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A Hawkman Year In Review

Published Sat, 30 Dec 2017 08:00:07 -0600

Hawkman fan Tim Board writes,

The year 2017 was an odd year for Hawkman and Hawkgirl. The year started with both in their own soon-to-end series and the year would end with both being involved in a Batman-project with hope that it would lead to their own series in the near future.

Hawkman was halfway through the six-issue mini-series of Death of Hawkman and Hawkgirl was in Earth 2: Society as Kendra Munoz-Saunders, but both series ended in March, with Hawkman living up to the title of the series by sacrificing himself to kill Despero and Hawkgirl actually making it to the end of the Earth 2 series alive. The variant cover for Death of Hawkman No. 6 was definitely one of the highlights of the year. After that, it was very sporadic. Hawkman appeared in one panel at the end of the Captain Atom series as a member of Justice League but that didn't lead to anything else. The Back Issue series No. 97 provided one of the highlights of the year with a Bird issue, with Hawkman (drawn by George Perez) featured on the cover. It covered a lot of the history of the Hawks and some great interviews by the writers and artists of past series.

In March, news about Scott Snyder's Metal series, a Batman story centered on the Hawks' Nth Metal was announced. How much the Hawks would be involved was anybody's guess, but there was hope that this series would finally lead to the return of Hawkman and Hawkgirl to their proper place in the DC Universe. In June, the schedule for the Metal series was announced and there was an issue called "Hawkman Found" discretely hidden at the bottom of the list. It was only a one-shot, but it was definitely a step in the right direction.

During the summer, the trade paperbacks 'Hawkman by Geoff Johns Book One' and 'Death of Hawkman' were released. This was promising news, giving Hawk fans hope that DC Comics was preparing for the return of Hawkman by releasing the two series in a volume. In addition, 'Earth 2: Society Volume 4' and 'DC Bombshells Volume 4' with Hawkgirl were released during the summer as well.

The Metal series started in June and brought a whole new theory to the story of Hawkman and Hawkgirl. While the series centered on Batman, Scott Snyder brought back Hawkman and Hawkgirl as characters of vital importance to the DC Universe. Kendra Saunders appeared for the first time since 2010 as Lady Blackhawk, and Carter Hall returned in the one-shot Hawkman Found by Jeff Lemire. The issue was a beautiful comic with the art done by Bryan Hitch, Kevin Nowlan, Alex Sinclair and Jeremiah Skipper. The cover by Liam Sharpe and the variant cover by Jim Lee were also stunning.

On the TV side of things, Hawkman showed up in just two episodes of Justice League Action during the year, while Hawkgirl made an appearance in nine episodes of DC Superhero Girls. Syfy also made an exciting announcement for their new series "Krypton" starting in 2018. Hawkwoman was announced as a character for the series. They still have not announced the actress who will play her part or to what extent she will be involved yet.

As for the Hawkworld groups on Facebook, Twitter and Facebook, the membership continued to grow. The Facebook group passed 4500 members, with over 120 professional writers and artists joining the group and some of them sharing their work at times. The Twitter group grew to over 3500 followers, and the Instagram group also passed 1200 followers, with over 1200 pictures of Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Many comic sites gave Hawkworld a shout out as well, such as Bleeding Cool, 13^th Dimension, Comics Nexus and Geek Genie. The AngryGeeks Show on YouTube was also a great supporter of Hawkworld this year.

The Year 2017 did not bring Hawk fans a long-awaited new series, but Hawkman and Hawkgirl continued to make their presence known in many places over the course of the year. With the Metal series wrapping up in the spring, there is hope that an announcement will be made at last for a new monthly comic featuring our favorite Winged Warriors. Hawkman and Hawkgirl are getting ready to come back bigger than ever so stay tuned to an exciting 2018!