Okay, I'll admit that this
is dramatic-looking:
But this isn't really Hawkman; it's more like a
Manhawk. I mean .... chicken feet.
Really!
Transmogrifying
Northwind into this form was a
mistake. Sure, it was a dramatic move that helped pit Black Adam and Hawkman against each other, but mostly it was a sop to those readers easily-overwhelmed by the overwrought designs of Alex Ross in the vastly overrated
Kingdom Come.
But such zoonification, as I've said before, is just a dead-end for the characters involved. Seen "Charaxes" lately? And Killer Croc hasn't had a real story in years; he's just trotted out to provide a fight scene in the middle of "epics" that consist of nothing but sequential cameos by all the members of Batman's rogues gallery.
It's one thing to do that to villains; but to the team members of heroic icons...? For pity's sake, this version of Northwind can't even
talk!
At just the point when the revivified Hawkman was most in need of "team members" like Golden Eagle and Northwind to help him become a modern Dynastic Centerpiece, they were both brought back as, essentially,
enemies. They need to be brought back with Hawkman as part of a stable base of characters that (I hope) can save the muddled mess that has been made of Hawkgirl's title.
I'm not an "old fan" of Northwind; the first (and, I think, last) comic I ever saw him in his original form was
Crisis on Infinite Earths 20 years ago. In fact, I thought he was ridiculous.
But now, the idea that Hawkman has a black Scandavian half-birdmand godson seems
so ridiculous to me that it slips over into fabulousness, at least in the Silver Age sensibility inherent in the Hawkman mythos.
Or maybe I just want to laugh ever time I see ultra-alpha-male testerone-drenched Hawkman traipsing around with this feathered fey in tow...
Northwind tries desperately to convince a teammate that
the copy of Vogue in his bedroom actually belongs to Vixen...
