#shadowthief

Skip forward some 10,000 years and Native American historian and archaeologist, [Carter Hall/Donald Blake], and his wife, Native American chieftain and psychologist, [Shiera Hall/Jane Foster] become haunted by prophetic visions of disasters starting the night of their wedding.  All across America they are shown natural disasters linked to Native American artifacts, all scenes accompanied by a giant bird wreathed in storm clouds.  When they come into contact with one of the artifacts, a bird mask, it awakens in them a genetically encoded set of powers passed down over hundreds of generations, and united by their two complimentary blood lines, that allows them to, together, become [Hawkman/Thor] (a two-spirited being born from the union of both [Carter/Donald] and [Shiera/Barbara]; sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes both depending on where, when and why they’ve fused.)  Imbued with the alien powers of the long forgotten progenitor race they can wield wind, lightning, and fire as well as utilize the ancient alien’s technology to further manipulate elements of nature.

As they scour the North American continent for the man artifacts they come into conflict with those would steal or desecrate the powerful ancient tools, as well as other awoken descendants of the progenitor race, not all of whom are as benevolent as they...

They are frequently menaced by [Lobo/Loki], The Coyote, the son of a Native American medicine man, who spurned his family traditions to become a roving biker thug and drug dealer; He awoke his own latent genetic godhood when it saved him from what should have been a lethal drug overdose.  He fulfills the role of trickster god, duping and conning people with his psychotropic hallucinatory powers.  [Shadow Thief/Quicksand] a temperamental Native American Earth spirit with a penchant for sabotaging industrial facilities, wrecking towns and cities, and reclaiming Native American artifacts and progenitor technology.  They also must face down [Siren/Hela] The Great Horned Serpent, the genetic lineage of sect of progenitors who founded the Atlantean race, and have similarly begun to awaken to their genetically encoded powers; as a part of their mythical lineage she is worshiped by certain cults of Atlantean supremacists who see her as proof of a kind of genetic destiny for the Atlantean people.  And they share a rival with the Wyrd Woman in [T.O. Morrow/Baron Mordo] who uses the ancient technology as a conduit to bridge his magic with technology; It is [Morrow/Mordo] who summons a Native American spirit of the wind via magic and seals it inside an android body in the attempt to enslave it, only to have it turn on him, giving birth to [Red Tornado/Beta Ray Bill], The Red Condor.

(As a part of a kind of nod to ham-handed representation in cape comics in the past, he would originally be created as a member of an All-American hero team, and operate with them under [Morrow/Mordo]’s control by the not very subtle or sensitive name Red Chief.  The joke being that he’d be their token minority, despite being an apparent android and thus not having any kind of race or ethnicity.  Which would of course change upon the twist reveal that he is in fact a Native American spirit, and change his name to Red Condor.)

I’m sure this all comes as a bizarre choice, largely given Hawkman’s backseat status in DC comics in recent years.  But we thought the “winged helmeted, blunt weapon swinging, human academics possessed of a second set of knowledge, tied to an alien race with magitek that inspired gods of Earth” premises were so laughably similar yet totally different in how they were handled that they had some potential together.  It wasn’t meant to be quite so cut from whole cloth until we realized that we couldn’t just make up a new culture that would be conveniently mixed from Egyptian and Norse mythos, and decided to instead take “Eagle” and “Thunder” and merge those two icons together instead, and the Thunderbird happens to be a prominent figure in pan-Native American mythos, so we took Native American space gods as the new premise and ran with it.  This also gave us an unprecedented opportunity to not only have a Native American hero, but one who is a real heavy hitter in the Collusion universe, the likes of Superman, Thor, Shazam, and Hulk in terms of raw power.