Polite Dissent

I’ve decided it was finally time to get around to blogging about Armageddon 2001, and what ended up being the coda on Karl and Barbara Kesel’s run on Hawk and Dove. For those of you who may not remember, Armageddon 2001 was the “big event” comic series of 1991. It started off promising, but whimpered to an end — and took Hawk and Dove down with it.

Armageddon 2001 #1
In the future — the year 2030 to be precise — Matthew Rider is one of the world’s top physicists. He is an unhappy man, though. The future of 2030 is a dystopian fascist state, ruled over by the all powerful despot Monarch. Not much is known of Monarch’s past because he’s done his best to wipe out all historical records. All that Ryder knows is that Monarch was once a super-hero, but something happened in the year 1991 that caused him to become Monarch. By the year 2001, Monarch had destroyed all his fellow heroes and taken over as the unquestioned ruler of the world. It is clear that Ryder longs for the world before Monarch, when all the other heroes were still alive, and free thought and expression were allowed. As a young child, he was rescued by one of those heroes on that fateful day in 1991, but he cannot recall who, and the thought has haunted him for the past forty years.

Other scientists working for Monarch have discovered the secret of time travel, but their human test subjects have not survived the experience. Ryder volunteers for the program, but he is turned down because of his anti-state tendencies. Undaunted, Ryder is able to meet and convince Monarch that he has the will to survive that the other test subjects lacked, which Ryder argues will allow him to survive the time travel. Monarch is intrigued, but concerned about sending such an obvious malcontent back in time. However, he believes that Ryder’s love for his family will keep on the straight and narrow, so he agrees for Ryder to become a test subject. What Ryder has kept hidden is that the love of his family is overshadowed by the possibility of destroying Monarch once and for all, and that is the real reason he wants to travel into the past.

Ryder enters the machine and is sent back through the time stream to the year 1991 (coincidentally the same year these comics were published). Along the way, Matthew Ryder becomes the super-hero Waverider, who has the ability to see the events of someone’s future just by touching them. He resolves to use his power to find out which hero will become Monarch so that he can put an end to him before it happens.

The Armageddon 2001 Annuals
The DC Comics annuals published in the summer of 1991 all started the same way: Waverider shows up and touches the hero, revealing their future ten or more years down the line, searching to see if they will become Monarch (and none of them do). Most of these comics were surprisingly good, far better than most other themed annuals (Atlantis Attacks **cough cough** Days of Future Present). I covered the Hawk and Dove Armageddon 2001 Annual in more depth previously.

Armageddon 2001 #2
The second and final issue of Armageddon 2001 starts with Waverider touching Captain Atom and revealing his future. It is a dim and dark future that ends unhappily for pretty much the entire world. Captain Atom does not become Monarch, but he is just as much a threat to his own future. The shock of seeing what might happen causes Atom to briefly lose control of his quantum field. It’s just a momentary lapse, but it’s enough for Monarch to slip through into the present (well, the present of 1991). It seems he had followed Ryder into the past, but was prevented from entering by Atom’s quantum field.

Once Monarch has appeared, he wastes little time in attacking the Justice League. In the middle of the battle, he teleports away, but later informs the heroes that they must all meet him in Metropolis at 3PM the following day, or he will destroy the world.

In the meantime, Monarch puts his plan into motion. He shows up at the remote campsite where Dawn Granger (Dove) and her boyfriend Brian Arsala are having a romantic weekend. Without batting an eye, Monarch slaughters Brian and them immobilizes and kidnaps Dawn once she turns into Dove. Next, Monarch confronts Hank Hall (Hawk). He goads Hank into becoming Hawk, then immobilizes and kidnaps him as well. Monarch then snatches a variety of scientific equipment from around the world to build a specialized Neutron Bomb designed to kill every super-hero.

Before putting his plan into action, Monarch announces to Hawk and Dove that he still has two things to take care of. He grabs Dove and kills her, right before Hawk’s eyes. The sight of his partner’s murder and the loss of her “balance” is enough to drive Hawk mad. He attacks and kills Monarch only to discover that Monarch is actually the future Hank Hall. This knowledge sends him even farther over the edge, and he decides to become Monarch so that he can create his own balance in the world. He dons Monarch’s armor, takes his plans and weapons, and teleports off to fight all the heroes in Metropolis.

It’s an epic battle, but Monarch seems to have the edge. Then Captain Atom unleashes his full powers and they interact with Monarch’s, sending them both tumbling into the distant reaches of time stream. Meanwhile, Matthew Ryder discovers that the hero who saved his life on this day was none other than himself, as Waverider (and who didn’t see this coming?).

The Controversy
Did the ending of the series seem nonsensical, out of character, and cobbled together at the last minute? Well, it was.

In the original story, Captain Atom was to become Monarch. Clues were planted throughout the series and annuals pointing to him. But then somebody prematurely gave it away, and DC decided to rewrite the ending. That’s why it makes little sense — it was never supposed to be Hawk in the first place (for instance, you’ll notice Monarch has bright blue eyes in issue #1 — just like Captain Atom — but in issue #2, they’re suddenly brown like Hank Hall’s).
Wikipedia has a concise explanation of the controversy, and here’s a page I scanned in from Wizard #179 that interviews some of the key players.

The End?
So is this the end of Hawk and Dove? Yes and no. The Hawk and Dove redesigned by Karl and Barbara Kesel — based on the works of Ditko and Skeates — are gone. Hank Hall and Dawn Granger still make a few more appearances in one way or another, and I’ll cover that soon in an epilogue post. In the past few years, Dawn has taken up the mantle of Dove again, but with a heretofore unmentioned sister as Hawk (and there was the Mike Baron penned Hawk and Dove series in 1997 that bore no relation to the original at all, but the less said about that, the better). Then there is Infinite Crisis and its aftermath. Continuity seems to have been re-written (or corrected) so that Captain Atom is once again Monarch. But then, what happened to Hank Hall? Was he ever Monarch in this new continuity, or was it Captain Atom all along?

All Previous Hawk and Dove Reviews

Tags: comics hawk dove armageddon 2001 monarch waverider captain atom