Hawkman (Katar Hol)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Katar Hol is a DC Comics superhero, the Silver Age Hawkman. Created by Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert, he first appeared in The Brave and the Bold # 34 (Feb-Mar 1961).
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[edit] History
[edit] Silver Age version
Katar Hol was an honored police officer on his homeworld of Thanagar. His father was Paran Katar, renowned ornithologist and inventor. Among Paran Katar's various creations are the antigravity ninth metal and their wings.
When Katar Hol was eighteen, an alien race called the Manhawks invaded Thanagar and began looting the planet. Paran sent young Katar Hol to infiltrate their nest dressed as a bird and bring back information on the aliens. Using this information, Paran created a hawk-like battle suit containing advanced technology like his "ninth metal". Katar used this hawk-suit and Paran's advanced weaponry to drive the Manhawks away from Thanagar.
That, however, was not the end of the problem. Some Thanagarians had learned the concept of stealing from the Manhawks. Due to the amount of crime, the Thanagarian government created a police force. In honor of Paran Katar and his achievements, the new police force began using his hawk-suit and equipment. Paran headed this new police force, named the Hawk-Police (or Wingmen), and his son became one of the first recruits.
Katar soon became one of the most skilled of the Hawk-Police. Soon he was teamed up with Shayera Thal to track and apprehend the Rainbow Raiders. A few weeks later, Katar proposed to Shayera and the two got married, working together as partners-for-life in the Hawk-Police.
After ten years of marriage, the pair were sent to Earth in 1959 to capture the shape-shifting criminal Byth. Following this mission, they elected to remain on Earth to work with authorities in Midway City in the United States and learn human police methods. The two adopted covers as a pair of museum curators, Carter and Shiera Hall, and acted publicly as the heroes Hawkman II and Hawkgirl II (later Hawkwoman).
Katar gained a variety of unique villainous opponents such as the Shadow-Thief, Matter Master, Ira Quimby (I.Q.), Lion-Mane, Kanjar Ro, the Fadeaway Man, and the Gentleman Ghost. His supporting cast consist of Commissioner George Emmett; Mavis Trent, museum naturalist and diorama artist who flirts with Katar; Joe Tracy, the museum's publicist; his commanding officer Andar Pul; and a large red hawk named Big Red who lives nearby Hawk Valley.
Katar joined the Justice League of America in the early 1960s, where he befriended the Atom and frequently sparred with Green Arrow with whose "question authority" outlook the lawman frequently disagreed.
Hol left the Justice League for a time when Thanagar was hit by the Equalizer Plague, which caused all Thanagarians to change so that their physical and mental talents, and even their heights, became the same. With the help of the JLA, he was eventually able to reverse the effects of the plague.
However, in the wake of the plague, Thanagar adopted an expansionist outlook, and went to war with the planet Rann, which orbits Alpha Centauri. This forced Katar and Shayera to choose to fight for or against their own planet, and they elected to oppose Thanagar, becoming exiles on Earth. Around this time, Shayera herself joined the JLA, and took the name Hawkwoman.
Following the truce between Thanagar and Rann, Thanagar began to secretly try to take over the Earth. Hol opposed their efforts in a furtive "secret war" for several years.
After Crisis on Infinite Earths, Hawkman II (and Hawkgirl II/Hawkwoman) was wiped out of DC Comics continuity. However this elimination did not take place immediately, causing several continuity uncertainties.
The Silver Age Katar Hol has made some appearances in out-of-continuity series as Silver Age-toned Justice, Alex Ross's Secret Origins and Liberty and Justice, and Legend of the Hawkman miniseries.
[edit] Post-Hawkworld version
Following Crisis, Katar Hol was rebooted in the prestige format miniseries Hawkworld by Timothy Truman. A regular ongoing series of the same name followed.
In this new version Katar Hol was a young police officer on the planet Thanagar, and a child of a privileged family. But Thanagar was a planet which conquered and mined other worlds for their resources to maintain its high standard of living, and Hol realized that this was wrong. He rebelled against the system, and was sent into exile. However, he managed to escape and uncover and defeat the renegade police captain Byth, who had gained shape-shifting abilities. As a result, he was reinstated in the force and given a new partner, Shayera Thal - Hawkwoman - a young woman from a lower class of society.
Just after Fel Andar left Earth, Katar and Shayera were sent to Earth, where they remained for some time fighting both human and alien criminals in places like Chicago's Netherworld. Dubbed by the press as Hawkman III, Katar and Shayera, Hawkwoman II, had a tempestuous working relationship, and eventually Shayera broke away from Katar, who continued on alone.
In one adventure, Katar discovers his parentage when he is reunited with his estranged mother, a Cherokee woman named Naomi (meaning "Faraway Woman"). From her, he learns that his father, under the alias "Perry Carter" came to Earth during World War II, where he got the inspiration of the Wingmen from his then friends Carter Hall and Shiera Sanders, and both Paran and Naomi eloped.
Katar Hol was killed in the Zero Hour, event, merged with Carter and Shiera Hall in a new Hawkman version, which briefly created the "hawk god" creature -- who adventured for a brief time and later went insane and was banished to limbo.
