The Black Dragon versus Hawkman

Okay, let's see what Hawkman is up against in his assignment to stymie the Black Dragon's pl--

WT-Flying-F? BWHAHAHAHA

Okay, even for a Golden Age JSA story, that is exceptionally ridiculous.  And defiant of more than one law of aerodynamics.  

It's the windows that really sell it, though.  Eat your heart out, Iwao Takamoto.

Pictured: A Nearby State.

To save time, the injured inventor of the Giant Aero Prop straight just tells Hawkman where the villains are. Naturally, they holed up in the same kind of weird castle-tower-monastery place that Hawkman stories often take place in, because his uppity creative team were always going for that faraway Prince Valiant vibe.

That's how Hawkman became a weird, occult thing with mysterious artifacts from distant temples rather just a shirtless gym bro in an anti-grav belt and a downy security blanket.

And just in time, too, as Japanese Klunk is explaining how the Giant Aero Prop works.

"Whatdidhesay, whatdidhesay?"

Hawkman cracks some heads, as is his wont.

He snatches the Master Plans for the propellor, hurls some Black Dragon goons to their doom, then resolves to take the propellor itself.

"And just when I thought I'd never have a more absurd means of flying than the one I regularly use!"

I believe that's comic book Japanese for "uh-oh".

"... so are the Days of Our Lives." 
< insert haunting theme>

But like Icarus before him, Hawkman is felled by his own hubris.

Those bullets can harm you. 
Your wings are not a shield of steel!

This is why Batfink got 100 cartoon episodes and Hawkman three.

The Black Dragoneers craft a fiendish plot: tie Hawkman to the propellor, then fly the device until he falls to his doom.

Hey, I said it was a fiendish plot, not an intelligent one.

Yes, you heard that right. Their plan is to kill a man whose ONLY ability is flying unaided by tossing him from a great height. 

Gives you a clearer sense of why they lost the war, doesn't it?

Despite the obvious flaw in their plan, it goes pretty well.

With Hawkman apparently disposed of, the Black Dragoneers whirl away to chop the tops of off NYC's skyscrapers.

Would it had KILLED them to add "It's a plane?"
That saying was ALREADY well known by this point, believe it or not.

Naturally, Hawkman does NOT fall to his death because not-falling is his superpower, and he wings to New York to stop the giant propellor with the aid of some hawks.

I guess they gave up on the picturesque but probably self-defeating idea of lawnmowering the New York skyline.

Naturally, since this is NYC those are Peregrine Falcons, but when you are Hawkman, whose girlfriend kicks more ass than he does, you are not fussy about what help you can get.

The birds stop the bombs off-panel, while Hawkman, wrapped in his comforting security blanket, confronts his captors.

One of whom, despite being "An Oriental", is clearly an avid student of Western philosophy's Aristotle.

Hawkman delegates the disposition of the de-planed Dragons to his horde of hawks.

Sorry, but "peregrine falcons" is insufficiently alliterative.

Well, at least we escaped the preposterous sight of mid-air lawnmowering.

I guess I spoke too soon.

So much for Hawkman. Buy some No-Doz pills for tomorrow, when we join the garishly dressed Sandman as he searches for the (re-)inventor of Greek Fire!

He Controls the Vertical

Voice acting messes with my head.

It changes how you see the world when it hits you that animated Hawkman 

"Let's get 'em, Skreel!"

is also 

The Outer Limits' "Control Voice".

More generally, actor Vic Perrin.

SKREEL!

If you are not familiar with the Filmation Cartoons versions of the DCU from the 1960s, you deserve to be.  I have mentioned them many times here, and they feature a lot of iconic characters (mostly notably, Superman, Batman, Aquaman, but also Green Lantern, The Flash, The Atom, Hawkman, and The Teen Titans).   

No Fleisher Studios, Filmation was a pretty small-time outfit. It famously bluffed its way into getting the chance to put many of DC's icons on the small screen.  So they were not trying to make the job any more difficult with "new and innovative takes" on the characters.

They had enough trouble with the basics.

The Superman and Batman cartoons were quite traditional, with the usual cast of supporting characters and villains.

Although the new recurring Superman villain, the Warlock, filled the obvious but empty niche of a villainous user of magic, one of Superman's few weaknesses.

Aquaman cartoons had the basic elements (him; the red-head; the big-headed purpled-eye freak; Atlantis; aqua-telepathy), but threw in a new power (the aqua-projectiles Arthur would whip and hurl) and a biologically inaccurate Troublesome Pet.

A man being perfectly amphibious is one thing, but... a pinniped?!
Patently absurd!

The Flash and the Atom were their usual selves.

As was Green Lantern.

But Hawkman? Now there's a different story!  Even at this point in his comic book history, Hawkman was clearly too byzantine and muddled a concept to be translated as-is by Filmation.

He was what you might call a fixer-upper.

So Filmation simplified that messy concept with its metaphorical flattening iron.

Nobody flattens quite as thoroughly as Filmation.

Carter Hall had black hair.

Just as he did in comics throughout most of the Silver and Bronze Ages (although most people have forgotten that and think of him as brown-haired, which happened in the late Bronze Age, for some reason).

Hawkman flew.

That part's baked in.

And his costume was a Filmation simplification of his Silver Age one.

Except for that nifty claw; more on that later.

But after that, Filmation took liberties.  Hawkgirl was nowhere in evidence, nor were lesser but still steady crime-fighting colleagues like Commissioner Cool-as-a-cucumber Emmett. Instead Hawkman supporting cast was boiled down into one person: the mysterious Prof. Barnes, a.k.a. The Phantom Stranger of Science.

Prof. Barnes.  
Friend. Father-figure. Authority-figure. Consultant. Colleage. Confidante. Lover?
Prof. Barnes is all things to all people.
Prof. Barnes is the Alpha and the Omega.

Hawkman was now an alien (specifically, a "scientific genius from a far-off world" to quote the cartoon's intro).

The cartoon having been made in 1967, Carter Hall being an alien was new IN COMICS, as introduced when George Kashdan took over the title late that year.

George Kashdan also wrote Hawkman for Filmation. Whether the cartoon or the comic is the chicken or the egg I do not know for sure, but suffice it to say that George Kashdan decided Hawkman was alien and made it happen both on pulp and on screen.

Based on the timing, I'm guessing that Kashdan made that change in the Filmation cartoon first, then changed the comic to match as soon as he got the chance. So, the entirety of the idea that Hawkman is an alien (and ALL the decades of lore that comes from that) is rooted in Filmation's three Hawkman cartoons. 

Hawkman was no longer an archaeologist.

Which is for the best. Since Hawkman is ever the eye of a hurricane of objects destruction, he shouldn't be allowed with a mile of ANY museum.

The only reason Carter Hall was ever an archaeologist was to enable his ancient weapon fetish, so that was all wisely jettisoned.

Filmation Carter Hall was, in fact, a "brilliant scientist" (and presumably inventor of all his wild weaponry).  

Working with Prof. Barnes, because who WOULDN'T, if they could?

He worked at a "vast lab complex on the outskirts of Midway Center." Hey, they kept Hawkman's fictionopolis!

If I wrote Hawkman, "Vast Labs" would be the brand name of the place.

Gone is any explanation for his powers and abilities.  Are they a function of his being an alien, of his scientific weaponry, or both?

MAGNO-VISISON! RADAR VISION!
What are they? What do they do? Are they intrinsic to Hawkman's alien race or additive of his helmet?
Who knows; who cares? This is Filmation, people.

His cool-looking claw has modes, like "Electro-Claws", "Destructo-Claw", "Chemo-Claw" and "Repello-Ray"!

I guess he shops with Electrawoman and DynaGirl.

Or maybe Space Ghost (who first appeared the year before).

His wings appear to be nigh-indestructible as a defense, just like Bat-Fink.

"Your bullets cannot harm me;
my wings are like a shield of steel."

Even without space-ship, or even A SHIRT, he can fly unaided in the absolute-zero vacuum of space.

Where wings are especially helpful.

He has a kick-*** spaceship.

The Hawkship, 'natch.

And none of Aquaman's Tusky the Hapless Walrus BS.  Hawkman has a kick-*** animal companion: Skreel.

It really cannot be overstated just how bad-*** Skreel is.

He is the scourge of all fey alien dictators.

Yeah, and don't bother going for the gun.  Just be glad you still have EYES.

In fact, so awesome is Skreel I had to customize him into my Heroclix collection as a worthy sidekick to Hawkman:

If you 'read" Heroclix, you can see just how wicked that dial is for only 15 points.

His dial is borrowed from some minor Marvel character. And, as you would expect from a bird, he gets more dangerous the more you tick him off.

"Look, buddy, I GET it, I really do; but I am running out of excuses for why the crooks we turn in have no eyes."

No wonder Hawkman wears a hood to protect his eyes.