Return of Hawkman After being the reincarnated inheritor of the legend of Khufu, a space cop from the Polaris system and an avatar-driven champion for good, Hawkman’s next step had to be a doozy. Someone had to take what went before, figure out what worked and move forward. Conversely, someone had to be willing to separate the chaff from the grain and throw the waste in the fire. David Goyer and Geoff Johns were those people. Initially plotted out from the very beginning of JSA planning, the return of Hawkman faced one delay after another. At Comic-Con International in 1999, a panel of folks pointed to 2000 as the year Hawkman would return. There, they announced that Hawkman would first appear in Legend of the Hawkman, with Hawkwoman by his side. Following that, they announced that the Hawkman Archives [Silver Age] would be released as well as the action figures. Finally, they said, Hawkman will return to present day comics in the pages of JSA, in a story written by David Goyer and Geoff Johns. At the time his return was slated to begin in issue #15 of JSA and be a fourpart story that teamed the Justice League of America and the resurgent Justice Society of America. When asked which Hawkman was going to make his return, Mark Waid said, “The one that was selling Baby Ruth [candy] bars.” A blend of what was before, the “new” Hawkman that emerged in the 2000 JSA storyline, “Return of Hawkman,” carried the identity of Carter Hall. His hair, however, was no longer the blonde hue it carried in his youth in Flash Comics. Johns and Goyer did supply the story and Stephen Sadowski was onboard for the art chores.
Pencil art from “The Return of Hawkman,” provided by Stephen Sadowski. ™ and © DC Comics
With help from their returned former chairman, the JSA was able to put down Onimar Synn. With a harness for his Nth metal wings and memories of those who had been Hawks before him as well as the memories of his own past lives, a reincarnated Carter Hall returned to his place as a member of the Justice Society of America, but this time around he was more than 146
happy to let someone else chair the team, as he still had so much to figure out in this time. Chief among his concerns was the affection of Shiera. Had he not sensed her soul summon him from Limbo? Kendra, denying her path as Shiera’s host, decided that if the Hawks were to become more than crime-fighting partners, that relationship would have to grow and evolve, not be presumed as a result of destiny.