If you take anything away from my OceanHawk nonsense, let if be the knowledge that Shayera introduces herself by way of dropping down from a few stories in the air and saying, “You’re the one who threw all that trash out of the ocean, right? Baller move.”

(Hal in the background, like, “People died, Shayera.”)

Hawkgirl

justice league animated series shayera hol icon pack

like/reblog if saved!!

honestly been wanting to rant about this for a while but I truly do think the john stewart/shayera hol ship ended up damaging their characters rather than helping them.

to start, john was originally an architect before the justice league show gave him the military background. since geoff johns worked on one of the episodes in jlu, it was clear he was a jlu fan & basically incorporated that into comic john. by doing so, we ended up with one of the worst written john stewarts in history, a john that was so patriotic and explicitly said that he was willing to kill people for america. while gj does get backlash for how he was written from john fans, I do think jl + jlu should be incorporated in that too as it was what started the military origin in the first place. it’s true that the show led to john’s popularity but outside of that, it didn’t really benefit him in the comics. plus the main reason the origin was given was because they wanted him & shayera to have something to relate to in the show which was very stupid considering john was already apart of the glc. but apparently that wasn’t enough?

despite her rising popularity from the shows, dc instead decided to kill shayera off while jlu was airing during pre-n52. I do think this also links to jl + jlu having shayera go by hawkgirl instead of her comic alias, hawkwoman. i was actually surprised when I first read that comic shayera despised being called hawkgirl & I will never understand why the show proceeded to call her that. all it did was confuse people since kendra had arrived to comics two years before the show aired. it was clear that kendra had taken all the hawkgirl hype as she was the person who actually went by that alias in the comics.

now I’ll actually dissect the ship. for the record, I am well aware that this is an alternate universe, but despite this, I still think the ship did more damage than good to the gp’s perception of these characters. and this is no way an insult to dwayne mcduffie, i actually think he’s a fantastic writer & the build up for the ship was honestly good. I just wish he hadn’t used his talent on a ship that ended up being a waste in the end.

like I said, the build up towards john/shayera was genuinely good. it was the classic slowburn between partners, then friends, to lovers. but the problem is, they had to retcon a lot of shayera’s background in order to make the relationship actually work. you see, the jl crew was originally planning on making katar hol (hawkman) the villain who initiates the invasion & physically abuses shayera. anyone who has read hawkworld + any comic of katar/shayera altogether would know how insanely out of character this would have been for him, and for the sake of this post, I’ll be referring to his hawkworld characterization. the crew ended up pushing the idea back not because of how ooc it was, but because they were scared of the backlash from comic fans. in the comics, shayera was assigned as katar’s partner in the thanagarian force, except that the thanagarian government wanted shayera to specifically spy on katar prior to their plans for an invasion. the thanagarian government knew katar would most likely resist their ideas & wanted shayera to tell them everything she finds out about him. when the betrayal was revealed, this obviously hurt katar. shayera ended up disobeying due to her developing feelings for katar & together, they stopped the invasion. my point is: if you have to ruin a character to make a relationship work, then maybe the ship just isn’t good.

one key point that bothered me in regards to jlu was the origin they had given shayera regarding her reincarnations. while dwayne mcduffie revealed that bashari doesn’t actually exist & that it was john/shayera’s feelings messing with the asbsorbacron, it’s obviously not the case for the eyes of the gp. the irony is that jlu stans tend to complain about hawkman/shayera, talking about how boring it is since they’re reincarnations when jlu ended up doing the same thing for john/shayera, by having chay-ara cheat on katar with bashari. this + their son, rex stewart, was jlu’s way of saying john/shayera were always destined for each other. this isn’t any different from the reincarnation cycle regarding the hawks, but for some reason, it is to some. what I find funny is that people genuinely believe that john/shayera pushes shayera in a ‘solo spotlight’ by keeping her away from the reincarnation process. when all it did was tie her down to it again but with a different man. the inclusion of bashari + rex stewart basically got rid of what could’ve made john/shayera’s relationship interesting for shayera as a character. john’s motivations to possibly get back with shayera suddenly weren’t his own, which was why he stayed with vixen. it’s also ironic that shayera was upset about this because like I said, jlu stans were saying that john/shayera pushed her in a solo spotlight despite the show tying her down to another reincarnation cycle.

i don’t know if I can even stomach what they did to katma, that’s literally his WIFE in the comics but the gp just considers her a fling now.

what’s frustrating to me about john/shayera as a ship is that the ship altogether was done for nothing in the end. people might be wondering why john/shayera are never included for comics in main continuity. the answer is simple. dc editorial doesn’t allow comic writers to include them. comic writers have spoken about their love for the couple but being unable to write stories for them. wonderbat gets some content in main continuity so it’s clear that dc editorial specifically has beef with john/shayera, which is why I think the ship was such a waste in the end. the ship is clearly popular with the gp but what was the point of pushing aside their canon love interests to the point where the gp’s perception of their love lives is also skewed if the editorial in question doesn’t even want to acknowledge them? as a comic fan, I’m simply annoyed that they couldn’t have just been with their canon love interests instead of this mess.

*also i was confused in where people had gotten the idea that hawkman himself is egyptian (as aldis hodge was receiving backlash for being casted as carter hall) & it turns out that jlu was also responsible for this lol. I want to add that comic katar hol post-crisis was not egyptian, he had a native american mother & a thanagarian father.

this video also perfectly explains why their relationship went downhill: https://youtu.be/LgCjhZfJ704