Understanding Hawkman: Part 2.b – Hector

Continuing our examination of the character Hawkman, we go back to our chapter on Family, Friends and Allies.  In our first part we looked at the many loves of Hawkman’s lives.  In this installment we look at the family of Hawkman, beginning with their son. 

In all of the lives of Hawkman and Hawkgirl, the one thing that they never had was children…not until this lifetime.  The curse that gave them life immortal showed it’s first sign of strain with the anomalous birth of the son of Carter and Sheira Hall.  For the first time there was another part of their cycle of death and rebirth: one who soon showed that he was a lot like his mother and father.

Hector Hall (aka: Silver Scarab; aka Sandman; aka Dr. Fate)

Hector is the son of Carter and Sheira Hall.  He followed in their footsteps as a crime-fighting adventurer, taking a name with ties to his family’s Egyptian roots: the Silver Scarab.  He, along with other sons and daughters of the JSA formed their own team of super-heroes: Infinity, Inc.  It was while a member of this group that Hector fell in love with Lyta Hall, the heroine known as the Fury.  It was eventually revealed that he was caught up in the curse of Hath-Set, and was inteded to be a soulless vessel to destroy the Hawks.  He was killed in action while Lyta was pregnant, and the inherint goodness of the child he conceived was the curse’s undoing.  But like his parents, Hector was not one to be stopped by death.

Hector would next show up as the Sandman – a hero based out of a segment of the Dreaming which was cut off by two rogue nightmares during Morpheus’ absence.  He would visit Lyta in her dreams, eventually discovering that she was pregnant with his child.  She became aware of him and they married, and she followed him into the Dreaming.  They existed there for some time – far beyond the gestation time of a normal pregnancy.  When Morpheus eventually returned he dispatched the rogue dreams and Hector along with them.  He allowed Lyta to leave the Dreaming, noting that due to the development of the child in his realm, he would be eternally tied to it.

 Hector was reborn for the third time in the pages of Johns and Robinson’s initial storyarc of JSA.  Hector’s soul was reborn into a baby’s body which was the perfect balance of Order and Chaos.  The biological parents were eventually revealed to be Hawk (Hank Hall) and Dove (Dawn Granger).  The child was sought after by the dark lord, Mordru, but before he could possess it, Hank’s spirit took control as the new host for Nabu’s power: his champion, Dr. Fate.  Hector seemed destined to become the greatest bearer of Nabu’s power, but it was quickly set into motion that he and the giver of his powers would be at odds.  Constantly distracted from his learning by his desire to find his love, Lyta, again, the relationship between Student and Mentor was cleary strained.  Attempting to impose a level of control over his champion that he never tried with Kent Nelson or Eric and Linda Strauss, Nabu would become more of a hinderance to Hector’s development rather than a proper mentor.  Their antagonistic relationship came to a head during the JSA-Hawkman crossover, Black Reign, when Nabu took control of Hector’s body, trapping his soul away in the world inside his amulet in order to ally himself with an ancient ally: Black Adam.  It was then that Hector discovered that Nabu had been keeping Lyta prisoner, as to keep her out of the way of what he considered Hector’s proper learning path to be.  Other former bearers of Nabu’s power were also imprisoned, and equally fed up with the old, controlling wizard.  Working together they managed to subdue Nabu and restored Hector to power in his own body, and freed Lyta to be at his side.

Hector and Lyta’s time together would be brief as they fell victim to an editorial “new direction” for Dr. Fate.  They were essentially killed off unceremoniously in a distant, cold place.  While their bodies died, however, their souls lived on – returning to the Dreaming at the behest of their son, whom we shall discuss at a later time.  Since their death and the re-emergence of the Helm of Nabu in the DCU, not a mention has been made of Hector or Lyta by their friends, family or teammates.  Their bodies remain in cold, unknown place with only the snow to cover them.

At this point, DC does not seem interested in following up on this story.