Hawkman #13

I can tell this story tersely enough with just a few panels:






Comments: Overall an amusing story, obviously padded quite a bit to make a book-length tale. Murphy Anderson's art sizzles however, and Gardner Fox does redeem himself a bit with the ending. Hawkgirl had turned off a mind control machine that Queen Alvit had planned to use to force him to marry her, but Hawkman has a different explanation:

Very, very sweet!

The Mavis Trent Chronicles Volume 1

Hawkman was unique in the Silver Age among all heroes, as he arrived on Earth already married. From a writer's point of view, single characters are more interesting as they're free to form new romantic relationships, or continue old ones, while married characters have to be faithful to their existing partner.

Enter Mavis Trent. In Brave & Bold #34, Hawkman and Hawkgirl meet up with Commissioner Emmett and reveal their real identities as policemen from Thanagar, come to Earth, initially to capture a shape-shifting crook named Byth, but eventually to study our police methods. In fact, not only did they confide in Commissioner Emmett, but he was instrumental in giving them their secret identities while on this planet:



But when Hawkman (as Carter Hall) meets one of his employees, he picks up a clue:



It's such a rare bird that it doesn't exist on Earth, which is why Carter is interested, although it's pretty obvious that Mavis is interested in something else, and a publicity man suggests that Carter and Mavis go on an expedition together to track down the oddity. But Shayera scotches those plans:



But even after learning that Carter is married, Mavis is not deterred:



The subplot in that issue ends somewhat oddly, with Carter and Mavis exploring Hawk Valley (with Shayera as a chaperone) in an unsuccessful attempt to find the rare bird (which was the criminal that Hawkman and Hawkgirl had originally come to Earth after).

In the second tryout issue (Brave & the Bold #35), Carter is surprised when Mavis hugs him for sending her flowers (because he didn't). Shayera is not amused:



Mavis' photos of rare animals shows a chance of breaking into the big time in the second story in B&B #35:



So she's a catalyst for the stories, at the same time as she appears to be something of an antagonist to Carter and Shiera (as they are renamed by Commissioner Emmett. I should mention that although Joe Kubert makes Mavis look quite attractive, there is no hint that her desire for Carter is returned in the stories, and while Shiera clearly gets a little frosty at times, it's always directed at Mavis and not her husband. And at the end of the story, she's no longer quite so enamored of Carter, as the new man in town:



She continues her role as catalyst in B&B #36:



Later, it turns out that the guy she was suddenly snuggling up to in that sequence was after her ring, which leads to this bizarre bit:



Comments: The idea of a femme fatale in DC is pretty far ahead of the times, although I suspect kids were used to seeing this type of subplot on TV comedies (in which the husband/wife always remained faithful). Lois Lane and Lana Lang's rivalry is different, for the simple reason that Superman isn't married to either of them. In later issues (as we'll discuss in future volumes of the Mavis Trent Chronicles), DC did rectify this problem by having Commissioner Emmett tell Mavis that Hawkman and Hawkgirl were not married. But that is a tale for another day.

Where In the World is Midway City

This came up in a chatroom I was in the other day, and I thought it made an interesting and oddball topic. In the first Hawkman Silver Age tryout, we learned that they had followed a Thanagarian thief to Midway City, on Earth.

Now of course, the logical conclusion is that Chicago is Midway City; one of Chicago's major airports is Chicago-Midway. One assumes that Midway refers to halfway between New York and the West Coast. Which means it's a lie; in fact it's only about a third of the way.

Update: Looking at Wikipedia, it turns out that Midway was originally Chicago Municipal Airport, but was renamed Midway in honor of one of the key naval battles of World War II against the Japanese,

But... as you probably guessed, locating Hawkman's Midway City does not turn out to be that easy. The DC Wikia gives the location of Midway City as east of Sault Ste. Marie (Canada) on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Which is something of a joke. Here's a map of the area; Sault (pronounced Sue) Ste. Marie, Michigan is a town of 16,000 people, and while the Canadian Sault Ste. Marie has a population of 74,000, that's still way too small an area to be credible as Hawkman's home base. For example, the man they confide in, George Emmett, is described as Midway City's police commissioner; but in a small town like Sault Ste. Marie, they would just have a police chief.

And in the very first cover for Hawkman, we are shown the "Bi-State Tunnel":



A four-lane tunnel in each direction? Even the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels aren't that big. So you're going to tell me that East Nowhere and West Nowhere have a bigger tunnel between them? It's simply not credible. And look at that skyline in the distance; that's clearly not some small burg; it's a major metropolis.

Not to mention the obvious problem with the name "Bi-State Tunnel"; there's no other state in 100 miles of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan; Canada calls them provinces. It would be the "International-Tunnel" or the "Bi-National Tunnel". On the other hand, Chicago is very close to the border between Illinois and Indiana, and while there's no tunnel between them near that border, the rest of the setting clearly fits; we're seeing the Indiana side, Lake Michigan and Chicago to the right.

Still, we must look for further clues. From Brave & Bold #43 (the fifth tryout issue), we get some definite geographical markers:



Okay, so Buffalo is roughly due east. Here's a map:



There are a number of cities that are west of Buffalo but still in the United States. Detroit, Chicago and Milwaukee strike me as the most likely candidates; as you can see, Buffalo is southeast of Sault Ste. Marie, far enough south that the idea of it being described as east is a bit ridiculous.

Here's another tantalizing clue from Mystery In Space #90's Planets In Peril:



They are on their way up out of the atmosphere, and where are they? Looks to me like somewhere south of Lake Michigan, and nowhere near Sault Ste. Marie (which is near the far eastern corner of the disappeared Lake Superior). They are reasonably close to Chicago; certainly closer to there than SSM.

So on the whole I would say for now that Midway City is Chicago. Now I will have to revisit this post in a week or so, because Midway City is not solely the home of Hawkman and Hawkgirl; it's also the base of the Doom Patrol, and evidence from their stories must be taken into account as well.