Dove
21 years ago - Dawn Granger is born.
8 years ago - 13-year-old Dawn Granger creates a nationwide campaign speaking out against domestic violence. Several new state laws are created in response.
6 years ago - 15-year-old Dawn is chosen by Terataya, the lord of order that empowered Don Hall before his death. She begins having dreams where Don tries to communicate with her.
5 years ago - 16-year-old Dawn chooses to listen to Don Hall, and summons the magic to become Dove for the first time. She learns about how Hank Hall is descending into chaos and tracks him down, helping him recover from his loss and rebuild himself.
3 years ago - 18-year-old Dawn begins college, moving in with Hank Hall, their proximity empowering them to call on their magic and adventure into the Paths Beyond together, exploring the realms of the Lords of Chaos and Order.
Hawk & Dove are a strange legacy in DC comics... they've appeared consistently, if sporadically, for decades. They've had roles in major crossovers and team books. They've even appeared in the live action Titans series. By almost every conceivable metric, they are successful comic book characters. Yet they've never really seemed to grow out of the role of perpetual background characters. There IS a place for them in the larger DC story, though, and as long as we try to keep to it, they should work.
Dawn's Comic HistoryWhile the Hawk & Dove partnership debuted, and is very much a product of, the late sixties, Dawn Granger showed up for the first time in 1988. While her first actual appearance was a single panel in one of my favorite action-figure-smashing crossover series, Invasion, her actual debut was in the five issue Rob-Liefield-drawn Hawk & Dove miniseries. In it, Dawn is empowered by the Lord of Order that once empowered Don Hall, and has to win over Hank who absolutely doesn't want a replacement for his brother. As the miniseries continues Hank is slowly tempted to lose himself to the influence of the Lord of Chaos, being influenced by Kestral. She winds up saving him, and he accepts her as a partner. Their story continued into their ongoing series where they explored their connections to the Lords of Chaos and Order, going so far as to venture into the homeland of their patrons and join their wars.
In the following decade Hank would become the supervillain Monarch, eventually dying in the Zero Hour event. Dawn would make regular appearances in other series for some time afterward, but this basically marks the end of Hawk & Dove. |
Our Dawn StoryI just did a whole blog post about the ideologies of these characters, so you can check that out if you're interested, but the focus here is specifically on Dawn. She needs to be a proactive, socially conscious hero who is totally capable of defending herself. Thankfully, we live in a world full of examples of young, liberal, politically active people, and our version of Dawn is absolutely going to be one of them before she ever gets her powers, making her someone who earns her empowerment.
The changes we're making to the stories of these characters are really more about how Hank responds to the death of his brother. He's going to be slowly succumbing to the influence of the Lords of Chaos, losing his Hawk identity and instead becoming Kestral, an avatar of brutal violence. So when Dawn first becomes Dove, her first task is to find this person who is basically a stranger to her, but is clearly hurting, and reach out to him to help him process his grief and anger. It's actually a really cool way to use these two. |
Hawk & DoveIn the comics, there's been romantic tension between these characters from the very beginning, and that's NEVER read well. It totally undermines Dawn as a character, but even if it didn't, Hank was just so completely unlikeable that it didn't make sense. We wanted to create a relationship where they are both committed to taking care of each other, but without having to resort to anything romantic. To that end we actually made Dawn a bit younger than Hank, to hopefully create a sort of big brother / little sister dynamic.
Moving forward, Dawn is starting college, and she and Hank are going to become roommates as they both take classes, and their proximity will start to trigger their connection to the Lords of Chaos & Order. They'll be traveling into their realms of their patrons in the Paths Beyond, having their own magical adventures. We don't really need these two out there punching badguys, but the idea of these two exploring the cosmic ideas of Law and Chaos is a great way to keep them in the story. |