Superheroes are well-known for having convoluted backstories, however even for the costumed set, some stand out as absolute clusterfucks. Cable of the X-Men. Donna Troy of the Amazons. Ben Reilly, Spider-Man. But solely one in every of them stars in Black Adam: Hawkman, the costumed adventurer who’s finest identified for being a contemporary archeologist, a reincarnating adventurer, or an area alien, relying on who you ask.

Actor Aldis Hodge, who performs the character in Black Adam, could be very conscious that his character is form of a large number.

“It was sort of a running joke for a bit when I first started dipping into research,” he advised Polygon by way of Zoom forward of the movie’s launch. “All right, which story? I know all of the stories, all of the backstories.”

What is Hawkman’s backstory?

Image: DC Comics

Truly, Hodge is a courageous man. If you’re acquainted with the Hawkman of DC Comics (or TV’s Arrowverse), you most likely know Hawkman one in every of two methods: as Carter Hall, a contemporary adventurer who occurs to be the reincarnation of the traditional Egyptian prince Khufu, or as Katar Hol, a cop from a planet the place everyone wears wings.

Or you would possibly know Hawkman and Hawkwoman from the Justice League cartoon, which slams each of those backstories collectively into Carter Hall, the fashionable human reincarnation of an alien chook warrior who crash-landed in historical Egypt and have become pharaoh and stuff.

So which one in every of these fellows reveals up in Black Adam? Hodge didn’t wish to give an excessive amount of away (although to be honest, the film doesn’t have a lot time for Hawkman’s backstory both, provided that the main target is on its titular character). But he talked about his personal private quest, earlier than the film started taking pictures, to discover a “stream of synergy” between all of the variations of Hawkman.

“For me,” Hodge mentioned, “it was Carter Hall, the version that most of us are quite familiar with. […] I loved the nature of his reincarnated state coming from the original […] who was a pharaoh. I connected with that the most.”

Carter Hall additionally allowed Hodge to discover a parallel between his character and Black Adam’s mercurial protagonist, performed by Dwayne Johnson. “Both he and Black Adam come from a healthy line of legacy. They’re both warriors in a new age and a new space, but their principles come from a very different time period. So there’s a regal nature. Those are the elements that inspired me the most when it came to who this person is.”

What does all of this must do with hawks?

Image: Warner Bros.

In Hawkman’s first look in Nineteen Forties Flash Comics #1, author Gardner Fox and artist Dennis Neville have him tackle the guise of a hawk in homage to, quote, “the ancient hawk-god, Anubis.” (Who, uh, famously has the pinnacle of a jackal, not a hawk, or some other form of chook.) So, in the end… Hawkman clothes like a hawk as a result of some guys in 1940 thought it seemed cool. (To be honest, it does.)

Hawkman’s powers have normally amounted to warrior expertise, largely within the medieval sense of getting a large morning star to swing round. He may strap on an anti-gravity belt and a set of monumental wings product of the magical Nth steel, to be able to fly.

That’s proper: The wings are usually not part of his physique, 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-based harness. He’s undoubtedly a superhero who believes within the maxim of “sun’s out, guns out.” But once I requested Hodge whether or not he was dissatisfied that Carter’s film look was going to cowl up all of the onerous work he’d performed to attain a superheroic physique, he laughed it off. And once more, he confirmed that he had performed the analysis.

“Not at all! So the Hawkman armor is all made from Nth metal. There are different iterations of the armor, and there are some with a cuirass, which is what I wear in this film. The thing I loved about it was that we got to really see the full-on talent of our art team, the designers Kurt and Bart, and then also Legacy Effects studio, that actually made 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 is available in half from learning to be a designer earlier than his performing profession took off. He nonetheless retains a foot within the design world.

“I’m literally wearing museum-piece art!” he mentioned of his Hawkman costume. “I love being able to see that, because I co-own an art studio myself. […] We worked alongside the team from DC’s Blue Beetle, so I get to see from a different perspective. I get to appreciate the work in its full intensity, and I think it’s amazing.”

It simply goes to indicate that on this planet of comics, it typically doesn’t matter how convoluted a personality’s backstory is, so long as they give the impression of being dope in motion.