Understanding Hawkman: Part 3.b – More Villains

 

Welcome back for another installment of Hawkmanology.  At this time we’re going to revisit the villains of Hawkman with a focus on a recent storyline.  A couple years back the creative team of Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray and Michael Bennett put together an ambitious, mulit-part story bringing back several of Hawkman’s enemies from years past; many of whom had not been seen since the Golden Age.  This storyline is collected in a trade paperback titled “Rise of the Golden Eagle.”

Leading this motley crew of hired thugs is a man who also plagued Batman and other heroes back in the Silver Age:

The Fadeaway Man – Dr. Anton Lamont was an art history professor who came into the possession of the Cloak of noted occultist Alessandro Cagliostro.  Lamont learned of the Cloak’s mystical properties and used it to lead a life of crime.  The Cloak of Cagliostro has many abilities, but most notable is it’s ability to teleport its wearer anywhere in the world.  Lamont used that particular ability to become a master thief, running afoul of the likes of Hawkman, Hawkgirl and Batman.  Looking to retire, Lamont took up an offer for one last job: to completely and utterly destroy his old foe, Hawkman.   He assembled a collection of villains from Hawkman’s past for the job and they seemed to succeed; but Hawkman returned with a vengeance, brutalizing the Fadeaway Man and his allies and taking the Cloak of Cagliostro as his own.  At last sighting, the Fadeaway Man managed to steal the Cloak back, but what he decided to do afterwards has yet to be written.

Lion-Mane – Ed Dawson was an archaeologist and a big-game hunter who came into contact with a meteorite with mystical properties called Mithra.  This turned Dawson into a were-lion, with the beast’s power and ferocity amplified a hundred-fold.  Lion-Mane would clash with Hawkman many times, and after the Hawkworld re-imagining we discover that Lion-Mane is a Lion Avatar, just as Katar Hol was a Hawk avatar.  The character went unused for years until he became one of the Fadeaway Man’s mercenaries.  Lion-Mane added his incredible savagry to that group, but he would soon find that his savagry was no match for an angry Hawkman.  The last time we saw Lion-Mane he was horribly beaten and possibly blinded in one eye.  His whereabouts since are unknown.

Hummingbird – Not much is known about this character, save for the fact that she is…well, not entirely sane.  That may actually be an understatement.  When she was a child she witnessed her mother kill her father (over pancakes…seriously), and she then tied her mother to her bed and set her on fire so that her father wouldn’t be lonely in the afterlife.  She is an absolutely brilliant inventor, but she makes a point to invent devices such as cluster bombs designed to bring as much pain, death and destruction as possible to her targets.

Lasso – I have to admit…I know little to nothing about this character, Lasso.  I know that he is  villain from Hawkman’s golden age.  He was one of the mercenaries brought together by the Fadeaway Man to take Hawkman down once and for all.  For all of his troubles, Lasso ended up a snow bunny.

Satana – She is as stylish as she is utterly evil.  She is one of Hawkman’s villains from way back in the day, brought together under Fadeaway Man’s banner to end Hawkman once and for all.  Satana fancies herself as a sort of modern day Circe, using her science to meld humans with animals, all under her control.  She, undet the guidance of Hawkman’s foes, used her science to breed a version of the dreaded Manhawks.

Manhawks – The Manhawks are vicious, carnivorous hunters who plague system after system in the galaxy.  They will find a world to conquer like locusts and then wear masks with the face of those that they are about to conquer.  This species cannot be reasoned with; they know no compromise; they exist merely to conquer.