, as I remembered that Thanagar to be the planet where Green Lantern Isamot Kol is from.) Hawkman defeats Morphicius but Dr. Kane escapes. Issue #4 ends with Carter Hall walking down the street and realizing that people passing him appear to be corpses. He wonders if the Nth metal is toxic and poisoning him as mercury would.

Professor Ziegler calls Hall to his lab. He hands Hall an ancient text, and when he touches it, the symbols come to life for Hall. As Hawkman, Hall confronts a man named Digby who gave Ziegler the book. Suddenly, a between-worlds apparition appears, known as the Gentleman Ghost. Hawkman is able to connect the Gentleman Ghost to what he saw in the book. Gentleman Ghost tells Hawkman that he invited him to see him so that he could request that Hawkman find something called the "mortis orb."

While searching for the orb, Hawkman meets a woman who claims that her husband was buried with it. Learning that the mortis orb can raise the dead, Hawkman puts two and two together and digs up the grave of Julius Gates, where he finds it. After grabbing the orb, Hawkman experiences a surge in power and the dead begin to rise. The Gentleman Ghost tells Hawkman that the orb needed to contact with the Nth metal to break a spell and allow the dead to rise. He takes the orb.

While searching for "Gentleman" Jim Craddock, Hawkeye encounters Static, a new hero in the DC Universe who, if I'm not mistaken, already crashed and burned as a title/series. A punky kid with the ability to channel electricity, Static helps Hawkman deal with the undead. They soon catch up with Gentleman Ghost and defeat him for the orb, which Hawkman flies to Anarctica to hide. As issue #7 ends, he is home in Manhattan, where Askana arrives. An alien shape-shifter, she shows up to fight Hawkman but then reveals that she actually wants his help.

Do you want me to stop? Because I really want to stop.

Suffice it to say that I have found Hawkman to be too complicated to get into. The Nth metal, the undead, the alien origin planet, the book, the orb...It's just so confusing! Some improvement comes in issue #9 when the somewhat watercolor-y and non-traditional artwork of artist Philip Tan is replaced as a part of a new team overhaul for "The Savage Hawkman." This made me think of "Green Arrow," another title that didn't seem to be gaining traction, leading to a new creative team (though in that case, the new team made it worse for me, not better).

Come issue #9, the drawings of Joe Bennett truly kick "The Savage Hawkman" into gear, and he is now looking like the bad ass Hawkman I always remembered. But sadly, the origin mythos is so dense and complicated that even the new creative team could not pull me back in. The villains in issue #10 range from people dressed like "Tron" to a juiced-up, armored ninja, and Hawkman himself appears to have elements of an ancient Rome gladiator thrown into the mix with his futuristic metal suit. Whatever the case, it all just gets to be too confusing for me.

I really wanted to like "The Savage Hawkman," but I'd also like to stop spending so much money every month at the comic book store. I think I might be interested in picking up the #0 origin issue that comes out in September, but unless that really changes my mind, I think I'm done with Hawkman, though I hope the dude shows up in some JLA stuff, because there's something about him that I still think is pretty cool.