Hawkgirl's Jadzia Axelrod Teases A Fresh Direction & A Brand New DC Comics Star - Exclusive Interview
Contains spoilers for "Hawkgirl" #1
Kendra Saunders soars again in a new Dawn of DC "Hawkgirl" miniseries from DC Comics by Jadzia Axelrod, Amancay Nahuelpan, Adriano Lucas, and Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, which puts the spotlight back on the fan-favorite DC hero. In "Hawkgirl" #1, Saunders begins life anew in Metropolis, finding a new purpose without being on a superteam such as the Justice League. However, the arrival of a new villain will throw Hawkgirl's new normal into peril. At the same time, Kendra will team up with an unlikely ally, Galaxy (from Axelrod's young adult graphic novel, "Galaxy: The Prettiest Star"), as they begin an adventure featuring several familiar faces from the DC Universe.
We had the chance to speak to Axelrod about crafting a new "Hawkgirl" story, introducing her original character Galaxy to the main DC Universe, her plans for Kendra Saunders and her expanded role in the pages of DC Comics, and what readers can expect in the long-awaited title.
Hawkgirl's new era at DC Comics
How did this opportunity come to be, and how exciting was it to relaunch a "Hawkgirl" project?
I've been a fan of Kendra since her JSA [Justice Society of America] days, when I was reading that as it was coming out a million years ago. I always liked her because she was the one who looked at these revered Golden Age superheroes and didn't see why everyone listened to them. She was very much a "Shut up, old man" kind of character. That was her role within the ensemble, and I always liked that. She's always been a favorite.
I was super excited when she took over the "Hawkman" series and it became "Hawkwoman," so I've always loved this character. For DC to come to me and say, "Would you like to do a Hawkgirl series?" I jumped at the chance. I was so excited.
What made Hawkgirl such an appealing character to write? While they have a storied history with DC Comics, they haven't had a major starring role in a little bit.
Really ever. Even when she was the lead in "Hawkwoman," it was still Hawkman's book. It was still Hawkman's enemies. It was a lot of, "Where's Hawkman right now? We need to find Hawkman." The focus was definitely on him, even though he wasn't there.
This is her first big shot to be herself and not be in the shadow of another winged hero. One thing that was appealing to me was to showcase her on her own. The position that she's in right now was super exciting with her history in the Justice League, but also, the reveals that happened in the recent "Hawkman" series raise a lot of questions about who she is and what is going on with her right now and how she's dealing with that. It makes me very excited.
Especially if we take everything that's happened to her post-resurrection, after she came back in the "Metal" event, what has happened to her is we've seen a lot of her in teams. We've seen a lot of her being a superhero, and because of that ensemble nature, we haven't really seen anything of her personal life. It's very interesting to take that subtext as text and, like, "Why doesn't she have a personal life anymore? Why has she devoted so much of her time and energy to being a superhero and not a person?" That is fascinating to me as a writer, and to delve into that has been very rewarding. I've been enjoying it immensely.
How Hawkgirl's past shapes her present
How do Hawkgirl's past stories forge something new? I remember you talked on Twitter about how you wanted to get her story away from Thanagar.
Right. Kendra has no connection to Thanagar, so there's no reason to bring Thanagar into this. That's Shayera, Hawkwoman, who is from Thanagar. Kendra is not; she's from Earth. Specifically, she's from the South, which I'm also from, so that's a lot of fun for me. But one thing we're building on is — and I've said this; some people have asked me about it — this is a Kendra Saunders book, not a "Hawkgirl" book, in this sense that we are building on who she is as a character. We're not as focused on the Hawkgirl legacy as much as we are on who is Kendra right now.
Not that the legacy's not important, and not that the legacy doesn't inform who she is right now — it certainly does — but we're not seeing flashbacks to previous incarnations. We're not going back to Egypt. We're not seeing a red-haired version of Kendra doing something in an earlier time. That's not the story we're trying to tell. We're trying to tell what happens to someone who has made being a superhero and being part of a legacy the centerpiece of their life. What happens when you don't have that, when you don't have the Justice League, when you don't have the Hawks to rely on anymore? Who are you then? That's the journey of the series.
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How exciting was it to set a new status quo for Hawkgirl?
It was great because I like playing with other people's toys. It's fun, but it's more fun to me to set them on a different path and on a new path. To take Kendra and be like, "Let's put her in Metropolis, let's have her deal with new villains and new circumstances, and let her take this inward journey in a nice outward direction through new threats," was very exciting. I had more fun doing that than I would've if we were going to bring in the Monocle. As much fun as those old Hawkman villains are, to have Kendra have her own rogues gallery, to have a new type of villain and a new area of the DC universe where those villains come from, is very exciting.
How does a major Batman villain play a role in "Hawkgirl"?
That's been revealed. [In] Issue 3, we have the Court of Owls. That made sense to have hawks versus owls.
When I got the gig, the first thing I did was [think], "What are the natural enemies of hawks?" There's not a lot, because they're predators, but there are other predators that they compete for food with, and one of them is owls. So we have to do a Court of Owls issue. We did, and it was great. Amancay [Nahuelpan] has just finished drawing it, and it's gorgeous.
How Galaxy fits into the Hawkgirl story
Was the decision to include Galaxy an easy one? Obviously, that is a very big creation of yours. Did it feel pretty seamless to fit them into the story?
Galaxy's in there because the story needed someone who has energy powers and has a different personality than Kendra. Kendra's pretty brusque, so to have someone who's a little more bubbly and who has energy powers makes the plot work in a nice, seamless way. Galaxy was my first choice in thinking about this, but I had backups in case I was told I couldn't use Galaxy for whatever reason. I'm so glad I did get to use Galaxy, though, because it works perfectly.
To have her there as someone who has a personal life and has a real life that is rewarding but is still not quite there with the superhero career ... Contrast that with Kendra, who has burned off her personal life and is just a superhero. To have these two — Galaxy helping Hawkgirl live a little, and Hawkgirl helping Galaxy be more of a superhero and have that good intake and that true partnership — is really fun, and their friendship becomes the core of the book, which is nice.
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Was it daunting at all to try to integrate Galaxy into the mainline DC universe? It's cool to see their design and how they look in the main canon.
That's Amancay Nahuelpan doing amazing work again and taking Jess [Taylor's] incredible design and translating it so that it's still his but also reminiscent of Jess'. It's still the same person, but it's through a different lens, which is wonderful. But it wasn't hard putting her in there because I had always planned for her to exist within the DC Universe proper. I had said, when Galaxy first came out, "This is part of the DCU." We don't acknowledge large things going on in there because it's part of a little tiny area of the DCU in a little tiny town, but it's part of the big thing. That was always something that was in my head. Literally moving her into the DCU was easy because I'd always thought that's where she was going to go.
That's a smart way to do it ...
Right, and I'm a huge nerd, so I think about this stuff all the time, whether I need to or not. I know why Ciandi is not part of the Legion of Superheroes, for example, and all this other stuff that will probably never see the light of day, but I have it planned out just in case.
The challenge of tackling Hawkgirl's complicated history
How important was it to make the book reader friendly? Hawkgirl has a bit of a complicated history, even in the pages of DC Comics.
It was very important, number one. A lot of people are scared of the Hawk history. It's not as complex as people think, but it can be if you want to get nitty-gritty. The important thing is this is two warriors who have been reincarnated since essentially the dawn of time. That's it. You understand now. We can get even more detailed if we want into that, but that's the basic.
I tried to write this to make it new reader friendly so that anyone could pick it up cold and understand what was going on. We introduced things about her backstory slowly throughout the series so that by the time we hit Issue 5, where there's a lot that's heavily about who she is and her relationship to pretty much everything ... #5 is heavy, but by the time we get there, you're all caught up and you're ready to understand who she is and what she does. That was a very conscious effort to do that slowly and to hold people's hands as we go through the tangled areas of her backstory.
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"Galaxy," the original graphic novel, was unapologetically queer. You obviously wrote the "DC Book of Pride," which was excellent. Why was it important to make this also kind of a queer story? Why was that important to you, and how exciting was that to build?
It was very important. I've said before that writing the "DC Book of Pride" has radicalized me in the sense that [for] a lot of these characters that are featured in that book, their personal lives — and by extension of that, their queerness — is told in between stories and in between scenes. Most of them aren't leads; we are given bits and pieces of their stories that are then put together. A character will meet another woman, and they will have a little meet cute, and then later you'll see them having an apartment together and three cats, and there's maybe six months to two years in between those scenes. But we've caught up with them, and now we know, and we miss that whole romance between these two women.
I was not going to do that in any book I write. In bringing Galaxy [into] this story, I wanted to make sure that her queerness was front and center. Because it's a story about Kendra trying to have more of a personal life, to show an example of an ideal personal life being a queer one and one where a trans woman has a relationship with a queer woman is a little radical, but definitely something that you don't see very often. I was very happy to do that.
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What can you say about the new villain — Vulpecula — and their connection to Hawkgirl?
Vulpecula is a trickster character, very much in that vein. She is someone who's not to be trusted and someone who will give you what you ask for, but that is not necessarily what you want or need. There is always a price tag with these kinds of things, and she collects every single time. She has a much larger impact on Kendra's life in particular and the DC universe at large than is initially believed.
The expanded DC Universe's role in the story
What can you say about artist Amancay Nahuelpan's work, and how exciting was it to see them bring this project to life?
They're amazing, number one — absolutely. It's better than I imagined. Everything is better. What Amancay does is so incredibly detailed, but at the same time, very expressive and animated. It looks much better than I was imagining it, which is always a great thing for a writer to see when you're like, "Is this like my imagination? Oh, it's even better. I'm good." Especially after we got a feel for each other's rhythms — when I started writing for him and Amancay started drawing, understanding what I was trying to do with the script, it really came together, which was nice.
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Their work is great. This is a pretty big roster of characters in the first issue — what was it like to play with a more expanded DC universe? I assume this is the biggest you've done with it so far.
Yeah, because nobody was in "Galaxy," so this is my chance to play around. I got that girl in my Alysia Yeoh story, and that was it. To have so many people here was a blast. All of these characters are characters I've loved. All of these characters are characters that I feel I understand their voice. It was very fun to plug that in — very easy in a lot of ways, especially with characters like Power Girl, who I've loved forever, and Superman.
I'm glad that Superman has entered his Super Dad phase because that's something that I've always liked, that take. When I wrote Superman, it was very much a Super Dad role, and that was great for me. There are a bunch of guest stars in the book because it was important to show that [Hawkgirl] is part of a community of superheroes and what that means, and how Kendra fits into this community of superheroes, and also how she doesn't. That compare-and-contrast was necessary. We certainly could have put her in a city that no other superhero was in and have her be alone, but it was more interesting to put her with other characters like Galaxy.
What other characters can we expect to see in this book that you can say?
Galaxy's girlfriend, Kat, is there. Argus is there for certain. Those are all the characters that come from "Galaxy: The Prettiest Star." There's a new character, Abilene, who's an old college friend of Kendra's who has a strong presence. As far as other superhero guest stars, we're probably going to have to keep that secret until more reveals happen. But it has been fun to have these characters that I created in "Galaxy: The Prettiest Star," who I always thought were going to be teenagers forever, to now be young adults and interacting with major figures in the DC universe and how that happens. I did not expect for Galaxy to share a scene with Batman, for example — and there she does in Issue 3, and it was a wild thing to write.
The hopes of the Hawkgirl series
How exciting is it to finally get "Hawkgirl" into the hands of readers?
It is so exciting. I've written — if I may say so myself — a very good story. If this is all I get to tell of Kendra, that's fine, because it's a good story. We set her up to a new future, which is, as a fan of the character, all I would want. Ideally, I would get to tell stories in that new future, and I certainly have ideas in mind, and I hope I do. But to look at it as these six issues of these perfect stories — six perfect stories that all blend together into a much larger one — it's absolutely the story I wanted to tell. I didn't have to make any compromises with it, which was very cool. It's exactly what I wanted. It looks better than I could have dreamed, and it was a lot of fun. I don't think I've had more fun writing ever. To play in this space of superhero floppies, to learn those rhythms, and to have those toys to mess around with was a delight. But of course, I'd like to do more because it was so much fun.
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What do you hope readers get from this first issue? I think it's pretty great.
Thanks. I hope they fall in love with Kendra the way I have always loved her. I hope they read her and are like, "This is my new favorite character," because she's always been one of mine.
Where Hawkgirl's adventures take her next
Our exclusive look at "Hawkgirl" #2 features Kendra Saunders, Galaxy, and Kat visiting a nightclub and letting loose. While Kendra manages to have some fun and dance, another preview page teases a fiery battle against her newest villain, Vulpecula. Check out the first look as well as the text synopsis for the issue below.
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"Hawkgirl's made a new enemy, but also a new friend. Is Metropolis' A-Town neighborhood big enough for the both of them? And will Galaxy discover the connection between Hawkgirl's Nth metal wings and Vulpecula's plans before it's too late?"
"Hawkgirl" #1 from DC Comics is available in comic book stores and online retailers now.
This interview has been edited for clarity.