Number 2413: Hawkman and Hawkgirl: the elixir of youth

In the second panel of this story, Hawkman grabs a crook in a car speeding down a mountain and says, “Stop or I’ll pull you out one by one and drop you over the precipice.” I guess being a flying hero doesn’t make Hawkman, secret identity of Carter Hall, less threatening than the crooks he is after.

Hawkman has a hawk friend, Big Red, and a girlfriend, Shiera, who is also Hawkgirl, but sometimes he is on his own. That can result in what happens to him when the gang members in the car get the better of him. Then the story has a flashback to the reason for Hawkman’s plight. It has something to do with Shiera’s uncle and a “glandular elixir” he has invented, trying to make Shiera’s aunt into a young woman. Brainy, a gangster, wants to steal the elixir so he can turn his enemies into babies. That seems less effective than the old-fashioned way of killing enemies.

The elixir still needs work, but I am also thinking of it being used commercially. Can you imagine one of those late night infomercials selling this elixir? I could use about a gallon of it right now.

Drawn by Sheldon Moldoff and written by Gardner Fox. From Flash Comics #25 (1942).

Number 2286: The boy who fooled Hawkman’s hawks

Young Timmy is the son of a rich man. Timmy is an artist. His father is an antiques collector. Timmy’s dad is trying to discourage him from painting, telling him if he quits he’ll buy him a motorboat. Dad would rather have an indolent son than one with artistic talent.

Dad is targeted by a couple of crooks who steal his valuable antiques and young Timmy is kidnapped.

Joe Kubert, about the same age as the fictional Timmy (Kubert would have been 19 when he drew “Ring Out the Old, Ring in the New!”) was something of a prodigy himself.

I have a couple of gripes: Hawkman faces a dinosaur on the cover; the “dinosaur” in the story is one of Timmy’s lifelike three-dimensional paintings. Here he has painted the dinosaur on grass, which caught Hawkman’s attention while flying over. I also spotted the word “shone” mistakenly used for “shown” in one of the speech balloons. Sheldon Mayer is listed as editor by the Grand Comics Database, with Julius Schwartz and Ted Udall as story editors. The letterer and the editor(s) missed it. I mention it because I used the same hawk eye to spot the spelling error that Hawkman’s hawks use in finding Timmy.

From Flash Comics #67 (1945):

Number 2097: Introducing Hawkgirl

I have heard that crooks aren’t very intelligent, and this gang proves it by not observing that the Hawkman is actually a woman. They catch on eventually, so maybe they just had to get a little bit closer.

This story is Hawkgirl’s (or “Hawkwoman’s”), introduction. Hawkman loans his girlfriend, Shiera, a costume for a masquerade ball, and she is mistaken for him.

In 1972 it was reprinted in one of DC’s 100-page special squareback issues. I still have the copy I bought off the comic book racks in 1972. Here is a scan of the front cover, by Neal Adams. I did not scan the Hawkman/Hawkgirl story from this magazine, but from scans I found on the Internet. I'm not popping the staples on my copy to get scans!

Grand Comics Database gives Gardner Fox credit for the story, and Sheldon Moldoff credit for the artwork. It is from Flash Comics #24 (1941).

Another Hawkman story by Shelly, which includes an internal link to yet a second Hawkman story. Just click on the thumbnail.

Number 2019: Kubert: the Nose knows

Joe Kubert was very young when he drew “The Man With the Amazing Nose” for Flash Comics #70 (1946). He was born August, 1926, so I figure he was 19 when he drew this story. He used a technique in some of the panels I haven’t seen before. Some of the figures’ lower bodies are outlined (see the teaser panel above), with no detail, just color fill-in. Hmmm. It’s a bit too technique-y, if you know what I mean. Even the callow Kubert was good enough he did not need to resort to such tricks.

Gardner Fox, credited by the GCD for writing the story, resorted to a trick I also have not seen before, having a perfume-smelling character (“Proboscis Jones”) take on different personalities through sense of smell. (The kids who read the story and opened a dictionary learned a word, “proboscis.”)*

I am bothered by the false advertising represented by the cover. I got excited seeing a gorilla in boxing regalia, only to find out it was a symbolic cover. That would have been an editorial decision. As we know, the powers-that-be at DC Comics knew even then that putting an ape or gorilla on a cover meant higher sales. Oh well...good early Kubert cover art, anyway, even if I turned up my proboscis at such base deception.

*KIDS! DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME! Do not try sniffing gasoline as Hawkman has Proboscis Jones do at the end of the story. As an Internet site warns us: Gasoline contains methane and benzene, which are dangerous hydrocarbons. Can do harm to your lungs when inhaling fumes.

Number 1459: Shelly’s Hawkman

Sheldon Moldoff did the Hawkman feature for Flash Comics as on-the-job training. He started at age 18, and like many of his peers in those early days of comic books he swiped Flash Gordon poses.

I think the artist who created the costume (Dennis Neville?) put all of the subsequent Hawkman artists in a bind, because drawing him with the hawk head and wings was difficult and unwieldy. Years later the golden age Hawkman was given a superhero mask, but those wings remained.* I think an interesting critique of the Hawkman costume** is from 2011, by a commenter going by the name “meltdownclown” for Booksteve Thompson’s Four Color Shadows blog:

“To me, the wings always looked like rugs.

The wings will always be Hawkman's big problem. Those don't-try-it-at-home-kids nightmares are anchored to the center of his back by a harness that, by rights, should carve him into quarters in the first hard crosswind. And they must be great fun in any narrow space.”

You can see the 1942 story meltdownclown was commenting on in Steve’s blog here.

My post today is from Flash Comics #38 (1943):

*The original costume, hawk head and all, was resurrected by Joe Kubert for the silver age revival.

**Considering we’re talking about a comic book character, and in comic books all rules of realism can be broken.