It’s been too long,
I gotta get back in that ring.
Put ‘em up, put ‘em down…

DING, DING, DING!

Tonight’s Ticket:

Hank “Hawk” Hall

versus

A Peaceable Assemblage of Hippies!

Words by Bob Kanigher; Art by Nick Cardy

It’s almost an election year again. You know what we need? A new Hawk and Dove.



Think about it. The first Hawk and Dove were created in response to an unpopular war that divided the nation. Right?

See where I’m coming from?

Sure we have Holly and Dawn Granger, and that’s cute and all, but aren’t they English now or something? I don’t know if Labour Party versus Conservative Party is as potent. Hey, if a talented Brit would do the honors I would get behind it -- I understand Tony Blair is roughly as popular as GW. I’m just saying, hawks and doves, culturally, speaks to me as very American.

Dawn was named appropriately to be a homophone of “Don”, and acted as one of many red herrings in the post-Crisis Hawk and Dove miniseries. Holly is just some lame last-minute addition who doesn’t make much sense to the mythos, considering Dawn was killed previously, and all the Lords of Order and Chaos are gone. Granted, they’re better than Sascha and Wiley, the rock’n’roll Hawk and Dove from the 90’s, but isn’t everything?

Of the mass Lord of Chaos and Order co-op that occurred post-Crisis, I approved of Hawk and Dove the most. It made enough sense and didn’t tank their book (ahem, like Amethyst). However, now that it’s a new Age of magic that supposedly has “rules” --that are just inexplicable nonsense like the old rules— I could endeavor to come up with some other “voice” to grant their powers. Maybe Rama Kushna is free. Or apparently you can just make up stupid dimensional demons made up of babies and stuff, so maybe a new personality made up of birds.

I’d return them to two metaphors acting as brothers, after the Ditko school of character creation. Which is to put up thinly veiled mouthpieces, dress them in garish but easy to draw outfits, and let them proselytize your personal politics. We’ll call them Don and Hank-- sons of a judge, one pacifistic and one aggressive, who disagree but fight crime cooperatively and get the job done. See, it’s a thinly veiled analogue for how America should work.

Since its okay for the “new” Doctor Fate to be Kent Nelson, I feel perfectly justified in this re-creation of the characters as themselves.

Look for the new New Hawk and Dove in stores, 2009.

Current Mood: dichotomous