Actually, if you pay attention Hawkgirl’s character comes across pretty clearly.
As a side note. a Hawkman appeared with an incarnation of the JLA in an episode of Batman: Beyond, which is set some 40 years in the future. Along with an older Superman, a adolescent Green Lantern, Aqua Girl (Voiced by Jodi Benson. Heh. Nice touch. :D) and a rather…fierce woman who’s name I didn’t catch.
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They were cops and were chasing a shapeshifting criminal. When they got to Earth, they decided to stick around to learn what our police methods were like.
And a quibble: Their identies were Carter and Shiera Hall and they were museum curators, not archaeolgists.
Keep in mind, Podkayne, there are at least 5 different versions of Hawkman/Hawkwoman(girl): no other characters in any other comic book have as screwed-up a history. There’s the version where they’re both reincarnated Egyptians, there’s the version where he’s a interstellar drug-user/murderer and she’s a tough-as-nails, butch space-fascist, there’s the one where he’s the avatar of Chtulhu-esque Hawk-god…etc.
The TV show seems to be going with the “Space cops who’ve come here to learn our methods” version (which is my favorite, so I’m cool wit’ dat! 
** Menocchio **: Quibble, MARVEL had a hard time with strong independant women, and so did DC…except for the characters in Julius Schwartz’s stable. Adam Strange had Alanna (easily as good as him), Hawkman had Hawkgirl, the Atom had world-class lawyer Jean Loring, Elongated Man had his wife (and they did a “The Thin Man” riff for years with her as co-detective), when Schwartz got Batman, we got Barbara (Batgirl) Gordon), Green Lantern had Carol (head of a multi-national corporation) Ferris, etc. In Schwartz’s books, strong, smart, compentent women were the norm. Which was a rarity in the mid '50s to mid '60s.
Fenris
Fair enough, Fenris but IMHO, Hawkgirl/woman stands at the head of the pack. Most of the others you mentioned are still non-superheroic supporting characters (with the exceptions of Batgirl and possibly Alanna), albeit unusually strong ones. Hawkgirl was closer to a true equal partnership. Hell, she’s one of the few (the only that comes to mind, but I’m sure there’s others) that eventually realized that there’s no earthly reason why a superpowered adult should go around calling herself “girl”.
Rancoth, Big Barda, a New God exile from Apkolips, was the other member of the future JL. Another superheroine that could hold her own with the boys. Actually, she’s far superior physically to her husband, Mr. Miracle. But she’s from a slightly later period than the Hawks et al.
And they were still good guys?? How’d that work out (especially with the intersteller user/murderer aspect)?
Carol Ferris was not just a non-superpowered objet de rescue who happened to own a big corp. IIRC, she was also one of the more important members of the Green Lantern Rogues’ Gallery, Star Sapphire.
It kinda didn’t. As people tried to fix it, things got more and more muddled until Hawkman vanished from continuity for about a decade.
Um…chunks of this may be wrong as they were changing things literally from issue to issue, and sometimes within the same issue, but IIRC, they first said that he wasn’t an addict, he was drugged against his will. Then they said that he didn’t kill that one guy in a drug induced stupor, it was a frame-up. Then they said that he was ALSO connected to the Egyptian guy. Then they said that the Hawkman who’d been running around in Justice League was another person from Thanagar who just happened to also be named Katar Hol but was really a spy. Then they said ALL Hawkmen past and future were avatars of this big stupid looking, vaguely Cthulhu-in-demeanor Hawk-God. Um…then he became a bird-man (not just a guy in a mask). Then all of the Hawk-people vanished until they decided enough time had passed that they could just say that most of it never happened.
Jayjay: good point, but I think that counts against her: she had to be rescued from being Star Sapphire while as Carol Ferris she was rarely the object-du-rescue. Besides, in the silver-age (pre Neal Adams, say) she was only Star Sapphire…what? three times? (Don’t forget, some other woman appeared as Star Sapphire once)
Fenris
Neither Marvel nor DC have always had the talent or ability to keep their respective universal continuities consistent. When you’re dealing with an entire universal history and a web of characters and situations so wide and complex, the ball gets dropped sometimes.
If only they didn’t make things even more muddied up through their attempts to smooth things over…
Then again, I’m no fan of start-overs like Crisis or whatever it was that Marvel did to reset everything a few years ago (I’d stopped reading any comic regularly by that time). All of my Who’s Whos are useless now…
I have to bump this after last night, if for no other reason than the line, “Flash! Don’t heckle the supervillian!”. I still don’t see how Grodd could really be a threat to the Flash physically, but mentally…sure. And Batman’s “concern” for Wonder Woman was…interesting.
quote:
Originally posted by Podkayne
Now I want a pair.
What Hawkgirl needs to do, is wear Hawkman’s costume. That’ll make her very popular.
What I’ve always wondered is where the thrust comes from…no, really! I mean, the Hawks can float, and “maneuver,” but is it just the flapping of their wings that propels them forward? Or is it the Nth metal that knows which way they wanna go? Because flapping seems kinda slow and limiting…any of you veterans of the DCU have a clue?
In the latest incarnation of Hawkman, there’s an issue when they (The Justice Society) go to Thanagar. They fight a big bad, who explains that Nth metal is more than just anti-gravity, it can control the ‘fundamental’ forces of the universe, provided you have enough of it… Powered by will power of course.
I’m assuming that the small amount that Hawkgirl carries, provides both trust and lift and it’s real potential is limited by her ‘primal’ urges to swing a mace.
If the metal provides thrust as well she really doesn’t need the wings and they are just a cumbersome nuisance.