Black Adams Hawkman gave Aldis Hodge some wild DC Comics lore to chew on

Superheroes are famous for their intricate backstories, but even for the costumed set, some stand out as absolute cluster fucks. Cable of the X-Men. Donna Troy from the Amazons. Ben Reilly, Spider-Man. But only one of them plays along Black Adam: Hawkman, the costumed adventurer best known for being a modern archaeologist, a reincarnating adventurer, or an alien, depending on who you ask.

Actor Aldis Hodge who plays the character in Black AdamHe’s well aware that his character is quite a mess.

“When I first got involved with the research, it was sort of a running joke for a while,” he told Polygon via Zoom ahead of the film’s release. “All right, what story? I know all the stories, all the backstories.”

What is Hawkman’s backstory?

Image: DC Comics

Hodge really is a brave man. If you’re familiar with Hawkman from DC Comics (or Arrowverse from TV), you probably know Hawkman in two ways: as Carter Hall, a modern-day adventurer who happens to be the reincarnation of the ancient Egyptian prince Cheops, or as Qatar Hol, a policeman from a planet where everyone has wings.

Or maybe you know Hawkman and Hawkwoman from the justice league Cartoon that folds those two backstories together into Carter Hall, the modern day human reincarnation of an alien bird warrior who crash-landed in ancient Egypt and became pharaoh and stuff.

So which of these guys does he appear in Black Adam? Hodge didn’t want to give too much away (although, in fairness, the film doesn’t have much time for Hawkman’s backstory either, since the focus is on his titular character). But he spoke about his own personal quest before filming began to find a “stream of synergy” between all versions of Hawkman.

“For me,” Hodge said, “it was Carter Hall, the version most of us are pretty familiar with. […] I loved the nature of his reincarnated state derived from the original […] who was a pharaoh. That’s what I connected to the most.”

Carter Hall also allowed Hodge to find a parallel between his character and Black Adam‘s erratic protagonist, played by Dwayne Johnson. “Both he and Black Adam come from a healthy lineage. They are both warriors in a new age and space, but their principles are from a very different time period. So there is a royal nature. Those are the elements that inspired me the most when it came to who this person is.”

What does all this have to do with falcons?

Image: Warner Bros.

At Hawkman’s first appearance in the 1940s Flash Comics #1, writer Gardner Fox and artist Dennis Neville have him take the form of a hawk in homage to, quote, “the old hawk god, anubis.” (Who, uh, is known to have the head of a jackal, not a hawk or any other kind of bird.) So, ultimately… Hawkman dresses like a hawk because some guys in 1940 thought it looked cool. (To be fair, it does.)

Hawkman’s powers have usually affected warrior abilities, mostly in the medieval sense of having a giant morning star to swing around. He can also don an anti-gravity belt and a set of giant wings made of the mystical Nth metal to fly.

Correct: The wings are not part of his body and he can take them off. Over the years, Hawkman’s costume has run the gamut from a full tunic to a barely-there leather harness. He is definitely a superhero who adheres to the maxim “The sun is shining, the guns are out

“Not at all! So the Hawkman armor is made entirely of Nth metal. There are different versions of the armor and there are some with a cuirass which I wear in this film. The thing I loved about it was that we could really see the full talent of our art team, the designers Kurt and Bartand then also Legacy Effects Studio that actually did the armor – this guy Darnell Isom who was amazing, he modeled the helmet and the armor and the gear.”

Hodge’s appreciation for the costume comes in part from his studies be a designer before his acting career took off. He’s still holding a foot in the design world.

“I’m literally wearing museum art!” he said of his Hawkman costume. “I love being able to see this because I’m a co-owner of an art studio myself. […] We worked with the team at DC’s Blue Beetle, so I can see it from a different perspective. I get to know the work in all its intensity and think it’s great.”

It just goes to show that in the world of comics, sometimes it doesn’t matter how convoluted a character’s backstory is, as long as they look good in action.