Note: The most recent entry will be posted at the top, and then in chronological order.

Writer: Robert Venditti

Sky Tyrant

thousand

fear

debt

Dark Days: The Forge (August 2017) Writers: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV

A young boy had spied something in the sky, a light, and we rode out together, my princess, my advisor, my guards, all to see what it was.

We could feel it in the air, the start of something big.

Something was coming...something wondrous.

A message from the gods, perhaps? A sign?

But it was no sign.

It was a clue to the greatest mystery in the history of mankind.

And it was written in metal.





From that night on, that fateful night in the Egyptian desert, my story is well known.

The ship was made of a mysterious substance called Nth Metal. It gave me, my wife, and our mortal enemy, Hath-Set, eternal life, sending us into a cycle of reincarnation--Shiera and I fighting on the side of good, Hath-Set on that of evil.

We were born hundreds, even thousands of times over, cast against each other.

But the truth is, sometimes, in those dark moments, those moments in between lives, before being born again, I would catch glimpses...

...glimpses of something bigger, a mystery behind our lives, our story.

Something terrifying. Something on a scale I had never seen before. A dream...no, not a dream. A nightmare, echoing through the metal.

So I began following a mystery of my own. Something I told no one about. Not until now.

Here in these pages.

A mystery that would take me places I had never dreamed.





You don't even realize it when it happens. One minute you're following the clues, and the next, they're pulling you forward, dragging you.

For years I studied Nth Metal alone, trying to unlock the secrets of its abilities. What I came to understand was that it was conducting energy...powerful energy from somewhere beyond my understanding.

I dug deeper Followed every clue I could find...

Until one day I got a glimpse.

A glimpse of a story that began with the first men to walk the Earth. Three tribes...

Or rather...four.

And something else...

I was part of something bigger, something beyond my control.

And I would do everything in my power to uncover what had been taken from me. The secret that stretched back to the dawn of my species. No matter what the cost.





I wish I could go back to that moment and warn myself.

I write this journal for anyone foolish enough to pick up my trail.

Whatever you do, do not follow in my footsteps.

I beg of you, whoever might be reading this, however many generations might have passed.

Do not follow the mystery of the metals.

Some mysteries are best unsolved. Some doors best left unopened.

Because through them, all you'll find is horror.

Writers: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV

Writer: Scott Snyder

Writer: Scott Snyder

Writer: Jeff Lemire





Writers: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV

Writer: Robert Venditti

am

Writer: Robert Venditti

Writer: Robert Venditti

Writer: Robert Venditti

Writer: Robert Venditti

Writer: Robert Venditti

Writer: Steve Orlando and Ronan Cliquet

Writer: Robert Venditti

Writer: Robert Venditti

Writer: Robert Venditti

Writer: Robert Venditti

every

Writer: Robert Venditti

Time

I

life

a lot

time

space

purpose

lifetimes

Writer: Robert Venditti

Carter Hall

Hawkman

time

space

thousand

museum

Oliver Queen

mystery

wonder

Writer: Robert Venditti

time

space

Krypton

Thanagar

blood

violence

envy

questions

power

entrance

one

priceless

Carter Hall

Hawkman

Darkness

Writer: Robert Venditti

Writer: Robert Venditti

Gentleman Ghost

friend

foe

The Shade

killing

stroke

Writer: Robert Venditti

history

shadow

always

are

Carter Hall

Hawkman

violence

Writer: Robert Venditti

Khufu

Chay-ara

time

space

Ktar Deathbringer

good

inevitably

this

Writer: Robert Venditti

ignorance

Dead Clergy

creation

Writer: Robert Venditti

Sky Tyrant

thousand

fear

debt

She is Shayera Hol.She is Hawkwoman.Her full history, unremembered.I am Carter Hal.I am Hawkman....I want to forget.My mind and body were weakened by an infection, allowing my past life as, the evil Hawkman of Earth-3, to emerge from my suppressed memories.He took over my form to deliver death unto the universe.But there are fates blacker than adeaths.They steal your will to fight......and leave behind onlyI don't fear death.What terrifies me is that the number of lives I save will never outnumber those I took when I was evil.That theI owe will never be repaid.And I'll live with the guilt, past death and into life after life after life.Forever.- - - CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER FROM HERE - - -There is a feeling you get at the beginning of an adventure...You feel it in your veins, the channels, your heart starts pounding......beating only for discovery...My name is Carter Hall and this is my final journal.I have lived many lives. But I remember that night like it was yesterday.In Cairo, they had called me an adventurer. In Athens they called me a philosopher.But in my small museum in the quiet American city of St. Roch in the first decades of the twentieth century, I was an archaeologist.The job itself never changed. The human story is a mystery told by a billion unreliable narrators, and for the duration of our species I have been nothing more than a detective.The mission was always the same. To carry forward the torch of discovery and reveal the secrets hiding in the darkest shadows.The truth buried deep beneath millennia of human memory.We had found them over many lifetimes, lurking out of sight in human history, unchanging, all-seeing. We had long heard rumors of the Rhyming Demon of Camelot. Brothers who keep secrets and mysteries. A man as old as America. The grove of ancient humanoid plants. Keepers of Mysteries and Secrets. Of Sorcerers, Shining Knights, Cavemen, and Phantom Strangers of all stripes.None had ever thought to bring them together.The Immortals.I told them what I now knew. That our lives did not begin in Egypt. That they began generations earlier...The dark priest Hath-Set, he had not cast us down this path of reincarnation.He had taken our pasts away from us.He had obscured the truth behind the metal we wore in our wings and belts in service of something darker than any mortal could comprehend.A figure stepped from the back. His voice was like the low rumble of thunder.He spoke of the metal that changed everything, and the terrible being that it had brought forth.The being from beyond all our understanding.The being that was cast out, and sought desperately to return.To tear down all that was light in the world, and drag it into the dark.And the truth would hit us like lightning.The Immortals spoke of the tribes at the dawn of man.The arrival of the strange metal that would change everything, brought to this world by a tear in the fabric of reality, and the demon that rose from the dark and nearly conquered us all.At first, we didn't believe. The scale of what they were telling us was too huge, too frightening. We set out to confirm their story. To find any evidence that it was all a lie.But instead, we found countless paintings on every continent, hidden in the deepest cave systems. All telling the same dark story.They spoke of the Hawk Tribe, where my story had truly begun, though I did not remember it. They spoke of the betrayal by the Judas of the birds...who sided with the demon.The demon who took the sigil of the great and terrible bat. The plague bringer. The scourge of mankind.My wife and I, we died fighting it back into the dark from whence it came. Shuttering the door between its world and ours.That was the truth Hath-Set severed us from by recreating the scene millennia later. He, the emissary of the same dark forces that nearly fell humanity before it could begin.Birds and Bats, forever at war.The Immortals told us the metal was cursed. It needed to be eliminated, as its power came from the same darkness that begat this great destroyer.But this strange metal, it had been so much more to us. It had brought us wonders, brought us wings, and countless lives.I knew I had to understand more. I needed to see that place from which the power came. It took decades to build the technology we needed.We recruited adventurers from around the world who shared our values, our certainty that the nature of the cosmos was benevolent.We wouldn't allow ourselves to be beaten down by the unknown.We would challenge it.The Wizard's knife gave us the power we needed to chart our way into the darkness. We were ready to understand the true nature of things, ourselves and the worlds around us.I remember Shiera's hand in mine, holding tight as the switch was flipped.Then I remember the Earth shaking, as if it had been torn apart.And the screaming.As I stared into the darkness where Challengers Mountain had stood, I felt a chill down my spine...And I saw the eyes of something great and terrible staring back at me through the abyss...Eyes. Waiting in the dark.Waiting for something.Someone.There was a time I believed that the world got a little better every time we solved one of the great mysteries.When we mastered a law of science with our wit and our science, I felt like we were marching onward and upward.Toward the kind of utopia of science and wonder that first captured my imagination when I saw the Thanagarian ship crashing in my life as Khufu. They were scientists, we would discern. We thought they came bearing gifts and knowledge.Now I know the reason why they brought the Nth Metal here. They came to warn us what they knew was on the other side.They didn't come to help move forward into the light. They were here to stop us in our tracks, so the universe would never fall prey to the ambitions of a small world that even millennia later could barely get past its own moon.This is the final entry in my journal. I believe I have found a way to penetrate the barrier of our reality and enter the dark myself.I still believe, in my heart, that there is wonder and hope out there in the unknown, at the center of all this incredible power. But that hope seems more foolish with every passing day. I feel the encroaching darkness planting doubt deep in my soul.The others, even my wife, believe that the mystery is and has always been a trap...a trap dragging us into nightmares, begging us to let those nightmares free and destroy our world.And it is true. Our enemy has grown stronger than I ever could have imagined...they keep killing my spies, as I get closer to determining their plans.I've done my best to avert their endgame...I am entrusting this journal and its terrible secrets with the family that has always been most loyal to the birds. With the command to hide it unless I fail and the beast comes again. Then and only then will the journal reveal itself.They know how important this is. That they must stay far from the dark and frightening truth lurking under the world, trying to force itself through.I stand with my torch, facing the dark. I believe I will find something out there. A glimmer of potential. But I know that I am likely wrong. That all I will find is the darkness itself.I walk towards my end alone, so that no man could ever be foolish enough to follow.There is a feeling you get at the end of an adventure.You feel it in the anxious quickening in your heart. In every tentative footstep you take. It's the fear of what you've done to bring you to that point. The knowledge that whatever mistakes you've made are yours to own from here into eternity. It is the knowledge that there is no way back.At the beginning, your story burned white hot with possibility. You felt the fire in your veins. The need to know. To explore. To understand.And more than that, the knowledge that you can chart your own course toward that greater knowledge.That you, and only you, control your destiny.But with every step forward, your story cooled and hardened. Pulling you inexorably toward a singular ending. At the end you can no longer choose.An ending that chooses you.FROM THE JOURNAL OF CARTER HALLLost to history is a story.A story about how, in these lands, during the Age of Stone, there were three great tribes of man. Tribe of the Wolf, of the Bear, and of the Bird.All were nomadic, and shared a grand dream--a dream of discovery.But soon, a fourth tribe arose. A dark tribe, unlike the others......one of the twisted dreams--dreams turned inside out.And with its terrible rise, so began The Age......of Metal.I told you how it began, this story. Now let me tell you how it'll end.How it'll end if I'm wrong and the dark is a place of evil, as the Immortals and Kendra suspect.The end will begin with a shot fired from the dark, something to tear a hole in reality.And then, as dark energy pours into this world, the visions will start. Visions to those attuned to the power of Nth Metal......a glimpse of what's coming. A dark army......already on its way here.On its way here to find the one Barbatos has been after all these years. The wagon for the dark-horned god......Son of the House of Wayne.And if Wayne has been prepared by the Judas Tribe, if the agents of Barbatos have set in motion its coming......then there will be running for him.No running for any of us.Barbatos has been after its target since the dawn of man. It first saw him in a final moment of crisis.And now, if you are reading this, a second moment is upon us.I have left this journal for you. In your house. The house of the family I trust most. Turned from Tribe Bat, to Tribe Bird. The Waynes.Left it in a secret place that will make itself known to you through metal if I should be wrong, should energy from the dark rise to foretell the coming of Barbatos.You may feel it coming already. You may have felt it your whole life. Watching. Shaping from the dark. The final case. I give this journal to you for a simple reason......to say that I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I was wrong. And I'm sorry for everything coming.But tonight I still have hope that you will never find this book. That it will stay hidden. Now, I venture into the dark myself. Explorer. Detective. Proud member of Tribe of the Bird.I follow that first great dream of the true tribes.Signed, Carter HallFrom the journal of Carter Hall.I've lived many lives and heard varying stories about the beginning of our great multiverse.The story I heard most often, first from an old friend named Abin Sur, was about an ancient scientist, Krona, who wanted to explore the mysteries of creation.Krona developed a machine to peer into the very core of the universe...to see what lay behind it all.And what he saw was a great hand so far back that the very act of looking at it opened up millions of worlds.My point is, the actual origin story of our entire multiverse is about exploration, about discovery, about searching for that one thing you have to find no matter what, no matter what it may take.But I didn't tell the whole story. The origin of the universe.Because the thing is, as much as I fight the truth, the fact is, the story of Krona, it's also a tragedy...See, Krona was reviled for his hubris, for going too far. He became the most hated man in the universe.That great hand, it might as well have pointed its finger at him and accused him itself.The origin story of our multiverse, it's a cautionary tale. It says explore too far......and you may just become the villain of your own story.Each night I dream I am a bird.No, not a bird--a warrior. And I dream that I can fly. Nothing holds me back. Gravity fades away and I am free, truly free.Each night this dream quickly turns into a nightmare.My muscles weaken. My bones ache. My teeth loosen in my mouth and I feel my weight return.Worse of all, my wings shrivel and shed.And there's an instant where I just hang in midair and I am afraid. Afraid to be up this high, all alone.And I know that I'm going to fall.Then gravity returns and pulls me into the blackness below.And each night I wake right before I hit the ground. I wake just before I die.Then I'm back. Back here. Always here.This is how I keep track of the days here. Not by the sun and moon--there is no sun or moon here, only eternal dusk--but rather by these dreams......dreams of the Hawkman.They're here! They've come back!Only this time I'm ready.Each week they come and take another of the prisoners. Terrors of the sky. Our dark jailers......The Manhawks!The others run and hide. Sometimes they are plucked away and taken to their ship, never to be seen again.But I won't run. I won't hide. Not anymore...I've been biding my time. Preparing.And now it's time. Time to leave.The others just watch. Impassive. Like ghosts. And for an instant I think I know them all...or they know me.And then it fades and all that's left is blood and bone.All that's left is war.And I may not know anything else, but I do know I was born for war.In my darkest hours, all alone in that cave, I started to imagine that this place was some sort of afterlife...that I was dead and this is hell.But their blood is warm on my hands. My lungs hurt as I breathe. I know that I am alive.And I'm not going to stop until every last one of them is dead.But first...First I have to climb.Every night there is an instant where I hang in midair and I am afraid. I am so afraid to be up this high, all alone.And I know that I'm going to fall.I know I'm going to fall...But this time...I don't.This time I keep climbing.Higher and higher.Almost there.Only one thing I have to do...I just need to fly.I...I know this place. Don't I?Like the men I left down below, it somehow seems familiar but also it feels wrong...The walls are filled with artifacts of death, weapons of torture. A museum of the dead.Yet they feel so right in my hands. Like they belong there.And then it starts. From out of nowhere... I start to remember. And I know--I know who I was!I also know where I am.And I know who put me here...I--I received a distress call on Challengers Mountain. The Challengers were lost...lost in the Dark Multiverse.I didn't find the Challengers, but I found the Forge... the Forge of Worlds.Their universe...this is what I had been looking for so long. This was the darkness...the mystery I had tried so desperately to shine a light on.I have to man the Forge of Worlds. All life depends on it...it is my destiny.Nothing can take me from the Forge...nothing except this nightmare.This--this thing--this monster, it attacked me. Took me from the Forge and brought me to this prison.Kendra! I--I had almost forgotten Kendra--what has he done to me?!I reach back into my mind but he's right, everything is fading, a blur.I don't know who I was anymore. So instead I become rage. I become hatred.I become the Hawk.I'll never let him take that from me.Something is very wrong.I have pieces but too many of them don't fit.I have spent my life--my lives--uncovering mysteries. Searching for the truth. And this is no different, except now I am the mystery.He's right. This place has done something to me. It has taken something from me.So I take something back.So many lives. So many memories. A jumble of possibilities. These things I've seen. I don't know what's real anymore and what isn't.So I make a choice. I rise up above it all. I let my past and my future fall away.All I know for sure is who I am right now....I'm Hawkman. And I'm coming home!Each night I dream I am a bird.No, not a bird--a warrior. And I dream that I can fly. Nothing holds me back. Gravity fades away and I am free, truly free.But each night this dream quickly turns into a nightmare...I am afraid.I am alone.I fall.Once again, gravity returns.....and pulls me into the blackness below.My name is Carter Hall.And lost to history was a story......a story of evil, of darkness...but also, of heroes.And this book shall by my record of it.From the journals of Carter HallThey say the eighth metal is the stuff of gods. The ninth uses dark energy to give its carrier powers that defy physics.But the tenth......also called Element X, is metal of the so-called Forge itself.The metal of pure possibility.They say whoever wields it..."Let his first words be recorded forever in the hall of kings."For his metal can take the shape of whatever is needed.Arm whoever the bearer wishes......so they might cut through the dark and bring their will to life.And what of the dark-horned god? What have I learned of Barbatos in my travels?That he watches with hatred... Always.He watched us from the dark during that first war of birds and bats......watched as the tribes gathered their armies against those trying to raise him.For he had been a cosmic dragon whose sole purpose was to return failed worlds to the forge.He knew one truth. That in the end, all worlds failed.So to leave the dark at all to explore, to reach...was the great mortal sin.His cry is the wail of billions of failed words. I can feel him even now, watching us with hatred and without fear.For he knows that if he should ever be set free, and the dark structures align......all he has to do to lower the Earth into darkness...is open his mouth...and scream.Release the anti-music of his shriek......and sink the Earth so low it can never be raised again.Lost to history was a story...a story of heroes......heroes fighting an ancient war of birds and bats.I wrote of it many years ago.Today I write a new story.About another great war of birds and bats, but one that ends not with obfuscation, but discovery......with great heroes reaching out to those around them.To friends......and strangers.To people close to them......and far away.They reached out with a message of fortitude and solidarity, but above all, of bravery. Of daring.And in reaching out, they ignited a spark.And it caught.My name is Carter Hall, and I am a detective of history. But you are a detective, too. For to be human, at its core, is to question and quest.To seek answers about who we are. Even when--or especially when--those answers are beyond our grasp.And I have learned is that sometimes that search leads us to the darkest places imaginable.In those times we need each other to find our way back home. To remember who we are.But After we find out way back to the light, we must remember to reach even higher next time. To look farther.To explore the greatest mysteries and follow the craziest stories......because in the end, sometimes it's the most insane, lunatic journeys that push us past what we thought was true......and toward what is possible.So, using the metal from the Forge of Worlds, the heroes reached out......with such power that everyone heard their call, and together, they cast the dark god out, and raised the Earth to its rightful place.But when they went further, with all of us at their backs, to the very limit of the Multiverse.To the Source Wall where everything ends.And before they knew it, they'd broken through to the other side.To where even greater mysteries lay waiting.They did it connected to you, and to me, for Element X, the very substance of the Forge of Worlds, is in all of us.Because in the end, we're all......a little metal.I am Carter Hall.I am Hawkman.I'm an archaeologist. A scholar and preservationist of history. More than that. Ihistory.I've reincarnated across time, stretching back to the dawn of man.I ruled as an ancient Egyptian prince. Battled as a medieval knight. Dueled as an Old West gunhand.Yet lately, I'm plagued by the thought that the subject I know the least about is myself. That pieces of my history are missing.There remains only one truth that I know to be certain----I am made to soar.I can't remember a life when I wasn't enthralled by flight.Open skies.Then why do I spend so much time underground?Darkness, suffocating spaces.It's because the past is buried.And I'm swept up in the pursuit of it like a sparrow in a gale.Driven by the twin compulsions of my existence.Exploration and discovery.My compulsions brought me to the ancient ruins of the Temple of Ooahk Kung, the All-See.Many lives ago, when trade routes to the Gorilla Kingdom were at their zenith, the gorillas spoke of seafaring cousins.Pirates who plundered Africa's waters of treasures, offering them to a pagan god.Treasures like the Nautilus of Revealment.Used to suss out thieves and spies, it was rumored to show one's true past.I spent weeks searching for it. I knew the dangers were great.But I had to go forward.There's no turning back.I've begun an adventure of outward exploration that I hope leads to discovery within.Outward exploration. Discovery within.I have to believe I'll find the answers I'm searching for.That no matter how deep the darkness, no matter how suffocating the spaces......I'll find my way to the light and open skies.But what if the sky is no longer my refuge?During my research into the Gorilla Kingdom, I found mention of mythic, winged primates who visited Earth from another realm.The Wingors.Some stories are real.Sometimes I'm forced to chose.To shatter one past and preserve another.I have to know if the thought that plagues me is correct.I have to know if my history is incomplete.And I need help.The whole truth floods my mind now.I feel lives, like Prince Khufu Maat Kha-tar of Egypt, that I knew had been my own.I feel lives, like Katar Hol of Thanagar, that I thought belonged to another.And I feel lives, like Catar-Ol of Krypton, that I never knew existed at all.I feel so many others.They all belong to me.They're my story.I haven't been reincarnating across time.I've been reincarnating across time......and space.It started with an origin.An origin long ago forgotten.Beginning with Earth.One that will bring slaughter to me and all the worlds I've known.I'm the only one who can stop it.Outward exploration. Discovery within.The answer is in my past. It must be.I have to find it, and there isn't a moment to lose.I was right. There's more to my story.I am Carter Hall. I am Hawkman.And I'm already too late.Across all my lives, my first memory of flight has always been with her.Long before we Carter Hall and Shiera.It was Egypt. My name was Khufu. She was Chay'ara.We were much different people then. Living much different lives.But still very much in love.A mysterious ship fell from the sky.Inside was the unearthly Nth Metal that we crafted into our belts and harnesses. The metal gave us the ability to soar.We thought it was a gift from the gods.But with the ship's arrival also came...visions.Not visions. Memories. A history I was part of, but I'd forgotten my role.Winged figures of unspeakable power. Imprisoned. Bringing death to me and all the people I'd ever known.I built a temple to try to make sense of it.Carved glyphs on every surface, searching for a meaning.As it all comes back to me, I can't help but wonder......The mysterious ship. What if it didn't crash in Egypt by happenstance?What if it was searching for me?What if whoever sent it needed my help?I'm writing this because she, of all people, deserves to know what I've learned. Khufu wasn't the first time. Egypt wasn't the first place. My lives on Earth are not my entire history.I've spent lifetimes on many worlds.Earth. Thanagar. Rann. Krypton.Still others.I've been reincarnating across time and space. Maybe as far back as creation.Maybe...maybe she has been, too.But the memories are incomplete. The more distant I am from a life, the less I seem able to remember.The only constant I recall is the winged figure.When I was Silent Knight, it was painted on my shield.When I was Nighthawk, it was embroidered on my shirt.When I was the Birdman, it was tattooed on my skin.I long believed that it was a symbol--an emblem--representing who I am.I realize now it's something else--a reminder of the threat that's coming. The mission I'm meant to fulfill.Not Wingors, or Manhawks or Barbatos. This isn't anything I've fought before. It's personal.It goes back to my beginning.I'm an archaeologist, so I'm going to find answers by searching the past.The cycle of exploration and discovery begins anew.Usually, history's questions exhilarate me.This time, my history is the question.I am afraid.Today raised more questions than it answered.What happened at the museum? How did I encounter a past life in a time past?I'd wonder if it was a hallucination, or maybe the visions had returned. But the aches and bruises of battle prove neither is true.The encounter with Khufu was real.There's so much I don't know. And yet......somehow, Khufu devised a way to leave a message.A century ago, I excavated Khufu's ruins and donated them.A hundred years, the message was right in front of me.Not a message.A map.Life is a river, and my river is flowing backward.I must travel farther. To a place older than human history. A place time left behind.A place I've heard tales of but didn't know I'd ever visited.Dinosaur Island.People know me as Carter Hall, archaeologist and adventurer.Friends--good friends--know I'm also Hawkman.For reasons I don't yet understand, I've spent thousands of years reincarnating across time and space. There's so much I don't remember.However, I know I've fought many things.A ghostly highwayman.A thief of shadows.A lion-man.This week alone, I battled a gargantuan gorilla statue and even seemingly slipped through time to fight one of my past selves.But I don't recall ever fighting a Tyrannosaurus rex.For the night at least, the territory at the foot of the mountain belongs to me.I'm exhausted.Not just from today's fight, but from the nonstop race that's kept me barreling forward.Exploration. Discovery. Exploration and discovery again.Searching for answers about my past and the great cataclysm that my visions tell me will come on swift wings.I can't shake the helpless feeling that I'm the reason the cataclysm will come.So much beauty in this world. So much history. Will it all end because of me?Why? How?My only clue is carved into the handle of a hawk-headed scepter.A clue left by me, when I was an ancient Egyptian prince named Khufu Maat Kha-tar.A nautical chart giving me the location of this hidden island.This is the mystery of my lifetimes.Only I can solve it.The next clue must be at the mountaintop.Like the nautical chart, a clue left by me, in a place only I would know to look.Did my past selves know I was starting to forget?That I was losing my history and the purpose I'm meant to serve?My lives have spanned time itself. Now time is against me.Will I survive what awaits me in the morning?I wish I weren't alone.The clash spanned hours.Each Feitheran I defeated fell beneath the clouds......and vanished.Still more come.Fearless. Ferocious. Unyielding.Wave after wave of talons and teeth.I tried, but the flock wouldn't be reasoned with.I asked them to let me pass.They insisted on barring the way.When there were no more Feitherans left, and the sun was past midday......I reached the mountaintop.Why am I never happy to see me?I am Hawkman.I've existed as Hawkman through many different lifetimes, on many different worlds.Recently--impossibly--I've been encountering my past lives.First a slip through time to Ancient Egypt to meet the version of me known as Prince Khufu Maat Kha-tar......now a slip through time and space to cross paths with Katar Hol, a wingman in the Thanagarian police force.We're both fighting to stop our world's from being destroyed.Byth.Hearing that name. Smelling the acrid exhaust of the Downside. Suddenly there are memories where only absence existed.Byth is the shape-shifting criminal who duped Katar--me--into killing my own father.Katar's guilt is a long blade.It stabs me.Is living countless lives a blessing?Not when they are filled with countless mistakes I can never take back.All this time.The clue was waiting at the tip of a giant, pointing finger. Whichever past self left it there, I didn't count on me being so dense.The question now is......what is it?What secret did Thanagar hold?When I dare to hope, it isn't for a lost tomb or an artifact. I hope for none of the things that once thrilled me.I hope for a weapon. Something to help me destroy the destroyers.The winged figures.The Deathbringers.Is the new clue another map? A planet with nine moons?More questions. Questions take time to answer. Time I don't have.What did Xanadu tell me?"Blood contains an ocean of existence..."...in a single drop."There's nothing better than running into an old friend.Hawkman and the Atom. Together again.I am Carter Hall. I am Hawkman.I thought I knew what that meant. Now I don't know anything.I reincarnate across time and space, but I've forgotten my past.I'm on an adventure of exploration and discovery to learn the secrets of my history.Of my connection to a threat called the Deathbringers that reaches back to my origin.I've never felt so isolated.It's moments like this, fighting the volcanic army of a living planet, that I remember......it's good to have a friend.There's something intangible about friendship. Unquantifiable.When someone is your true friend, they become a part of you.Their courage. Their heart. Their character.It's never easy to say farewell.But wherever you go......you carry them with you.I'm off to parts unknown again.Alone. Again.Too urgent to appreciate the wonder of where I've been......or the mystery of where I7m headed next.My ship is an unexpected discovery.What secrets does it hold?It's difficult to think.A single sentence crowds my mind."The Deathbringers are on their way."The Journal of Carter Hall...Today the Dark Multiverse holds no fear over me.I stood at its gate, a place no mortal had ever set foot......and beat back a devil from deep within its bowels.As for the others......the Bad Samaritan remains a mystery. Neon took him as his responsibility.The pain that once drove him is gone.His greatest enemy gave him a second chance at life.Quench walks our world considering Neon's gift.His Fires of Destruction still burn. They always will. But for now......he's sworn off using them.Neon has been busy, too. I might live on the road......but I still catch the news.Firebrand barely knew him, and yet she saved his life multiple times in their race to defuse the Nth metal isotope.Her hospital didn't have the funding to rebuild.Neon raised it up in seconds, better than before.He's still got our backs...and he's back in the spotlight.And Firebrand?Everyone knows the tale.A planet in its death throes.As their final act, two parents sent their infant child to Earth.The rocket carrying him escaped just before the planet exploded.The child grew up to be Superman.I've witnessed him save Earth many times, so I can attest that the stories are true. Hope shines from the man. It's inspiring to see.I used to wonder how it's possible. An orphan alone on a foreign world. Different from everyone around him.Where does the hope come from?There's a simple answer.Superman has hope because he didn't experience the immeasurable tragedy of Krypton. He doesn't know what I know.Everything dies.Especially me. More times than I can count.My ship brought me to Krypton because I once had a life there as a man named Catar-Ol.Krypton was supposed to have a weapon to defeat a cosmic army called the Deathbringers. My first life was as their warlord general Ktar.Until I turned against them and was offered the chance to atone--to reincarnate across time and space until I save as many lives as the Deathbringers slaughtered under my command.I'm no Superman, but I've saved people. Knowing, after all my millennia, that the total still doesn't outnumber the deaths I'm responsible for...Despite all the lives and all the languages, there's no word to express my horror.Death is the story of my life.With Krypton gone--and the weapon with it--even Superman would lose hope.Unless...Twice now I've experienced a time slip.Was momentarily reunited with a different life in their own time and place.Each slip was sparked by an encounter with a remnant from my past.The ruins of an ancient Egyptian temple.A planetarium projecting Thanagar's night sky.All that remains of Krypton is rubble.I hope it's enough.A world of life and beauty and discoveries yet to be made.Obliterated.I feel the loss all over again.The memory is too painful to bear.Krypton's rubble isn't the remnant.I am.I won't be a remnant again. Krypton's fate won't be Earth's.Earth is my world. Its lives and beauty and discoveries are mine to protect.Catar-Ol said I must be the weapon.I don't know how, but I have to find a way.I pray there's still time.Something terrible is coming.I know it in my gut.Throughout my many lives as an archaeologist, a space cop, a scientist, and other professions, my gut has saved me time and again.Sensing a trap around the next corner.Feeling a blade before it stabs me from behind...But today......my gut won't be enough.I've lived as many different men.Ktar, general of the Deathbringer horde.Katar Hol, wingman of Thanagar.Avion, hero of the Microverse.Catar-Ol, scientist and chronicler of Krypton.And today?Today I am just Carter Hall.I am Hawkman.One man...with a world to keep safe.I am Carter Hall.I am Hawkman. One man...to fight armies.I am Carter Hall.I am Hawkman.One man alone...can be defeated.I am Carter Hall.I am Hawkman.I am one man.And I am more.The Deathbringers found me.They escaped eons of exile. Traveled to countless worlds in search of me.All so they could have their revenge.Well, they got more than they bargained for.It isn't just one Hawkman they get to fight.They get to fightone of me.Silent Knight of Britain.Catar-Ol of Krypton.Gold Hawk of Andrino.Nighthawk of the Old West.The Dragon of Barbatos.Airwing of New Genesis.Avion, hero of the Microverse.Katar Hol, Wingman of Thanagar.Katarthul of Rann.Prince Khufu Maat Kha-tar of Ancient Egypt.changes everything.Worlds change.People change.am changed.Long ago, I cast out the Deathbringers.I choseBut changing didn't erase my history.It made me realize I haveto make up for.I am changed.Outward exploration led to discovery within.I raced throughand traversedI fulfilled my mission to stop the Deathbringers, and I finally understand myI can't sit idle, though. That hasn't changed about me.Theof memories are...difficult to process.Some of them I don't understand at all.There are new questions that want answers.Of one thing, I'm certain--The answers won't come easy.I amI amI'm an archaeologist and an adventurer.I'm a member of the Justice League.I also reincarnate acrossandI've been Kryptonian and human and everything in between.I have a difficult time staying in one place.Everyone's life is a constant journey of self-discovery.I've lived alifetimes, so my journey is a thousandfold.When I want to understand more about the past, I go where anyone goes.TheMy ship's museum houses a collection of artifacts and journals from my past lives. Some I remember vividly. Others I don't.It's strange to know that something belonged to you, yet have no clear memory of it.I try not to be hard on myself.can't even remember all of his bank accounts.Thankfully, unlike Ollie, I've always written things down.There's nothing like getting swept up in theandof a story.Even more so when the story I'm reading......is my own.It's said everyone dreams.To live is to dream.I've lived more lifetimes than just about anyone.I reincarnate acrossand, going back to the beginning of both.I don't have dreams anymore......I have nightmares.Lately I've begun recollecting all my past lives.The memories come in snapshots and moments.I'll catch a sweet scent and suddenly be reminded of's winter rains.I'll see geese overhead and remember flying in disciplined formation with the Wingmen ofBut when I sleep......when I sleep, the snapshots turn dark. Wet withandthat chase me awake.I write down what I can before the horror recedes.Are they memories of real events?Are they the fictions of a subconscious mind?There are people whome because they believe I live without fear of death.I envy people who live withoutMount Kenya is the subject of many legends.One says that ancient ancestors descended from it at the dawn of time.I was someplace else back then.But I know the mountain hasAt a certain time of year, when the shadows fall just right......anappears.Very few know of this sacred place.Onlywho wasn't born in these lands.I've traveled far in the hope that I'll find peace here.Understanding.The effigy would be aaddition to the collection of any museum I've consulted for.It is indeed priceless.Its mystical power settles the mind.Brings clarity and tranquility.I amI amOthers look at me and see a hero.But I can't push aside the ill feeling that there's......something else.Something on the move.is coming for me.There's a paradox I've learned across my lifetimes.An unseen enemy......is an enemy seen everywhere.It lurks in every alley.Makes a home of every shadow.I'm chasing an enemy who has wormed his way into my head.He's everywhere, but always out of my grasp.I need help.I trackedto his hideout in the ruins of an abandoned castle north of London.Unexpectedly, I was aided by another man. I'm uncertain if he'sorHis name is Richard Swift.He calls himselfThe Shade describes himself as a thief like Gentleman Ghost.Yet he has a certain charm and etiquette. I believe there's more to the man than pure villainy.He wields terrible power over shadows themselves.But when given the chance to rend Gentleman Ghost's phantasmic form......Swift blanched and showed mercy.Thewasn't in his heart. As though his power is terrible even to him.I believe Swift might be...good.Or at least he could be, if someone guides him toward a proper path.You can't escapeIt's like aNo matter how much you try to race from it......historystays with you.Wehistory.I amI amMy history isI'm not running from it anymore.In ancient Egypt, I believed we'd begun as two lovers namedandOur story goes back much longer.On the far-flung world of Thanagar, I was sure we'd first met as two police partners named Katar and Shayera. Our travels have spanned much further.Our origin reaches back to the beginning of bothandI was, a warlord general spreading slaughter across the stars.She inspired me to become. A choice I've carried with my past death and into life again and again.Does she remember?I've only just discovered my own hidden history. There's so much I want to tell her. So much I want her to know.I've waited to be reunited with her. Even when I didn't realize it, I was waiting.Finally--maybe--events brought us together in the here and now.My first thought?Not likeMy wound is mortal.Time is the one thing I no longer have.It's strange.My first thought isn't of all I did in this lifetime.It isn't of alI I didn't get to do.My final thought is a question.Was I stupid to write it all down?I maintain that the only thing more dangerous than knowledge......isI hid the key as best I could.If it ever falls into evil hands, the forces of good will need to understand the threat.Worlds will depend on it.There's so much more to write.But thehas found me.Whoever finds this journal and reads these pages......you hold the fate ofin your hands.(From the journal of Katarthul, hero of Rann)She is Shayera Hol.She is Hawkwoman.Her full history, unremembered.I am Carter Hal.I am Hawkman....I want to forget.My mind and body were weakened by an infection, allowing my past life as, the evil Hawkman of Earth-3, to emerge from my suppressed memories.He took over my form to deliver death unto the universe.But there are fates blacker than adeaths.They steal your will to fight......and leave behind onlyI don't fear death.What terrifies me is that the number of lives I save will never outnumber those I took when I was evil.That theI owe will never be repaid.And I'll live with the guilt, past death and into life after life after life.Forever.