Hawkworld (1989) #3, page 11

Dated 1989.

The three issue Hawkworld prestige format miniseries that debuted in 1989 seemed to be following two trends that were popular at the time. The first was the redefining of a longstanding character’s origin for a new generation, something that took off after Crisis on Infinite Earths with the likes of Man of Steel, Batman Year One and Perez’s Wonder Woman. The second was the post-Watchmen, post-Dark Knight trend of making characters grimmer and grittier. I think this series encapsulated all of that, but in the best possible way. Tim Truman gave Hawkman and Hawkwoman deep, intriguing back stories that I thought were missing from their prior stories. The new origin was much darker than anything previously associated with the characters, but it could have still worked without too much disruption to their existing continuity since the series took place before the characters’ arrival on Earth.

But no. For reasons that didn’t make much sense then or now, the editor decided that the events of this series would be contemporaneous with the rest of the DC universe at the time, and therefore would erase all prior appearances of Hawkman and Hawkwoman from continuity. If they had done this three years earlier in the aftermath of Crisis, that might have been okay since it could have lined up with what Byrne was doing with Superman and what Perez was doing with Wonder Woman. Instead, everything from the characters’ recent appearances in Justice League International and Power of the Atom to their long-standing membership in the Justice League of America had to be ignored or explained away as having instead been the Golden Age versions of the characters. It really mucked things up for quite a long time.

All of that being said, the artwork on this series was stunning, and I was very happy to finally pick up a page from it last year featuring Katar Hol.