Given Hawkman’s role in The Rann-Thanagar War, it’s useful to briefly consider Hawkman’s history and his ties to Thanagar.

This is actually more difficult than it sounds. Hawkman’s history, while not as convoluted as some, is notoriously complex. The 1990s, in particular, played havoc with Hawkman’s history, revising the various Hawkmen’s origin more than once. While some semblance of order was restored to the character prior to the events of The Rann-Thanagar War, even the less convoluted aspects of the character are informative. For example, Hawkman has been at odds with Thanagar routinely since the late 1970s, and the history of both Hawkgirl and Thanagar has evolved along with Hawkman himself.

The Golden Age Hawkman

Super-heroes were booming in 1939, and All-American Comics was busy expanding its super-hero titles. Writer Gardner Fox was tasked with coming up with a new super-hero to help fill out the pages of Flash Comics, set to launch late in the year and to star none other than the Flash. Fox came up with Hawkman.

The first Hawkman story appeared in Flash Comics #1 (cover-dated January 1940) and was drawn by Dennis Neville, who had previously assisted Joe Shuster on Superman and Slam Bradley stories. This first Hawkman was archaeologist Carter Hall, described in that first story as a “wealthy collector of weapons and [a] research scientist.” Examining a dagger with a crystal blade, uncovered on a dig in Egypt, Carter Hall finds himself “hypnotized by the knife” and lapses into unconsciousness. He begins a visionary dream in which discovers himself to be the reincarnation of the ancient Egyptian prince Khufu, supposedly a champion of the innocent. Khufu had been opposed by the cult of the hawk-god Anubis and its priest, Hath-Set. Hath-Set had Khufu and his consort Shiera captured, then sacrificed them to Anubis using the crystal blade. As he died, Khufu swore he’d return and take vengeance on Hath-Set. Notably, Khufu looks remarkably white and blond during this sequence, while Hath-Set looks much more stereotypically Arab. Carter Hall awoke from his vision convinced of its reality.

Taking a walk to clear his mind, he encounters a subway disaster in which a surge of electricity fried a number of passengers. On the scene, he discovered a young woman he recognizes as the reincarnation of Shiera, who says she’s had similar visions of her past life — apparently without spurring from a weird Egyptian blade. Vowing to investigate the disaster, Carter takes Shiera to his home and dons a costume composed of a hawk mask and wings composed of the mysterious “ninth metal,” which counteracted gravity. He seems to have had this costume just lying around, and the story has made no previous mention of his miraculous discovery of a metal with anti-gravitational properties.

Inexplicably tracking the subway disaster to a giant electrical dynamo just outside the city, Hawkman finds one Dr. Anton Hastor, the reincarnation of Hath-Set. A brief fight ensues in which Hastor blasts Hawkman with electricity, but his ninth metal saves him because it doesn’t conduct electricity — because it repels electricity and gravity equally since, we’re told, “electricity [...] is the base of [...] gravity.” (Gardner Fox was probably thinking of magnetism, rather than gravity.) Hawkman destroys the lab but Hastor escapes.

Realizing that Hawkman is the reincarnation of Khufu, Hastor realizes that Shiera must be alive and well, so he sets out to get at Khufu through her. Hastor uses an ancient ritual to compel Shiera to come to him. Returning home, Hawkman finds Shiera gone and heads back out, picking up a sheet of ninth metal and a crossbow before departing. Back at Hastor’s lair, Hawkman finds Hastor about to sacrifice Shiera using electricity on an altar of Anubis. Hawkman throws the sheet of ninth metal over her, protecting her, then quickly fires a bolt from his crossbow into Hastor’s heart. Fleeing with Shiera, Hawkman leaves the mortally wounded Hastor to burn with his lair.

It was hokey, but it hardly mattered in those days when super-heroes were flying off the newsstands. Those were also days of enthusiastic plagiarism, and many pointed out the resemblance between Hawkman and the race of Hawk-people, led by Prince Vultan, in Alex Raymond’s popular comic strip Flash Gordon. That said, the idea of a man soaring through the air with the wings of a bird could be traced back at least to the ancient Greek myth of Icarus. Fox added the Egyptian strain, reincarnation, and pulpy romance.

In the early 1940s, as super-heroes were becoming more and more powerful, Hawkman was a breath of fresh air with his arsenal of antiquated weaponry. When All-American put its regular characters without their own books into a separate title called All-Star Comics, Hawkman was there. And when, in 1940′s All-Star Comics #3, that title shifted from separate features to showcasing these characters together as the Justice Society of America, Hawkman was there too. Beginning with All-Star Comics #8, Hawkman served as the team’s chairman.

Artist Dennis Neville quit after three episodes. It was the best thing that could have happened to Hawkman. Neville was replaced by Sheldon Moldoff, who brought a rich and detailed style patterned after the comic strips with a higher quality of illustration, such as Flash Gordon or Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant.

The Hawkman story in Flash Comics #5, illustrated by Moldoff, would become a classic. Hawkman follows a beautiful blonde female secret agent to the Middle East, has to traverse a desert in order to reach a secret Arab city, finds the secret agent chained to a wall in a particularly memorable panel, and slays the Arab assassins.

Blonde secret agents notwithstanding, Shiera Sanders increasingly became important to the feature. By Flash Comics #3, she knows that Carter and Hawkman are one and the same. She occasionally went out adventuring herself, even rescuing Carter when he fell into a fix. By 1942′s Flash Comics #24, she had donned a female version of Hawkman’s outfit, with a red tank top replacing Hawkman’s almost bare chest, to become Hawkgirl. She was clearly subordinate to Hawkman, but she had become a partner in crime-fighting as well as in life.

Later in his run in Flash Comics, Sheldon Moldoff was replaced by Joe Kubert. Kubert simplified Hawkman’s look. Neville and Moldoff had given Hawkman a very imposing hawk-like mask, full of contoured lines, featuring a protruding beak and stern eyes. Kubert made the mask more transparently a flat super-hero mask, with big eye slits and no beak. For all his abilities, Kubert was no Moldoff.

Hawkman continued appearing in Flash Comics until that title was cancelled with #104 in 1949. Super-heroes were on their way out, replaced by other genres. Hawkman would continue to appear with the Justice Society in the pages of All-Star Comics, however. There, his costume would be simplified even further into a mere yellow cowl with a red hawk emblem on the forehead.

1951′s All-Star Comics #57, featuring the Justice Society, was followed by All-Star Western#58, featuring the Trigger Twins, Strong Bow, and the Roving Ranger. Hawkman was the only character to appear in every Golden Age Justice Society story, from All-Star Comics #3 to #57, and served as chairman from #8 to #57. Hawkgirl never appeared, but then she wasn’t the main character of the Hawkman feature. Oddly enough, Hawkman’s longevity with the Justice Society owed as much to his lack of popularity than his success. Whenever a character got their own title, they were replaced in All-Star Comics — thus Starman and Dr. Mid-Nite replaced Green Arrow and Flash. Sometimes, characters like Sandman or Hourman would lose their back-up features or simply become too unpopular and be dropped from All-Star Comics accordingly. Hawkman had the distinction of mediocrity, never unpopular enough to be dropped, never popular enough to graduate into his own book.

Fans largely remember most fondly the stories illustrated by Sheldon Moldoff, though Joe Kubert’s tenure on the title is certainly remembered as well. In 1951, however, it looked like Hawkman was gone for good.

The Silver Age Hawkman

Super-heroes stayed all but dormant in the 1950s, with only Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman retaining their own series. Beginning with the Flash in 1956, however, DC and editor Julius Schwartz began bringing back the super-hero, creating new versions of the company’s classic characters in the process. Flash got a sleek red outfit, a modified origin, and a new secret identity. Green Lantern got a sleek green and black outfit, new ties to outer space, and a new secret identity. The Atom got a new identity, new science-based powers of shrinking, and a new costume.

In 1959, it was Hawkman’s turn to get reinvented. To do the task, Schwartz brought in writer Gardner Fox and artist Joe Kubert, both strongly associated with the character’s Golden Age version. The new Hawkman debuted in The Brave and the Bold #34 (cover-dated February-March 1961) in a story entitled “Creature of a Thousand Shapes!”

This Hawkman was Katar Hol, an honored member of the winged police force of the then-new planet Thanagar, orbiting the star Polaris. Katar served with his wife Shayera, a policewoman. Unlike other revived DC heroes, their costumes went largely unchanged from their Golden Age incarnations, though Hawkgirl went from brunette to redhead, her costume got a more streamlined mask, and “ninth metal” became “Nth metal.”

In pursuit of the shape-changing villain Byth, the couple voyage to Midway City on Earth. Using a Thanagarian device, called an “electronic brain” in the first story but soon renamed the Absorbascon, they can gather human knowledge and plant it directly into their minds — thus allowing them to quickly learn all Earth languages. Arriving in Midway City, they visit police commissioner George Emmett, who believes their story and sets himself to helping them. He gives them his and his wife’s clothes, establishes their undercover identities as the less alien-sounding Carter and Shiera Hall, gives the couple his newly retired brother’s apartment, and sets Katar up with a cushy job as director of the Midway City Museum, the job his brother had just vacated. (Thank God for patronage!)

After establishing themselves, the two find that they can communicate with birds, a side effect of the “electronic brain,” and sent birds out over Midway City as spies looking for Byth. When a bird ferries word of Byth’s location, the Hawks take ancient weaponry from the museum, hoping its new forms will surprise Byth. A fight ensues, but Byth escapes. A few days later, Carter Hall spots a Thanagarian bird in a photograph taken by the museum’s naturalist, one Mavis Trent, in the nearby Hawk Valley. Another confrontation ensues, but this time Byth transforms into a monstrous Thanagarian creature called a Brontadon. The Hawks let the Brontadon swallow two ancient Roman maces that they’ve hollowed out and filled with sedative. With the monster sluggish, the Hawks knock unconscious its two brains simultaneously, and it reverts to Byth’s normal humanoid alien form.

The Hawks put Byth on his ship in suspended animation and send it back to Thanagar on automatic pilot, but they decide to stay on Earth — ostensibly to study Earth’s police methods.

Hawkman and Hawkgirl ultimately got six issues of The Brave and the Bold as a try-out for the characters. Those six issues done, DC moved them into Mystery in Space, home of science fiction stories with a super-hero sensibility, such as those of Adam Strange.

The pair had a much closer and more egalitarian relationship than in their Golden Age incarnation. Hawkgirl took risks too, they were partners on the job as well as off, and the couple seemed genuinely happy with one another — in contrast to most relationships in super-hero comics. Hawkman’s roster of villains was never impressive, but the recurring villain Shadow-Thief made his debut in The Brave and the Bold #36. Mavis Trent flirted vigorously with both Carter Hall, despite that he was married and the two of them worked with his wife, and Hawkman. Once, she even discovered Hawkgirl’s costume and put it on only to have Hawkman arrive and take her on a mission.

Hawkman’s placement in Mystery in Space was no convenient placement. The Silver Age Hawkman bore certain similarities with another one of DC’s science fictional super-heroes, none other than Adam Strange. Adam Strange, an archaeologist, also worked in a museum. Hawkman was called “The Policeman of Two Worlds,” much like Adam Strange’s moniker “The Man of Two Worlds.” In practice, however, Hawkman was nothing of the sort because Thanagar appeared so rarely and was generally used as a plot device, a way to easily get bizarre alien technologies to Earth. Hawkman and Adam Strange were also opposites, the first coming from a planet around Polaris, the North Star, and the latter coming from a planet around Alpha Centari, located to the South. Moreover, Hawkman typically adventured in Earth’s Northern Hemisphere and Adam Strange in the South.

The 1960s also saw the return of the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl. Using DC’s concept of multiple Earths, the Justice League met the Justice Society in the parallel universe known as Earth-2. There, Carter and Shiera Hall were eventually shown to have had a child named Hector, who later became the Silver Scarab and, after that, Doctor Fate. Earth-2′s human Carter and Shiera Hall bumped into the Thanagarian Katar and Shayera Hol of Earth-1, as DC’s main universe was called, pretty much only at the annuals meetings between the Justice League and the Justice Society.

1964 was the year Hawkman hit the big time. First, he moved out of Mystery in Space and into his own ongoing series (#1 was cover-dated April-May 1964) — the first in the character’s history. Second, in Justice League of America #31 (cover-dated November 1964), Hawkman was inducted into the Justice League of America. Hawkgirl appeared, but was told that only one hero could be inducted at a time. She said that Hawkman was “the leader of our ‘team’” and that she felt “sufficiently honored by having him accepted.”

Hawkman was memorably illustrated by Murphy Anderson and saw the hero fight the likes of the Shadow-Thief and the Gentleman Ghost. But it wasn’t particularly long-lived: it was cancelled in 1968 with #27.

DC tried to unite two low-selling titles into one, uniting The Atom and Hawkman as The Atom and Hawkman, retaining The Atom‘s numbering. Today, the pairing is seen as a classic super-hero odd couple. The newly rechristened The Atom and Hawkman lasted a mere seven issues and was cancelled with #45 (cover-dated October-November 1969).

Hawkman kept appearing in Justice League of America and got occasional back-ups in Detective Comics and World’s Finest Comics. As American comics strode into political issues in the 1970s, Hawkman became the JLA’s conservative opposite of the liberal Green Arrow, leading to frequent disagreements. In 1977, Hawkgirl thought enough time had passed and demanded JLA membership herself, which was given. She changed her name to Hawkwoman a couple years later, seen as more dignified and reflecting changing Western attitudes towards gender. Comics were trying to grow up.

The late 1970s also saw Thanagar go to war with Rann, first in the pages of Showcase and World’s Finest Comics. This led Hawkman and Hawkgirl severed their ties to Thanagar, making Earth their true home. Thanagar was becoming something less utopian than its 1960s appearances, moving closer to the martial Thanagar of today.

After a truce between Rann and Thanagar, Thanagar sought to covertly conquer Earth. The Hawks opposed these efforts in the pages of 1985′s The Shadow War of Hawkman, a 4-issue mini-series (#1 was cover-dated May 1985) scripted by Tony Isabella and illustrated by Richard Howell. The mini-series started off with a shock with the murder of Hawkwoman on Thanagar, which sent Hawkman into a rage until he discovered that Shayera was alive and well; Mavis Trent had been wearing Shayera’s costume again, and the Thanagarian assassins had gotten her by mistake.

The mini-series was successful enough that Hawkman got his own special in 1986 and then a second ongoing Hawkman, debuting in 1986, but it fared even worse than its predecessor, lasting a mere 17 issues before being cancelled.

Hawkworld and Crisis on Infinite Earths

With DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths in the mid-1980s, the company’s multiple Earths were in theory consolidated into a single one. The Justice Society had existed in the 1940s, and the Justice League had first gathered together in the same universe some uncertain number of years before the present. Earth-2 characters who were duplicates of Earth-1 characters, like Superman and Batman, were eliminated from continuity, though modifications were made to their histories. Characters like Flash and Green Lantern who had distinct Golden Age and Silver Age personas were allowed to coexist, DC’s editors thought that this might be confusing and thus decided to put the Justice Society out of commission. In 1986′s Last Days of the Justice Society, written by Roy Thomas, the Justice Society substituted for the Norse gods and consigned themselves to a limbo dimension where they were expected to battle for all eternity in order to stave off Ragnarok, the Norse end of the world. That was supposed to be the last heard out of the Justice Society. Thus, the human Carter and Shiera Hall from the Golden Age were tucked out of sight along with the rest of the Justice Society. The Thanagarian Hawks, despite having the same names in their human identity, were allowed to continue occasional appearances without revision.

But revision of continuity isn’t a science, and DC was making it up as they went along. Characters were sometimes revised only after their earlier versions had appeared in stories set in the newly united, single DC Universe. Creators were naturally attracted to reinventing characters from the ground up, being allowed to show the character’s early days anew. When DC decided to roll the dice on a new Hawkman project, it probably figured no one would care too much what happened to a character who hadn’t been able to sustain his own title; in contrast, DC refused writer Gerard Jones his request to reboot Green Lantern’s continuity, preferring instead a new series, a new direction, and a new mini-series retelling Hal Jordan’s origins as Green Lantern with less major modifications. In Hawkman’s case, a new origin with the new and harsher sensibilities brought to American comics in the mid-1980s by the likes of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns might reinvigorate the stale character.

And so the 1989 three-issue prestige format mini-series Hawkworld, written and illustrated by Tim Truman, was allowed to bring Hawkman and Hawkwoman to Earth anew. The rather dark mini-series went beyond Thanagar’s more militant strains, introduced since the late 1970s, and recast Thanagar as a violent, fascistic class society filled with gang violence. Reflecting this sensibility, the new Thanagarian wings were made of metal — a major visual change. The new Katar Hol, a member of the upper classes, dealt with drug addiction; despite being a member of the planet’s military police force, he had an independent streak that his government distrusted. The new Shayera Thal was more lower-class and possessed a particularly tough personality. Over the course of the mini-series, the two were dispatched anew to Earth in pursuit of Byth and came to realize that Thanagar was evil, choosing to stay on Earth.

For those who liked the grace of the Golden and Silver Age versions, Hawkworld was an abomination. The dream of winged flight, of men with angelic wings, was replaced by cold metal. Even Shayera Thal’s new personality angered those who loved the charm of the earlier Hawkgirls. But the joyful science fiction epitomized by Flash Gordon had been replaced by dark, post-Watergate realities of oil shortages, international terrorism, and the administrations of Reagan and Thacher. The old Thanagar couldn’t accommodate the notion of police firing on student protesters. By contrast, Hawkworld was all about that. And, in accordance with changing times, it told this darker version of the Hawks’ origin story over the course of a graphic novel rather than a few pages, which had come to feel woefully insufficient, if not embarrassing.

The new Hawks’ adventures on Earth subsequently continued in a Hawkworld ongoing series (#1 was cover-dated June 1990), initially written by John Ostrander and illustrated by Truman. The logistical problem of Hawkward (as opposed to any aesthetic one) was that it seemingly made all of Hawkman’s activity prior to Hawkworld an impossibility. The ongoing Hawkworld avoided the problem for some time.

Then DC reversed itself and decided to bring back the Justice Society. Enough time had passed, some editors argued, and the new DC Universe had been allowed to establish itself free of complicated references to an earlier generation of super-heroes. Now that generation could be brought back, allowing various writers to incorporate those older characters. In 1992′s Armageddon: Inferno, a four-issue mini-series, the time-traveling Waverider freed the Justice Society from their limbo dimension in order to battle an even more threatening foe called Abraxis. With Abraxis dispatched, the Justice Society was free to rejoin the DC Universe.

Free to incorporate the Golden Age Carter and Shiera Hall into Hawkworld, the title tried to explain how the Golden Age Hawks had been inspired to create costumes with powers remarkably like those of distant Thanagar. To do this, it was revealed that Paran Katar, Katar Hol’s father, had visited Earth in the 1930s and had befriended Carter Hall. Seeing Carter’s intelligence, Paran Katar had — unknown to Carter — slipped Carter some Nth metal, allowing Carter to develop his anti-gravity costume. Paran Katar had also taken a human wife who had born him a son — none other than Katar Hol, who was thus revealed to be half human.

Another change sought to explain how Hawkman could have served with the Justice League when the alien Silver Age Hawkman had been removed from continuity, replaced with the newly arrived Hawks from Hawkworld. Thus, the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl were said to have returned to active duty after the formation of the Justice League of America. While this invalidated the Silver Age stories’ connection to Thanagar, it at least explained how the Justice League could have had a Hawkman, and later Hawkgirl and Hawkwoman.

But Carter and Shiera Hall had vanished into limbo with the rest of the Justice Society, so someone also had to substitute for Hawkman and Hawkgirl between this time and the debut of Hawkworld. So it was revealed that a previous Thanagarian spy had come to Earth prior to Katar Hol and Shayera Thal. Fel Andar had assumed the mantle of Hawkman and pretended to be Carter Hall’s son. Posing as a hero, he’d even infiltrated the Justice League and established connections within the super-hero community. Sharon Hall, an Earth woman, had become his Hawkgirl. With the arrival of Katar Hol and Shayera Thal, Fel Andar and Sharon Hall were deemed irrelevant to Thanagar’s plans. Fel Andar returned to Thanagar while Sharon Hall was murdered to cover the spy’s tracks. While solving the problem of Hawkman’s presence during this time, this explanation was widely seen as unsatisfactory, confusing, or at least unnecessarily complex.

If sales are any indication, readers weren’t pleased. In early 1993, DC cancelled Hawkworldwith #32.

A New Hawkman Series, Zero Hour, and the Hawk Avatar

Hawkman would not go absent for long, however, as a third Hawkman ongoing series debuted in mid-1993 (#1 was cover-dated September 1993). It won neither high sales nor critical acclaim and did little to clear up what was by then acknowledged as real confusion surrounding Hawkman’s history.

In a sort of very dumbed-down version of Alan Moore revealing Swamp Thing as a plant elemental, this Hawkman was revealed to be a Hawk Avatar, a mythical prehistoric incarnation and champion of a certain animal species or type in human form. Carter Hall and Katar Hol were said to have been previous incarnations of the Hawk Avatar. Readers were unimpressed — and confused.

A year later, in mid-1994, DC used the mini-series Zero Hour to correct again certain elements of its continuity, including the confused history of Hawkman. The various versions of Hawkman were shown merging into a new hawk-god who theoretically contained all previous DC hawk heroes. Retaining the appearance of Katar Hol, this new Hawkman was meant as the ultimate Hawkman, possessing the memories of those before him and featuring wings that grew naturally out of his back.

This move may not have been satisfying, it at least attempted to address the problems with the character and unify his various incarnations. Readers, however, simply didn’t take to him. Most felt that this merely confused things further. Hawkman ended with #33 in 1996 and with Katar Hol struggling with various Hawk Avatars before all of them were banished into the realm of the Hawk God.

DC seemed to want to wash their hands of the character, having already sought to fix him not only with Hawkworld, but with a third Hawkman series and a remake springing out of a major universe-wide crossover. Hawkman had never sold particularly well, and DC must have felt glad to let him rest for a time. Readers quickly forgot both Hawkworld and the Hawk Avatar, and few felt that they were missing much.

Hawkgirl Returns

Zero Hour had also been used as a vehicle to launch five new ongoing series. Within a couple years, all were cancelled but one. That one, James Robinson’s Starman, proved an enormous hit by uniting DC’s various versions of Starman into one consistent universe that not only respected past continuity but honed it into a sense of legacy, if not of legend. Robinson’s Starman also dove into the Golden Age DC Universe, incorporating many forgotten characters. And it sold.

In 1999, in the wake of the success of Grant Morrison’s JLA, DC launched JSA, starring a new Justice Society comprised of a mix of still vibrant Golden Age heroes and others’ new incarnations. The book both spun out of Starman and got sales from its titular connection to JLA, and it did well.

Ironically enough, Hawkman’s return to prominence came through the debut of a new Hawkgirl, the character who in earlier incarnations had been so subordinate to Hawkman. This new Hawkgirl was 19-year-old Kendra Saunders, great-niece of the Golden Age Hawkgirl, Shiera Saunders Hall. Kendra Saunders was also the granddaughter of Speed Saunders, a Golden Age detective character. The new Hawkgirl debuted with the title itself, and readers even watched her first test of her flying Hawkgirl costume, a stylistic updating of the Silver Age Hawkgirl’s costume.

It soon became apparent that this new Hawkgirl had a particularly troubled past. She began to have visions that she did not understand, accentuating her distress. These memories increasingly seemed to belong to Shiera Hall. Eventually it reaches the point that she makes comments like “That’s what Carter thought last time,” as she does at the end of JSA #20, freaking out her teammates. Meanwhile, Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash and a Justice Society member, finds himself stranded in ancient Egypt with Prince Khufu, the former incarnation of Carter Hall; Nabu, known millennia later as the spirit behind Dr. Fate; and Teth-Adam, who would become Black Adam.

When JSA chairman Sand Hawkins confronted Kendra in JSA #21 about her erratic behavior and the linear scars on her wrists, Kendra flew away in frustration. Flying, Kendra is confronted by Zauriel, an angel Grant Morrison had created in JLA and who had been discussed as a possible new Hawkman. Meanwhile, in ancient Egypt, Jay Garrick discovers a crashed Thanagarian spacecraft. In the present, Zauriel gets Kendra to remember how she tried to commit suicide about a year prior. Delving into her memories, he gets her to say the name Khufu. And then he spills the beans: Kendra’s suicide attempt worked.

Read the Rest

This article is continued here.

Both parts are themselves a part of the wider “Your Guide to Infinite Crisis,” which attempts to spell out and outline the whole of this sprawling, complicated crossover. It has several other installments, organized by the narrative thread under discussion:

The OMAC Project

• DC Countdown
• The OMAC Project
• “Sacrifice”
• “Sacrifice” Concludes
• The OMAC Project Concludes
• “Sacrifice” Aftermath
• Tie-Ins to The OMAC Project #6

Day of Vengeance

Villains United

The Rann-Thanagar War

• A Brief History of Adam Strange
• “Adam Strange: Planet Heist”
• “Adam Strange: Planet Heist” Concludes
• you’re reading A Brief History of Hawkman
• A Brief History of Hawkman, Part 2
• Hawkman #46
• The Rann-Thanagar War
• The Rann-Thanagar War Concludes
• “Coalition in Crisis”
• The Rann / Thanagar War Special

The Return of Donna Troy

• Firestorm in Space

Crisis of Conscience

• Identity Crisis Epilogue
• Dr. Light in Teen Titans
• “Crisis of Conscience”
• “Crisis of Conscience” Epilogue

PowerTrip

• A Brief History of Power Girl
• “PowerTrip”