It occurs to me that I have to ask about Tomahawk now, don't I?
I mean you could ask like. A revolutionary war scholar. Someone who knows something about this time period BEYOND what I learned in a college American History course closer to ten years ago. But I know you won't because for some reason YOU particularly get a charge out of making me hoof it down to the NYPL to crack open some dusty tome that might as well have small pox in it for the last time it was actually checked out.
But the fun thing about having to learn about things you've never learned about before is you are GUARANTEED to find something ridiculous, and early revolutionary American history has no shortage of deeply ridiculous stories.
And Tom Hawk was a very ridiculous man.
(The first issue of DC's very popular Tomahawk magazine)
Thomas Haukins was born on the American frontier back when the American frontier was like...Pittsburgh. Making his living as a scout and tracker and becoming known for his coon skin cap and full buck skin ensemble he was a trustworthy enough name in the area to be taken into the service in the French and Indian War under a fresh faced lieutenant named Washington. Years later that same Washington would call up Haukins, now better known under the nickname "Tomahawk" to assemble a scouting group that could conduct missions on behalf of the continental army within the wilderness around the Appalachians and the Great Lakes.
Taking on military missions everywhere from the Florida swamp land to undercover espionage in Ontario and Quebec, Tomahawk collected a ragtag adventuring band informally known as "Tomahawk's Rangers" that became as famous for their skill and valor as they were infamous for their truly piss poor like and absurdist reports.
In the 8 years that the Revolutionary War lasted, and that's being VERY charitable for how long his unit existed he ran across...
8 "Giant Indian Chiefs" of various flavors be they golden, petrified or robotic
9 giant lizards including something that sounds distinctly like a stegosaurus nearly a century before the species was first described.
At least 6 different tribes of "lost Native Americans" ranging from miniature lilliputians to "white indians" riding dinosaurs. Again, before the description of the WORD dinosaur.
Hawk HIMSELF was transformed into a giant at LEAST twice. Once of wood and once of fire.
And he had a detailed battle with a giant ape named King Colosso. Three times.
To say Hawk was considered an eccentric in his time would be an understatement. Most people thought he was mad as a hatter and the only thing keeping him from the asylum was the personal trust that he shared with general and later president Washington. And the fact that the actual military maneuvers he conducted (usually against his British counterpart, a spy named Gerald Shilling) were masterful tactical strokes that saved American lives by the thousands on multiple occasions.
He drops off the historical record ALMOST entirely during the Adams administration where his band was disbanded and he was pretty thoroughly discredited as a kook, reduced to acting as a tax collector in old Gotham. In relation to a case having to do with some piece of valuable amber brought in on the ship Transvaal Trader his old nemesis Shilling was killed and Hawk fully lost his patience with American "civilization". Only further supported in his decision by an Apache woman named Moon Fawn that he fell in love with he moved out to the isolated frontier town (again read Frontier as like, Iowa) of Echo Valley where he had two sons, Hawk and Small Eagle.
We don't know WHEN specifically Hawk passed away but it was sometime between 1820 and 1840 when his son, also known as Hawk travelled back into "civilized" society under the name "Hawk, Son of Tomahawk" using his father's mantle in an attempt to defend eastern tribes from conflict and encroachment of white settlers alongside another mysterious frontier warrior named Firehair.
You can take basically any part of Tomahawk's life story with a BOWL of salt, but considering the kind of world we know NOW we live in. One that is NOT lacking in lost tribes, reptillian monsters and giant gorillas, maybe the eccentric just knew more than the rest of us. He certainly knew a thing or two about the equality of man that his contemporaries might have learned.
