Had DC taken the radical approach back in the Silver Age of making Hawkgirl the leading character and Hawkman the junior partner, would the series have sold better?
In my opinion, that's a maybe. The best Silver Age Hawkman stories were the ones that featured Hawkman and Hawkgirl as equal partners, and I think one of the reasons that sales went into the tank is because for some strange reason Hawkgirl started getting sidelined more and more frequently over time.
I know it could have been a tough sell, especially trying to sell a female superhero in the 1960's as a lead character over a male character with the same powers, but I also think that Hawkman was a little too much "generic super hero #5" in the Silver Age.
What do you Legionnaires think?
Replies
I'm not sure that's a valid comparison, or at least not an apples to apples one. The market factors are vastly different from the 1960's to the current situation for comics. Additionally, the characters are completely different as well--I like Kendra as Hawkgirl, but have to admit the aliens on Earth concept is much more appealing to me.
Historically speaking, I do think it would have been an interesting experiment from a creative standpoint to make Shayera the actual focus of the stories, and I also wonder how many people reading at the time would have noticed.
I guess the 60s were a little too backward for a female heroine headlining a book with the guy as a co-star.
Society would have collapsed!
More recently, I've said before (along the same lines as you do above) that the way to go with Kendra and Carter in the 90s/00s should have been to wipe the slate clean and start anew with a manga-style story about a normal schoolkid who finds out that the moody and ultra-macho superhero/acquaintance who keeps turning up just when she needs him, is in fact her long-lost reincarnated lover, conflicted that he's found her, but she's just a bit ...young and carefree.
You've got the whole Buffy/Twilight thing right there (creepy older guy/young girl growing into the adult world), you've got the manga audience, the Mills and Boon hook, historical flashbacks, high drama, sweeping romance, the whole package. It wouldn't be in the usual DCU continuity, or the continuity would be played down. It would be told in B&W manga sized books and have a definite story arc with a beginning, middle and end. This would be published in a parallel universe where DC actively try to engage audiences beyond the usual fanboy demographic that they know so well, and try to shoehorn every story into the one universe.
Mabye not in the '60s but I'm pretty sure that Hawkgirl is a better bet than "Savage" Hawkman, esepcially given Hawkgirl's wider exposure from the Justice League animated series. In fact, I recall going to a party with some old uni friends of my wife and one of the girls indicated that her favourite superhero was Hawkgirl due to the Justice League cartoons.
Except that sales are based on more than the title character's name. Howard Chaykin might not have been the right guy to write a female solo star.
Philip Portelli said:
But that's who DC wanted for the series. IIRC, there was some attempt to recast minor hero the Golden Eagle as sort-of a Reverse-Hawkman. Meh.
In Detective Comics #359 (Ja'67), DC introduced the Barbara Gordon Batgirl. In #369 (N'67), her fourth appearance, they published "Batgirl Breaks Up the Dynamic Duo!" where it seems that Robin leaves Batman to team with Batgirl. In the Silver Age, Batgirl was clearly older than Robin. The 70s had the pair together in Batman Family as the Dynamite Duo, though it did not last long. In fact #369 was reprinted in BF #2, I believe.
Could such a series have happened in the 60s? Doubtful. It would be very unlikely for DC to seperate Batman and Robin, though they did by Batman #217 (D'69). But to have an older Batgirl with Robin? They didn't even spin off Batwoman and the first Bat-Girl into their own series!
I really like the Fox/Anderson/Schwartz Hawkman stories, but I think they failed to find a way to make Hawkman himself a really compelling character to readers. Hawkman wasn't as interesting a detective as Batman,(1) or a Marvel-style hero who emoted intensely or had personal problems.
The Golden Age Hawkman's other gimmick, aside from his appearance and flight power, was that he used the weapons of the past to fight the criminals of the present. I haven't read Johns's Hawkman, but from what I heard about it he made very effective use of that element. The Silver Age version of the feature picked up on this element, and it was prominent in it, but arguably it was in conflict there with the Hawks' access to advanced technology.
I don't think Hawkgirl could have been depicted as a better fighter than Hawkman unless he were depicted as a screw-up (he's too better-muscled). He could have been a hero who keeps getting bailed out by his smarter female assistant, or she could have been the lead character and he her screw-up assistant. I think the latter approach would have been a turn-off to boy readers if the series were played straight (note that pre-Crisis Wonder Woman creators didn't usually manage to make Steve Trevor interesting), but both of these approaches could have been used as a basis for understated or broad comedy. The third alternative would have been a series in which Hawkgirl was the brains and Hawkman the brawn. I'm not sure these formulas would have made the series much more compelling to the contemporary audience than it was; perhaps a Marvel-style approach would have worked.
(1) "No Robin! On his cooking show, Collins stirred the bowl with his LEFT HAND! Yet when we cut him off driving, he made a rude gesture with his RIGHT HAND! So he's probably AMBIDEXTROUS! But when the MIDNIGHT MENACE fired at us with BOTH hands, he emptied his LEFT GUN FIRST! So he's likely LEFT-HANDED! And when we saw Smirkoff conducting the GOTHAM PHILHARMONIC ROCK ORCHESTRA he used his LEFT HAND!" "But Batman, Smirkoff CAN'T be the MIDNIGHT MENACE! He's afraid of the dark! He even refuses to conduct in darkened ampitheatres! And when you turned off the lights to see how he'd react, he was GENUINELY frightened!" "You forget that when I chased the MIDNIGHT MENACE into the disused tunnel he got away, although it was too dark to see! Because he wears a full-face mask, we never realised that UNDER his mask he wears INFRA-RED GOGGLES. And we know that Smirkoff has ACCESS to such goggles because his brother works at ACME LABS, which supplies advanced technology to COYOTES, which often hunt at NIGHT - and that's where WE'RE going!"
I understand the notion that the SA Hawkman was pretty boring--I've noted that problem over in the Which Characters Has DC Screwed Up The Most thread. But I don't think the answer, especially in the SA, was to turn the book and the title over to Hawkgirl. As noted above, that was not a time when women really carried titles (except maybe Lois).
DC was even scared to do a Supergirl title, and that had to have had better sales than a Hawkgirl title would have. Even Marvel, once it could expand, didn't try a female-headed book until its grand gesture in that direction with The Cat, Night Nurse, etc. And those didn't exactly set the world on fire, either.
I agree that Hawkgirl is a more interesting character than Hawkman, and I'm pretty skeptical that we'll be celebrating the 25th Anniversary Issue of Savage Hawkman (although I AM curious to see what constitutes "savage" in a DCU super-hero comic). But I think she makes a better supporting character than a lead.
As with any characters, Hawkman and Hawkgirl have some potential. But it's not readily apparent, and nobody seems able to find an approach that really holds readers for long. They make a nice visual for the team photo, and that's about it.
-- MSA
Brilliant!
DC was even scared to do a Supergirl title
Even so, while the Silver Age was still going on, Supergirl effectively evicted Superboy from ADVENTURE COMICS.
-
1
-
2
-
3
of 3 Next