Hawkman / YMMV - TV Tropes

Audience-Alienating Era: A little after the beginning of the Hawkworld ongoing and before Hawkman's return over in JSA. Namely for how amazingly convoluted things became, with the Fel Andar retcon that turned him into a supervillain, as well as just being the era of Continuity Snarl that pretty much everyone now ignores, yet still has come to define Hawkman in the public consciousness.
Broken Base: Golden Age vs Silver Age; reincarnation vs space cops. Some like the Golden Age version for having more room for emotional stories and having a cool mystic bent. Others prefer the Silver Age version for its possibilities for political stories and having a cool, dark sci-fi bent. What doesn't help matters is that, due to the characters' names (Carter and Katar) being so similar, they generally don't appear together. As such, when one version gets pushed, it always means the other is either killed or sent to Comic Book Limbo.
Complete Monster: Onimar Synn is the strongest of the Seven Devils who plagued the history of Thanagar and one of the planet's greatest and most powerful entities. A Soul Eating demon who nourishes himself on suffering, Synn resurrects countless years after his first defeat and takes over Thanagar, slaughtering its high council and devouring the souls of its populace by the thousands to fuel his undead army, whilst executing thousands more by dropping them from the point of the flying city he takes over. Once more revived by his depraved priest in time for the Rann-Thanagar War, Synn exploits the conflict to devour the dead and dying of Thanagar's populace, impeding the efforts of Kyle Rayner and Adam Strange to stop him by trying to suffocate hundreds of innocents reserved in storage to slake his appetite, before mounting an assault on Rann to devour its populace as well, slaughtering them by the masses and ultimately striving to use their technology to go on and consume every living soul in the universe.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- The Brave and the Bold #42 shows that Thanagarians use "identi-cards" that are similar to credits cards, which aren't invented until the late 70s. And the issue was published in 1962.
- During the Geoff Johns run, a gag with the Atom shows him traveling the phone lines to meet with Carter noting that his assistant, Scott Snyder, hates when he does that. A few years later a real writer named Scott Snyder came to work for DC, becoming one of their most prominent writer's of the 2010's. He would also go on to write the Dark Nights: Metal event, which heavily featured Hawkgirl and led to Hawkman's return.
Memetic Loser: Not as intense as Aquaman's case, but arguably stems from the same source, and has lasted for longer without much (successful) course-correction. New DC fans - and even veteran ones - often scratch their heads at what's unique about the character when the JLA has its Flying Brick quota filled and then some, and the character's legendary Continuity Snarl is grade-A Snark Bait for those who believe writers haven't had a solid direction for him since the Silver Age.
Moment of Awesome: Hawkman's return in JSA.
Moral Event Horizon: Katar in the first Hawkworld starts off as an angsty, aloof teenager with vaguely nationalist and xenophobic leanings but ultimately a well-meaning and humble-for-his-environment kid. When he's exiled to the Isle of Chance, he almost immediately murders a Wingor for the artificial wings he was making, only to discover the Wingor has natural wings and was building the wings for him. Although it's hand-waved as Katar being under the influences of drug withdrawal and the Wingor's brother forgives him instantly, it's incredibly hard to get behind Katar after this.
Nightmare Fuel: Byth's transformation in Hawkworld. Especially in the third issue of the mini-series.
Sequel Displacement: Initially played straight regarding the Silver Age Hawkcops, then subverted. Thanks to Hawkgirl's popularity from Justice League, a lot of mainstream audiences were far more familiar with the Thangarian space cop concept of the Hawks than the original reincarnating Hawks. While Smallville would use Carter Hall instead of Katar, that didn't really do much, since it was a relatively minor role, and Justice League was just more popular in the long run. Then the Arrowverse used the reincarnating Hawks, and people became much more familiar with that version of them than the space cops.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- When it was decided that the JSA and JLA have always lived on the same Earth, there could have been a story^note where the Silver Age Hawks first meet the Golden Age Hawks upon their arrival to Earth. The backstory of Katar's father being involved in the Golden Age Hawkman's origin would have been written earlier, as well as justifying the Thanagarians using the Golden Age Hawks' names. This would have prevented the Continuity Snarl the Hawk characters have suffered.
- Mark Waid once said that the Hawk-snarl could have been prevented by beginning the Hawkworld miniseries with the words "ten years ago."
- Plus, for 2002's Return of Hawkman, the writers could have chosen Katar Hol to be Back from the Dead, for the JLA comic book series.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: In the original Hawkworld series, Hawkman comes off as a spoiled, whiny brat who is realizing his whole society is built on the backs of oppressed alien species but isn't really doing much about it. Then, he murders a Wingor in a frenzy, killing any shred of sympathy one might have for him. Then, the final issue sees him becoming a director of a hospital for poor downsiders, finally becoming a little more sympathetic before abandoning it all to go on a blood quest against Byth and rejoining the Wingmen to satisfy that vengeance. In fairness, he DOES go on to use his position as a Planetary Hero to politically advocate for the Downsiders while continuing this work... or at least he tries to. (He unknowingly hired Kanjar Ro, an old Justice League of America foe, to do the hands-on work, and Ro is every bit as evil as he used to be even here.

YMMV / Hawkman

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