Creation Story
Gardner Fox was the most-published writer in the early Golden Age. He wrote the Justice Society. He wrote the Flash, Hawkman, the Atom, Doctor Fate, the Spectre, Sandman. The 1940 All-American Publications line was Fox’s working portfolio, and Hawkman was one of his most idiosyncratic creations: an archaeologist with reincarnation memory, an Egyptian prince’s soul in a 1940s body, anti-gravity wings made of fictional metal. The framing was unusual for Golden Age superheroes and gave the character a sense of mythic weight that most of his contemporaries lacked.
Dennis Neville designed the visual: hawk-mask helmet with a beak, wing-strap construction across the back, the chest harness with the Hawkman crest. The visual was static for forty years; Joe Kubert in the Silver Age refined the lines but did not redesign. Murphy Anderson, who took over the Silver Age book from Kubert, kept the design language intact. The Hawkman silhouette is one of the most-recognized Golden Age superhero designs that has carried into the modern era without significant redesign.
The Silver Age relaunch in 1961 was Fox’s own. Fox returned to the character with a different premise: Katar Hol of Thanagar, a planet of bird-people who use Nth metal as a flight technology. Carter Hall’s reincarnation framing was dropped. Katar Hol was a hard-science-fiction Hawkman, working as a galactic police officer. Joe Kubert drew the relaunch in The Brave and the Bold #34 (March 1961). The character migrated to a solo title (Hawkman #1, 1964) that ran 27 issues.
The two Hawkmen coexisted in DC’s multiverse until Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986) collapsed the multiverse and forced reconciliation. The reconciliations have been messy. Tim Truman’s Hawkworld (1989) tried a hard reboot of Katar Hol’s origin; Geoff Johns’s later runs tried reincarnation framing; the New 52 reset; DC Rebirth tried again. None of the post-Crisis Hawkman continuity has held across editorial regimes. The current reading uses reincarnation across all prior versions, with Carter Hall’s soul incarnating multiple times including once as Katar Hol. The reading is fragile.
Aldis Hodge played Carter Hall in Black Adam (2022) as the canonical live-action Hawkman. The film’s reception was mixed but Hodge’s performance was widely praised, and the Carter version of the character became the recognized DC live-action Hawkman through that performance. The CW Arrowverse used a Carter-and-Kendra reincarnation Hawkman pairing across multiple shows starting in 2014. The MCU has not introduced Hawkman; the character is a DC property.
The character has had a peculiar problem: he is loved by writers, valued by collectors, recognized by long-time DC readers, and yet his continuity has been so badly mismanaged across thirty years that even devoted fans cannot always remember which Hawkman is currently canonical. The Black Adam film and the Geoff Johns JSA work in the early 2000s are the strongest modern Hawkman moments because they sidestep the continuity mess by anchoring on the Carter Hall reincarnation Egyptian-prince framing without forcing readers to remember the Thanagarian intervals.
First Appearance (Carter Hall): Flash Comics #1
Hawkman does not appear on the cover of Flash Comics #1. The cover is the Flash, drawn by Sheldon Moldoff. Hawkman’s debut is on interior pages, in a Gardner Fox-Dennis Neville story that introduces Carter Hall as an archaeologist who experiences past-life memories of being Egyptian prince Khufu. The Nth metal device he uses for flight is established within the first issue. The Hawkman costume is on page from the first appearance.
For collectors, Flash Comics #1 is a top-tier Golden Age key valued primarily on the Flash (Jay Garrick) debut, with Hawkman and Johnny Thunder as additional foundational debuts in the same book. CGC 9.0 and above trades in the seven figures. Mid-grade copies (CGC 4.0 to 6.0) are six-figure books. The book is one of the foundational All-American Publications issues and one of the highest-value Golden Age comics in the market.
First Appearance of Katar Hol: The Brave and the Bold #34
The Silver Age Hawkman debuts on the cover of The Brave and the Bold #34 (March 1961). Joe Kubert draws Katar Hol in flight, with the redesigned Hawkman silhouette that became the modern Silver Age standard. Gardner Fox writes the relaunch, returning to a character he had created twenty-one years earlier with a fundamentally different premise.
The story has Katar Hol arriving on Earth from Thanagar as a galactic police officer pursuing a criminal. He partners with his wife Shayera Hol (the Silver Age Hawkgirl). The hard-science-fiction framing replaces the Golden Age archaeology premise. The Silver Age Hawkman is structurally a different character from the Golden Age Hawkman who shares the hero name and the wing visual.
For pricing, B&B #34 is a recognized Silver Age key for the Hawkman relaunch. CGC 9.4 trades in the high three to low four figures. CGC 9.6 reaches into the four figures. 9.8 is rare and trades in the mid four figures. The book sits in the second tier of Silver Age first-appearance keys. Subsequent appearances (B&B #35, #36, Hawkman #1 from 1964) are Silver Age sub-keys that trade in the three-to-low-four figure range at high grade.
