C.A.W.!

If Aquaman can fight an Acronym of Evil (the ridiculously named O.G.R.E., the Organization for General Revenge and Enslavement), then Hawkman can, too!

In the mid 1960s, American culture was caught in the "spy craze" (James Bond, Man from UNCLE, Get Smart, etc.), and, while more stolid heroes like Superman and Batman were immunely set in their story-telling ways, lesser lights like Aquaman and Hawkman were refreshingly subject to such fads.

And so, Hawkman and Hawkgirl worked with the CIA to fight... C.A.W.! The Criminal Alliance of the World had agents dressed like crocodiles and other Egyptian animal avatars, faux magus staffs that shot out colored flames (oooOOO!) or ill-defined "rays" (how very Marvel!), and a convoluted plan to conquer the world by acquiring the scientific secrets of the ancients.

Personally, I'm not sure I'd found a billion-dollar worldwide criminal organization to acquire the scientific secrets of people who never quite mastered indoor plumbing, particularly if I already had a staff that shot out colored flames (I mean, what could be more impressive than that?). But that mix of ancient archeology and imagery, high-tech gadgetry, and the organized cops versus organized crime dynamic was the crux of the attractive strangeness of the Silverage Hawkman.

Don't laugh at C.A.W., man! Remember the teleporters on the old JLA satellite? Where do you think they came from? C.A.W., buddy, C.A.W. When the Hawks confiscated the remains of the Twin Dogs of Sebek, an ancient teleportation device, Thanagarian scientists were able to use them to crack the secret of teleportation, a technology they shared with the JLA. [Did Rann ever give the JLA a zeta beam, or even a jet pack? No.]

C.A.W. had anti-grav guns, acid-bubble bazookas, explosive particlizers, and protonic amplifiers. Hot dang! Laugh at my crocodile-head mask, bub, and I'll dissolve your arms with acid bubbles, explode the particles of your legs, and float your screaming torso out over the Pacific. Then I'll go to your house and repeatedly amplify your wife's protons, pal, so don't mess with C.A.W.!

Even with all that going for them, C.A.W., like O.G.R.E., only appeared in 3 or 4 Silverage stories. *Sniff*!

This is the part of the post where you expect me to call for the return of C.A.W. Wrong! C.A.W. has already returned. JSA All-Stars #2 (July 2003) revealed that they were still around and still pestering the Hawks...

Clearly, it's C.A.W. who's hired all the old Hawk-villains to kill him. Yes. Clearly.

Talking Head Week #4: Going Head to Head!

Punjab the Tailer having explained why CAW attacked the Midway Museum and the whole Talking Head/Solar Lamp schtick, the Hawks use the Absorbascon to determine the location of each.

The Absorbascon is sort of a search engine that plugs directly into your brain, somehow sucking in the collected knowledge of humanity and finding the piece you ask for.  Just like Bing.  But it can be a hassle to sort through it all, particularly for people who spend most of the day hitting people with maces while dressed in animal-themed dominatrix gear.  So basically, despite having a device that can tell or teach them anything, the Hawks use it only when it speeds the plot along.  I would make fun of them more for this were it not for the fact that most of us use the internet in exactly the same spotty way.

The Absorbascon whispers sweet somethings into your era, like an extremely informative Latin lover.


Can you imagine how this makes poor Batman feel? "Just give me FIVE MINUTES with it. This is Batman, BEGGING you."  Think of what a time-saver it could be for the World's Greatest Detective: "Where is the man who killed my parents? Who is the Joker?  What was Killer Moth thinking? And what about...Naomi?!" 

I'm sure it only works on superior Thanagarian brains or some such.  If you are wondering why they don't use the Absorbascon to simply ask where the damned lost treasure of the Nine Unknowns is, which is the reason they are looking for the Talking Head to begin with...

well, then, I'm sorry, you are too sensible to read Hawkstories.  Go back to something more logical, like the Martian Manhunter.

Speaking of logical, let's examine the Hawk's choices of weapons as they head off on their separate adventures.  Because every Hawkstory is really about:

• choosing their weapons carefully and out loud, 
• using them only once with limited effectiveness, then 
• abandoning them so as to bash their opponents heads on a rock or a tree.  

All of which makes them perfect foils for CAW, who pretty much have the same M.O.

"I'll take Paris for my beat, while you hightail it to nab those Ratzis at the Dunkirk munitions factory!" Poor Hawkman; still thinks he's in a Justice Society story.

The Thermodetector is a high-tech heat-based magnifying glass formerly known as Prince; the medieval war mace (as opposed to the less popular PEACE maces made by Nerf) has been tricked out with disguised sci-fi tech, which completely spoils the whole point of using ancient weaponry. Hawkgirl demurely picks a delicate lady-like spiked caestus.  And no bra.  Hawkgirl never forgets not to wear a bra.

Hawkman arrives in Paris (right past the Eiffel Tower, because the Hawks are nothing if not showy) to the Montmarte Marche Aux Puces, where he discovers CAW has already beaten him to the Talking Head. It was sitting in a flea market basement as unsellable crap (which without the solar lamp to power it, it pretty much is).  The key thing to note is that CAW could have just bought it for a few francs.  But instead, they stole it.  Because they are not the Buyers Alliance of the World, you know.

"Strike back while the clue's hot." is an old Thanagarian saying. Weird people. If you hadn't already guessed that from the headgear.

But Hawkman was smart (?) enough to have brought along his Thermodetector, which allows you to trail the heat of, well, of things you want to find and not the heat of things you don't.  

I am sparing you Hawkman's three-panel lecture on how the Thermdetector works, and you are grateful to me for that.

A ... a CAR?!  Is there no END to their continental deviltry?!

Purely through heat-detectiong, Hawkman catches up with the CAW goons, who, because they are criminalizing in Europe, are driving a convertible, which is pretty much exactly the wrong thing to protect you from a winged flying guy.

Nothing says 'comic book getaway car' better than a bright yellow convertible.

Five francs just to buy the damned Talking Head would have fixed this, goons.  And there would have been nothing Hawkman could have done to stop you.  It's very CAW.  Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.

What IS it with you, Pikachumobile?

Naturally, the CAW goons have another one-time high-tech hand-held weapon at their literal disposal.

"Fortunately, I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency."

Naturally, it doesn't work.

But where the sci-fi gun fails, the car top succeeds:

Did I mention before that the Hawks don't do dignity?  Because they don't.

It's kind of a wonder Carter Hall and Hal Jordan didn't hang out together more.  They're both clumsy meat-heads with sci-fi weaponry.  They should form a club.  Then get hit with it.

CAW goons, defeated by a blunt object. AND his mace. 

Right after Hawkman klonks one of these goons, the other decides to get sassy. VERY sassy.

Gurl, puh-lease.  A rear attack is NOT going to defeat Hawkman, Mr. Whipple.

If I had a franc for every time I've seen this sort of scene on the streets of Paris,

 I could buy a Talking Head!

The dialog seems to imply that this guy intends to ...throw Hawkman off a bridge?  Not the best plan.

Obviously.

So, Hawkman, with just a bit of fuss, has recovered the Talking Head.  And then he asks the question we've all been wondering...

"I wonder how Hawkgirl is making out?" 

With the mask still on, Hawkman; no doubt.

Which we will see for ourselves tomorrow.

Talking Head Week #2: Mid-Day Melee at Midway Museum!

Now, thanks to enough acres of exposition to earn us three credits at community college, we know a great deal about the backstory of this Talking Head.  

Of course, we still have no idea how it works, what information it has and how it got in there, how it talks, or, well, anything useful.  But this is a Hawkman story.  So, for example, if you're told two identical ancient Egyptian statues of black pharaoh hounds have the power of and the hold the secret to teleportation, then, by the Veil of Valmorra, you darned well better just believe it.

But, meanwhile, as the last several thousand years of history were rolling by, a patient man in questionable headgear lurks in the shadows at the Midway Museum...

See, Shiera? This is the kind of stuff that happens when you share that much time and personal info on Tinder.  

While "That Bearded Guy the Hawks Don't Remember from that Wild Night in Punjab" lurks in hope of running into the Hawks, CAW goons also show up at the museum, emerging from their inconspicuous getaway limo, armed with futuristic weaponry and the fashion sense of an '80s aerobics instructor...

For a Hawkman story, that actually kind of makes sense. I mean, you know...terrorist-sense. 

I suppose it's easier for CAW goons to rob a museum in the broad daylight, for some reason.  I can imagine the meeting...

"The Division Head has delegated us the task of a creating a distraction for the Hawks with a decoy robbery at the Midway Museum!  We'll break in and steal something under cover of night." 

"We can't! That requires a lock-pick and a flashlight and black ski-masks!  All we have are incapacitator rayguns and our Captain Scarlet cosplay outfits."  

"Then noon it is!"

"Fortunately we caught them unawares in the midst of the Museum staff's annual frug contest!" 

Recognizing the CAW agents (because, who wouldn't in those outfits?) Punjab the Trailer sets off the security alarm in hopes of stopping them.

The 'tinkle!' really makes this panel, doesn't it?

The Hawks are peeved that (yet again) an emergency in their own museum has interrupted their mask-and-gear-time sexy-play.

 "Sigh! Why does the alarm always ring when you're in the sex club?"

The CAW goons seem quite pleased when the Winged Wonders show up right away.  Apparently the Hawks reputation as "instant action" precedes them.  Ahem.

"Ha! Let's see how they handle my Tri-Tronged Spinach Vermicelli Tornado Gun!"

This is CAW's M.O., by the way.  They use an endless array of hapax-phenomenal high-tech gadgets.  They use them to steal ancient treasures.  Ancient treasures that they can use or sell to make...more gadgets.  It makes sense to them, at least.  I think they all grew up in Central City or something.

Fortunately for Hawkman, the weapon's Anti-Matter Whirly Currents (pat. pend.) move at about the speed of a zamboni.

"Whirly Currents" would be a great quartet name, don't you think?

That's Hawkman's M.O. btw.  If you're any fan of Silver Age Hawkman you'll know that, despite being an extraterrestrial lawman from a highly scientific world of omnipotent gadgetry, he always fights high-tech attacks with ancient earth weaponry and low-tech combat.  There is some sort of in-house excuse for this (like, the Hawks use primitive earth weapons to fight crime in order to avoid any of their otherwordly god-tech falling into the wrong hands), but we all know it was just a way of reconciling the Golden Age Hawkman's ancient Egyptian origins with the Silver Age love of sci-fi.  

As a result, Hawkman shatters the Whirly Current Pistol with a stone hatchet and the CAW agent with a right hook.

Dang, I hate to admit it, but...yeah. Hawkman's really hot. And not in a nice way.

Meanwhile, as Hawkman is doing his rough trade act like he's in a Dark Alley Media porno, Hawkgirl is attacked by the Pink Bubble Gun. And, yes, I spelled that correctly.

Little-known Hawk Fact: Dr. Seuss used to work in CAW's R&D department.  

You know what makes it easy to fight the Hawks? The fact that they are always flying toward you at full speed in a closed environment.  Heck, even Green Arrow and that kid he hangs out with could defeat them by just holding up boxing glove arrows, without even firing them or anything.

Anyway, in true Hawk-style, Shiera just grabs an ancient and probably priceless shield and shoves it into Mr. Bubble's face at, oh, I'm guessing about 60 mph.  I'd hate to see how the Hawks would treat valuable antiques if they weren't MUSEUM CURATORS.

The Top Ten Places Safer for Your Priceless Artifact than the Midway Museum:

1. The Firepits of Apokolips
2. Barry Allen's lab during a storm
3. In a Robin costume
4. The Human Bomb's backpack
5. The Globe atop the Daily Planet
6. Hal Jordan's bed
7. An Alan Moore story
8. The Arkham Asylum Rec Room
9. Solomon Grundy's toy box
10. In a Haley's Circus trapeze act

  

So that's it for the CAW agent, right? Not so fast...!

From the Dick Dastardly footwear collection

What a heel! How will our pinioned pretty prevent those piercing projectiles from perforating her plumed personage?!

Find out tomorrow, same Hawk-time, same Hawk-channel.

Talking Head Week #5: One Night in Bangkok

In search of the solar lamp to power the talking head, in flies Hawkgirl to Bangkok (Oriental setting), guided by the Absorbascon (which I imagine now using the voice of Murray Head).

But aren't we all guided by the Absorbascon, in some way...?

Unlike Hawkman, she beats the CAW men to the target.  Why? 

"We'll never make it in time to meet Dad & Daphne at Cafe Nervosa!"

Because pesky golden-skinned natives are slowing down the CAW men, who are oh-so-peeved that their schedules (pronounced in the British manner) are thrown off, because these NATIVES have the nerve to have a different culture with different priorities, such as protecting their territory.  Savages!

"You know, I was SO disappointed we didn't get the Montmarte assignment, 

I hear you can pick up ancient talking bronze heads at the Marche Des Puces for a song!"

"NILES! Will you kindly concentrate? You almost missed one."

Why, it's all Frasier and Niles can do to pick them off with their Wonder Weapons (tm).  How TEDIOUS crime can be.

Meanwhile, Hawkgirl literally drops into the monastery from the sky and says "Give me the Ancient Thingy!" To which the monks reply, not, as one might expect, "YAAH WTF A TALKING BIRDWOMAN WITH BIG EARRINGS!?!?", but rather, "No. Bugger off."  All that meditation makes you a cool customer, you know.

"Pinioned princess"? *snort*!

Note also that the Lamp now has acquired a name: "Deva". It's pretty clear; the writers make this stuff up AS the panels are being drawn, I'm convinced.  Because otherwise they would notice stuff like Punjab not having a name or any clear connection to anything other than his role as Exposition Fairy or the fact that the lamp we've been talking about throughout the story suddenly has a name, while the Taking Head (which really SHOULD have a name) does not.  That's the equivalent of "this is my computer. which I call 'my computer'.  And this is its battery, which I call Miss Sparklejuice."

Speaking of Miss Sparklejuice, can you think of any female hero in comics LESS appropriate to call 'princess' than friggin' Hawkgirl, who wears a caestus and wields a mace?  More like a broad-winged broad, if ya ask me.

So our 'pinioned princess' does the heroic thing to get the Deva Lamp: she lies.

Gotta hand it to the writers, though, for knowing about stupas and Gautama before there was an internet.  Maybe they used the Absorbascon.

"Of course I trust you, Winged Woman. You're white and have the creepy unnatural eyes of an avian predator, much like the T-1000."

Hawkgirl bullshits her way to finding the Monk's Lost Ancient Thingy; she knows where it is because the Absorbascon tells her, not because of the lamp.  She just deceives the superstitious simpleton of a monk. Which is technically much nicer than stealing the damned thing, and legal.

Semi-dickish.  But still legal.

You'd think with a sci-fi device that can tell them where any lost ancient thingy is located, the Halls would be MUCH more famous archaeologists than they are.  I think they just use it to replace all the ancient weaponry they break or upgrade in every story.  Or maybe there's a conspiracy against them lead by Zahi Hawass. Do NOT trust that guy.

Apparently, in Bangkok you'll find a God in every golden cloister.

"Ha, gullible monk, satisfied to tears with your pointless reliquaries, while I hold the power of the sun in my hand! You are MINE, Miss Sparklejuice!"

Meanwhile, Frasier and Niles take a practical (and wholly dickish) approach to Lost Ancient Thingy acquisition:

"Ooo, good POINT, Fraiser!  The Crane Boys will solve this mystery yet!"

Sigh, "This protonic amplifier will blast her out of existence!"  And NOT the Deva Lamp? Or will it just fall to the ground and shatter into a thousand pieces?  Tsk. Boys and their Wonder Weapons!  This is why CAW can't have nice things.

Naturally, since a CAW man just said she can't possibly avoid the protonic amplifier beam, Hawgirl avoids the protonic amplifier beam.  The Absorbascon, apparently, has an anti-CAW-trap app that warns her just in time.  'In - three - hundred - feet, take a - starboard turn."

That's it; from now on my iPhone is now called a 'portable Absorbascon'.  

Much like Google maps, however, information from the portable absobascon takes too long to unscramble.  So Hawkgirl puts on her tricked out caestus.

"Okay, boys; wait'll you feel my pankrationic amplifier!"

The...the Humanliminator? FINE, Hawkwriters, fine. YOU WIN.

Having used her sci-tech caestus to detect the CAW men, Hawkgirl flies straight into a giant now-invisible tree at 60 mph, snaps her neck, and dies, while her uncaring port'absorbascon intones "you made a -wrong - turn back there."

No, not really. That's what SHOULD have happened. Or Hawkgirl should have used the nasty spikes on her science-caestus to pull fatal holes in the CAW men's face. Instead she just tosses Niles around like a ragdoll and whacks his head against a nearby tree at 60mph.  

Niles; less crowing, more shooting.

"Oh! This isn't like Maris's judo class at ALL!"

It bears repeating: Hawkgirl is always a bad-ass and will **** you up.

90% of CAW's budget goes to either R&D or goon elocution classes.

Odd. That Wonder Weapon seems to have had no effect on Hawkgirl at all.  I mean unless it's a Grapevine Gun that makes you do line-dances uncontrollably.  Wave 'em in the air like ya just don't care, 'princess'!

Regardless, it doesn't stop Hawkgirl from zokking Frasier.

ZOK is the sound of Hawkgirl kicking your ass, btw.

Hm. Is there perhaps more to the Grapevine Gun than we realize...? We shall see.

Taking Head Week #7: CAW and the Unsatisfying Conclusion

So the Hawks have rescued the Head McGuffin and Miss Sparklejuice from obscurity (and CAW) and are heading to return them to the Nine Unknowns, the people irresponsible enough and lazy enough to have lost them two thousand years and never looked for them or made replacements.  Great idea.

"Aren't we tandomly wonderful?!"  

The Hawks are totally That Couple You Hate On Facebook

The hidden sanctuary of the Nine Unknowns, unhidden by the Hawks' portable absorbascon.  

Wow. There actually are nine of them.  That's a level of fidelity I wasn't expecting in a Hawkstory.

First of all, the Hawks are NOT humans.  Second of all they are in mid-air; so they haven't set foot anywhere yet.  Third, what the HECK are you wearing?!  

Why not just take them to the Midway museum? 

They'd be broken within a week.

The Nine Unknowns take the Hawks on a tour of their sanctuary, because, although nameless like EVERYONE else in this story, they are still polite hosts, which is impressive since they haven't had any guests in 50 years.

Hey, that means... someone visited them in 1914. Any guesses?  A young Sonny Blandish?  Arne Saknussen? Vandal Savage? Enemy Ace?  Yeah; probably Enemy Ace.  Hans got around.

The spinning indic-arrow at the left of the machine really makes this panel.  Also, I have zero doubt that there's almost always strange radiation in Hawkgirl's body, just on principle.

The Hawks are so constantly afflicted with tingling sensations for some reason or other, that they don't even think twice about it anymore.  All those special pleasure-enhancing lubricants, no doubt.

Figuring that the radiation was just CAW's way of trying to find the sanctuary, the Nine Unknowns (or at least The One Unknown Who Talks A Lot) turns on the sonic shower and purges the Hawks of the strange radiation.  

It's a lot like the Decontamination Room of Sexiness on Enterprise, isn't it?

It's beneath the GANGES?!  Um, yeah.  No, thanks. NO treasure is worth going into the Ganges River.

As the now radiation-free Hawks return to Midway City, they are tailed by an evil limo.

Why would you need to tag the Hawks with special radiation to track them? Is there anyone easier to spot on earth?!?

And who is IN that evil limo? Why, the leaders of CAW:

Shadrach, Mishach, and Abednego.

Uh-oh, they have the power of serialocution. That's dangerous.

That's some multicultural WORLD evil, right there.  A fedora, a fez, AND a turban. I'd be more impressed if I didn't know Jervis Tetch could kill these guys in 60 seconds.

Their back-up plan is a pretty clever fake-out, actually, The REAL target (um, currently) is the portable absorbascon Hawkgirl is carrying, which can tell them anything damn thing the plot requires. 

Which is WAY more useful than a Universal Death Ray, 

by the way.  What are going to do with a ray that kills everybody?  

Is this the point where I mention that the absorbascon SITS IN THE HAWK'S OFFICE at the museum all day and could be stolen easily?  No. No, it is not.

So Manny, Moe, and Jack press the button that should kill the Hawks and...nothing happens. Because of course the Hawks have been purged of the offending radiation.

"Next time, Gadget!"

What an impossibly byzantine plot.  No wonder CAW hasn't taken over the world.  More like the Criminal Alliance of Frustrated Impotence, if you ask me.

I still love CAW, though, because they are true villains and not mere crooks.  Real crooks would just have shot the Hawks during one of their frequent, obvious fly-bys and THEN gone after the Head McGuffin and Miss Sparklejuice.  

That's why the Hawks don't live in Gotham.