In the JSA: Princes of Darkness storyline it is implied that the wizard Mordru corrupted Hank Hall and concealed Dawn.
Perhaps, the “Monarch” who kidnaps Hank and Dawn is actually Mordru enacting his plans to drive Hank insane and have Dove impregnated with the fate child.
Mordru was just playing with Hank’s mind, seemingly killing Dove, and making Hank blame his future self.

It may not be what was originally intended but it does explain how Hawk and Dove could be battling the real Monarch (Captian Atom) in their future.

Of course he then killed the spirit of the world and caused the entropic death of the universe, so maybe that unhinged him a bit.

Also I think in The History of Monarch in one of the issues of Countdown it does positively identify Hank Hall as the “First Monarch”

The Wizard page you linked to implies that it is DC’s attempt to “make things right”. If that is their motivation, its just stupid. It doesn’t change the way that bungled the Armageddon 2001 storyline in the first place. Moreover, every time I see him it just reminds me of the fiasco.

Oh well. I guess I hope that whatever they have in mind for the new Monarch ends up being sufficient payoff for dredging this up a second time.

Not that anything in the Countdown series has made much sense, characterwise or otherwise. A crazy monitor made Captain Atom crazy because it er… something. Darkseid, and stuff. And then a character who hasn’t even been in Countdown at all comes in in the second to last issue and is a huge plot point.

It would be nice if they even bothered explaining what the heck the Monarch’s motivation was , his beef with the monitors, and so forth. As far as I can tell, the only explanation we’ve gotten or will ever get is that he’s a jerk.

But then, what happened to Hank Hall? Was he ever Monarch in this new continuity, or was it Captain Atom all along?

As far as I’ve been able to tell, the pre-existing Monarch history is still intact. Hank was Monarch until he became Extant in “Zero Hour”, then later was killed in “JSA”. (The continued canonicity of his involvement in ZH was recently confirmed in an issue of “Booster Gold”.) Captain Atom only became Monarch recently, as part of the “Infinite Crisis” folderol.