Crazy cross-genre combinations are the norm in today's comics world, with zombie super-heroes and dinosaur nazis and "what if super villains ran the world" sorts of high concepts. High being the operative word.
Have you ever wondered, however, why no one has ever done a Native American Cowboy Disco Rebel book before? I know I have! Well thanks to ReaderKate, we learn the answer: Because it's already been done before! Ladies and gentlemen, meet the sartorially challenged genre-busting fashion spectacle that is ... HAWK, Son of Tomahawk!
There's so much to love here, but I think ReaderKate summed it up best in her email to me:
The stories look quite interesting, but oh, that costume! It says not "Half-Indian Cowboy with a Sense of Justice," but "Wealthy Disco Douchebag, circa 1979." All it needs is designer shades and a silver coke spoon necklace.
From the James Dean pompadour to the crazy Luke Cage plunging neckline to the super hip bell bottoms (with emergency width-expanding extension flaps for those times when you need maximum wingspan!) and the ready-for-disco handbag, this guy looks like the bastard love child of Dazzler and Angar the Screamer. He's a hero who can ride off with a posse by day and dance all night, just how they grew them out West.
I even love his name. "Hawk, Son of Tomahawk" has a nice sort of symmetry to it. I can't wait to read about "Toma, daughter of Tomahawk", "Omaha, city of Tomahawk", "Awk, Parrot of Tomahawk", and "Tom, Co-Worker of Tomahawk Who Had to Legally Change His Name From Bob to Tom or Die at the Keen Edge of the Aforementioned Tomahawk's Tomahawk, which is named Tomahawk." I'm pretty sure this is where George Foreman got his child-naming regimen.
I have to admit, I didn't think it would be possible to combine this particular set of genres, nor did I think you could come up with a fringed Native American get-up that would look more ridiculous than that sported by the Village People. And yet, that's exactly what DC did, and several decades before it got trendy.
Well played, DC Comics of the early 1970s. Well played indeed.
(Image and character © DC Comics.)
