Posts tagged Hawkman

IGN has a preview of Justice League of America #3 written by Geoff Johns, with art by David Finch and Richard Friend.

When I started this blog more than a year ago I had come across an episode of Alcatraz where a character was wearing a Wesley Dodds Sandman t-shirt. It was awesome and I took to the internet to find it. I couldn’t and it still can’t. But I have come across a couple of JSA related Ts. 

• Batman (1, 2, 3)
• Big Barda (1)
• Black Adam (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• Black Canary (1, 2)
• Captain Marvel, Jr. (1)
• Doctor Fate (1, 2)
• Eclipso (1)
• The Flash (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• Green Lantern (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
• Hawkman (1, 2)
• Jade (1)
• Mary Marvel (1, 2, 3)
• Mister Miracle (1)
• Power Girl (1)
• Red Tornado (1)
• Shazam (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
• Superman (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• Superman: Kingdom Come (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Wonder Woman (1)

While I have found some awesome t-shirts like the Doctor Fate one from above I still wish I could find the Sandman T. My guess is they made it for the show but if anyone has a clue of where to buy it… let me know.

DC Comics is having a four-day sale on Justice League books to celebrate the upcoming release of Injustice: Gods Among Us video game. DC sales seem few and far between. Here are my thoughts on this one. 

JLA (1997-2006) #1-9
I highly recommend these books penned by Grant Morrison. They are great Justice League stories filled with some perfect character moments. For JSA fans might want to check out issue #5 to see Damage the son of the golden age Atom botch his JLA try out.

Identity Crisis #1-7
I really enjoyed the first half of this series but didn’t care for the end as much. Brad Meltzer sets up this story as a super-hero murder mystery but unless the reader has knowledge of 1960/70s comics and beyond it’s not a mystery the reader can solve (even when looking back on the full seven issues. The art by Rags Morales is gorgeous and Meltzer does give us some great moments. I love the super-hero crime scene he sets up. Former JSA members Hawkman and Black Canary are front and center in this story. The Justice Society, The Ray, Dr. Mid-Nite, and Sir Justin, The Shining Knightas get some great and sometimes pivital moments. 

Justice League of America (2006-2001) #1-7
I had mixed feelings on Brad Meltzer’s take on the Justice League. I did really like his attempt to grow the character of Red Tornado and had mixed feelings on his use of Solomon Grundy. These issues include JSA members Black Canary, Red Tornado, and Hawkgirl. This also leads into a great crosssover with the Justice Society of America in that series.

Justice League (2011-)
This is Geoff Johns and Jim Lee’s introduction to the post-Flashpoint, New 52 DC Universe. This story shows how the main DC Universe dealt with the attack from Apokolips and it compliments the first issue of Earth 2 very nicely.

Injustice #1
I read this first issue and it is great. 

SuperHeroHype has a preview of Justice League of America #1 written by Geoff Johns with art by David Finch.

Happy President’s Day! 

The scene above is from DC Special #29 written by Paul Levitz, with art by Joe Staton, Bob Layton, and Anthony Tollin.

In prep for the upcoming launch of Justice League of America #1 Geoff Johns went on a interview rampage. I’ve picked out some of the parts where he spoke about JSA related characters. But all the interviews are great I’d suggest reading them all.

During his interview with Newsarama he had this to say about Stargirl and Hawkman.

Nrama: You had mentioned that Stargirl had played a role as a public face of the JLA? She’s a celebrity?

Johns: She is. Stargirl is a celebrity. They picked her partly because of research. She’s tested really well with audiences. And she’s a perfect spokesman for the Justice League of America. So they bring her in under the guise that she’s a hero that has this potential and is a part of this big team, but she soon finds out that they really just want her to be a figurehead, a symbol of the team in the public’s eye, and someone who will justify the team to any naysayers out there.

Nrama: I bet she’ll prove she’s a little bit more than that.

Johns: Well, when they first tell her… they go off on a mission and someone tells her, “hey, no, no, no, little girl you’re not going anywhere.” And she says, “What are you talking about?” And they say, “you’re just here for the cameras. So smile!” That drives her crazy. But we’ll also see another side to Stargirl we’ve never seen before. There’s more to her than what Amanda Waller believes.

Nrama: We’ve seen you write Hawkman before. How different will this take on him be, or is it informed quite a bit by your time on that comic?

Johns: This Hawkman… you’ll know clearly where Hawkman’s coming from — why he’s here, what he’s doing, and a bit of a mystery about him in issue #1.

Then in issue #2, you’ll see him interact with the team in a way that isextremely different than how we’ve ever seen Hawkman interact with a team before.

This Hawkman’s a different Hawkman than the one I wrote in Justice Society of America, who was a little more regal, as the reincarnated warrior. But this is an extra-terrestrial from Thanagar, who’s on Earth, and we’ll learn why. He’s an incredible, brutal character, but an incredibly complex character. To say he’s a barbarian with wings is oversimplifying, but that’s what many see him as. He’s got a bit of a haunted past, and the people he ends up connecting the most with in the JLA will surprise even him.

He said pretty much the same thing while talking to IGN.

When talking to MTV Geek about the choices he made for members in the Justice League of America he had this to say:

Batman’s great, Superman’s great, but there is something that I’ve always really enjoyed about getting into characters that you might not have looked twice at. Green Lantern, before we relaunched it with our rebirth, I think we obviously expanded the fan base of the character. Working on Justice League of America I like delving into characters like Mr. Terrific and Doctor Midnight that people might not know very well, they might have heard of, but their judgment is a little quick. 

He talked about the legacy aspect of Stargirl with CBR. He now refers to the Starman character he did before as the Starman-type character. I still think it is Sylvester Pemberton (here is my reasoning). I’m guessing he went from being Starman to Starman-type because James Robinson mentioned he is creating a Starman for Earth2 in the most recent Comic Vine Podcast he was on and DC doesn’t want duplicate characters past Flash, Green Lantern, and Atom.

Stargirl is a character that has a special place for you as you created her and you’ve written her for so long. I assume the New 52 has to change part of that, because without the JSA, the legacy aspect of that character will be somewhat different. How are you approaching her this time around?

Stargirl is the eternal optimist. She was always the shining star of the Justice Society; she was always somebody who believed in what she was doing, who wasn’t cynical and didn’t want to believe that what she’d be confronted with would make her cynical. She’s definitely coming in here with as much enthusiasm and hope as anyone, and she brings that to a team that desperately needs it. What you learn about her background is that she’s had to fight to hold on to this optimism and hope because of things that she’s confronted in the past.

We will see aspects of that legacy built into her. You’ll learn about her connection with a Starman-type character, and her stepfather, Pat Dugan, will be a part of her story. A lot of the things that were there [before the New 52] are still there, and there are also some new facets to what she does. Her role on the team at first glance is something that she thinks is wonderful, but she quickly realizes that she’s got to do more than what they want her to do.

Comic Vine asked Geoff about Courtney’s relationship with other members of the Justice League of America.

CV: Will anyone be taking Stargirl under their wing since she’s young and on a team with some members with questionable pasts?

GJ: She’s a character that really stands on her own but yes, you will see someone gravitate towards Stargirl to try to help her out.

incognitomoustache:

Interesting coincidence:

Hawkman was created during the Golden Age of comics (1939~1950).

Also active during this time was the first Atom, Al Pratt. But the extent of the two characters’ relationship was that they both were members of the Justice Society of America.

During the Silver Age of comics (1956~1970), Hawkman and the new Atom (Ray Palmer) would become best buds. Ray also happens to be a physicist.

So here we have a scan from the Golden Age, years before Ray was first introduced, where Hawkman encounters a physicist named Pratt Palmer.

Huh, that is really interesting.

If you didn’t like what Rob Liefeld was doing on The Savage Hawkman, rest assured he will not be return to the book anytime soon after this weekend’s Twitter frenzy. Bleeding Cool has documented the whole public display. 

An interesting bit came about when Rob was talking about his editorial problems on The Savage Hawkman.

Ann Nocenti, God bless her, read my Hawkman #0 and suggested that it be a dream, uncertain, something we could drag out… I said NO, the readers deserve clarity and certainty, a reward for their investment of the last 6 months. My editor entertained her notion..

So I left. Then they said they would remove him. He was gone and 3 months of trying to undue what I’d started with previous editor was gone  By July, I had a new editor, my 3rd on Hawkman in 6 months. My concern is it will be all Batman comics in 2 years as the Batman brand holds strong across the board. Batfamily accounts for 16 books.

Hawkman came together really well for all involved. I wrote 3 parts of WANTED, be interesting if those make it through. The synergy in trying to fuse the comics with the larger entertainment component can be very exciting. And rewarding. Last thing, there was one editor that had like 5 books canceled and was given a promotion? I was like huh?

This is all out of context but I hope issue #0 is not a dream. The one thing Hawkman doesn’t need to be again is complicated or confusing. Making somethings dreams sounds like a confusing. I could be wrong but you never know. I also wonder what will happen with the “WANTED” story line.