Spreading Her Wings: The Hawkgirl of Justice League

After decades of being obscured by her partner, Justice League finally allowed Shayera Hol to take the spotlight.

When preparing the roster of a superhero team for modern audiences, creators are usually careful to mix top-tier talent with mid- and low-tier choices, rather than going for all A-listers.  The reason for this is because their stories require some level of characterization—it can’t all be fight scenes and explosions—and since the A-list characters usually have their own solo books (or several, depending on popularity), the characterization often falls to the lower-tier cast members, which frequently gives a “not ready for primetime player” a higher level of visibility.  For example, during The New Avengers (2005-2010), writer Brian Michael Bendis paired A-listers like Spider-Man and Wolverine with the original Spider-Woman, a character not regularly seen since 1988. Sure, she was technically a Skrull, but her appearances renewed interest in the character, setting the stage for her eventual return during Secret Invasion (2008-2009).  Likewise, during Grant Morrison’s X-Men run (2001-2004), they used mainstays like Professor X, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast, and the aforementioned Wolverine, but they also included former villain Emma Frost, who would go on to use her higher prominence to become a greater force in the X-titles for over two decades.  And, speaking of Morrison, during their famed JLA run, they created a team featuring both the DC heavyweights—Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, etc.—and B-lister such as Steel, Huntress, Big Barda, and Plastic Man.  And while this does not translate to every low- and mid-tier hero suddenly getting a solo series and a movie development deal, it does keep them in the public consciousness during lean periods, allowing a new generation to rediscover the value in old favorites.

This formula was kept in mind when the creative team of Justice League created their original team roster.  Obviously, they had to have Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman in addition to a Flash and a Green Lantern.  Also a lock was Martian Manhunter, a character who—Super Friends aside—has been a member of nearly every incarnation of the team, so they chose to uphold that tradition.  Those must-haves aside, the final teammate became a place to improvise, allowing them to fill the spot with a League member with which they could be more experimental with than, say, the Trinity, whom DC Comics is very protective of in regard to their presentation and appearance (“Commentary of ‘A Better World’”). They could have played it safe and went with Aquaman, or they could have stretched a little and went with Hawkman. However, in a move to add some diversity to the mostly-male lineup, they went with Hawkgirl, a character who—for all intents and purposes—was known mainly as Hawkman’s wife and sidekick for over sixty years. Much like their decision to choose John Stewart as their Green Lantern, the creative team took a minor DC heroine with a convoluted back-story, simplified it, removed her from her male counterpart, and transformed Shayera Hol into not only the breakout star of the series, but also the best, most iconic version of the character ever.

A Bird in a Gilded Cage

Unfortunately, in order to discuss Hawkgirl’s origins, it must be done through a discussion of her dominant male counterpart, Hawkman. Created by Gardner Fox and Dennis Neville, the Golden Age Hawkman, Carter Hall, made his first appearance in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940), as did Shiera Sanders, though she would not join him as Hawkgirl (above left) until All-Star Comics #5 (July 1941).  An archeologist studying Egyptian artifacts, he learned that he lived a previous life as Prince Khufu in ancient Egypt after touching a dagger made of Ninth Metal (Nth Metal’s name on Earth-2).  In addition, he learned that he had a consort, Chay-Ara (reincarnated as Sanders), and they were murdered by his rival, the Egyptian priest Hath-Set.  Using these new memories, he built himself a winged costume and a gravity-negating belt made of Ninth Metal to become Hawkman, and he would soon build a similar costume for Sanders in a later adventure.  Together, they would fight crime and injustice, but she was largely relegated to sidekick status, like Batman’s Robin or Green Arrow’s Speedy.  Finally, it is worth noting that, while Hawkman became a founding member of the Justice Society of America in All-Star Comics #3 (December 1940), his partner was never extended the same courtesy, though she did work with them in a support role. The Golden Age Hawks would remain active until All-Star Comics #57 (March 1951), though they would later return as inhabitants of Earth-2 prior to Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985-1986).

Later, as the Golden Age of Comics shifted into Silver, DC Comics took many of their retired, Golden Age heroes, reimagined them through a science fiction lens, and began reintroducing them starting with Showcase #4 (October 1956), with the debut of the Silver Age Flash. As for the Hawks, they were reimagined in The Brave and the Bold #34 (March 1961) by the creative team of Joe Kubert and the returning Gardner Fox. Here, they were Katar and Shayera Hol (originally Shayera Thal), a pair of Thanagarian police officers who found their way to Earth on a case, only for them to make a home in Midway City and fight crime there as Hawkman and Hawkgirl. As before, they wore artificial wings and used anti-gravity belts powered by Nth Metal to fly, and their weapons (created to resemble ancient Earth weapons) were made of Nth Metal as well. Like his Golden Age antecedent, Hawkman soon joined the Justice League of America in Justice League of America #31 (November 1964), but Hawkgirl—though she fought by their side on many missions—was not allowed to join until Justice League of America #146 (September 1977) due to a team bylaw preventing there being two members of the group with identical powers. As seen in the above images, Shayera Hol changed her name from Hawkgirl to Hawkwoman in World’s Finest #272 (October 1981), as she now considered the use of “girl” in the name derogatory. And then, following Crisis on Infinite Earths, the DC Universe suddenly found themselves with two pairs of Hawks—the Golden Age reincarnated Egyptian lovers, and the now Silver / Bronze Age Thanagarian cops—both existing simultaneously.

To resolve this issue, the Golden Age Hawks were temporarily removed from the board via the Last Days of the Justice Society of America Special #1 (July 1986), where they—along with their contemporaries—were transported to Asgard to eternally fight the battle of Ragnarök to prevent Adolf Hitler from destroying the universe (they would remain there until the events of the 1994 crossover event Zero Hour). Meanwhile, the Thanagarian Hawks continued to serve in their roles (such as during the Thanagarian invasion of Earth, beginning in Hawkman #10 [May 1987]), but this was complicated with the release of the 1989 three-issue miniseries Hawkworld, as well as its ongoing sequel series, which completely rebooted Hawkman and Hawkwoman for the post-Crisis era. Suddenly, to compensate, the Golden and Silver Age Hawks were one and the same, and DC Comics jumped through further hoops to make the Hawkworld Hawks the only ones from Thanagar.

Once again identified as Shayera Thal, this Hawkwoman was described by Tim Board, DC historian and creator of the Hawkworld blog, as “brash, hot-tempered, and usually [one to] hit first before she thought to ask questions.” Trading her Joe Kubert spandex and angelic wings for an officer’s jumpsuit and metal glider wings, she joined Katar Hol in a series of grim and gritty, ’80s-themed adventures until the aforementioned Zero Hour, where—owing to hand-wavy, comic book circumstance—this Hawkman was merged with the Golden Age Hawkman and Hawkgirl, as well as with a Hawk God that was introduced in Hawkman #3 (May 1994). However, as this new Hawkman gained considerable power and organic wings, Shayera Thal lost her wings and ability to fly, and over time they grew estranged, with Shayera finally cutting ties and moving to Detroit to become a police officer. Later, following his exile to the Hawk Realm in Hawkman #33 (June 1996), she eventually returned to Thanagar and met her own end in Rann-Thanagar War #5 (November 2005).

Thanks to the convoluted tangle of multiple iterations and conflicting histories, DC Comics now considered the Hawkman character toxic, and they decided to bench him for five years. In a 1996 Wizard interview, Grant Morrison revealed that, for JLA, he originally intended for his new character, Zauriel, to take on the identity of Hawkman, but “there’s a lot of resistance to using the name because the previous versions have been such disasters” (qtd. in Brady 8). Later, writer Geoff Johns referred to Hawkman as “the poster boy for horrible continuity” (Seijas 38), though he did create a new Hawkgirl character in JSA Secret Files and Origins #1 (August 1999), where—following a suicide—Kendra Saunders’ vacated body became inhabited by the ghost of her grandfather’s first cousin—the Golden Age Hawkgirl, Shiera Sanders Hall—which meant that there was now both a Hawkgirl and a Hawkwoman. Like I said, convoluted. However, despite this briar patch of continuity, the creative team of Justice League saw an opportunity to reintroduce the Hawks to a new generation.

Learning to Fly

Fortunately for Hawkgirl, she had a long-time admirer in the form of Producer Bruce Timm, who elected to include her over her male counterpart. In a January 2002 interview with Starlog, Timm admitted how “[w]e didn’t want to have both Hawkman and Hawkgirl, and I always loved the Hawkgirl design” (qtd. in Jankiewicz 30), and he expanded further on this in “The Look of the League,” a special feature from the Justice League:  Justice on Trial DVD release:

One of the very first comics I had possession of when I was a kid was a Hawkman issue, and it had Hawkgirl in it.  And as much as I liked Hawkman, I just really fell in love with Hawkgirl.  I thought she had one of the coolest helmet shapes I’ve ever seen in a comic.  It was that real good mix of kind of tomboyish, but feminine, and she was actually very simple to design; I basically just took her right of the comics and didn’t hardly change a thing on her. (qtd. in “Look”)

This admiration would result in her inclusion, along with Hawkman, into the creative team’s early plans to make Superman: The Animated Series (STAS) a team-up show, where Superman would join forces with two members of the Justice League each episode (Brick 20-22; Gross 3). However, when the time came for Justice League, it was purely as a solo act, as Timm explained at the 2001 Justice League panel at San Diego Comic-Con:

People were saying, “Why Hawkgirl?  Why not Hawkman?”  And … she’s cooler.  Again, we felt that we needed to have another woman in the group.  We like women, you know.  And we felt that the Hawk family had to be represented because of the icons that they are.  And we decided that, “Well, we don’t want to have both of them, so let’s just have Hawkgirl.”  And, personally, I’ve always loved that Hawkgirl design, ever since I saw it when I was a kid.  I think her mask is cooler.  I think she’s got an overall better shape.

The thing we wanted to do is set her apart from Wonder Woman is that … Wonder Woman is a little bit aloof.  It’s not that she’s really arrogant or snotty.  It’s just that she’s used to being treated like a princess, and so she’s a little bit like, “What’s the matter with these weird humans?  They don’t treat me right.”  And, like Hawkgirl, even though she is from another planet, she actually does fit in with the rest of the gang better.  She’s like kind of one of the guys.  As we say, Wonder Woman is a super model, but Hawkgirl’s like any girl next door.  She’s approachable.

And [writer and Producer] Rich [Fogel] was saying, “Well, you know, that’s fine, but she’s a hawk.  She needs to have something hawk-like about her.”  And he came up with this great gimmick for her:  for the most part, she’s sweet, she’s warm, and she’s friendly and everyone likes her, but the minute she goes into battle, her instincts kick in and she turns into Wolverine.  So, you know, everybody’s going into battle, and suddenly Hawkgirl jumps ahead of them, and she’s like slaughtering everybody, and they’re like, “Wait.  Wait!”

Not really slaughtering.  Maybe robots, but … yeah, she hurts a lot of bad guys.  Anyway, I predict you guys are going to dig her. (qtd. in Davis)

Unfortunately, as with choosing John Stewart over Hal Jordan as Green Lantern, the selection of Hawkgirl caused some backlash, with Timm referring to her as “the second most controversial member of the cast” (qtd. in Davis; qtd. in Moro 62). In her defense, Timm stood by his choice, saying how “it’s all in the character dynamic balance—which characters will play off of each other interestingly” (qtd. in Nolen-Weathington 74), later adding how “[t]hat seventh spot could have been Hawkman or the Atom or Aquaman or whoever else you want to name, and of all those candidates, we thought Hawkgirl was the most interesting” (qtd. in “Inside”). Finally, he would offer this reflection during the 2006 DVD commentary for “Starcrossed”:

Half of our fans, who are hardcore comic book fans, they kind of had a grudge against Hawkgirl from the very beginning because she was never a prominent member of the Justice League in the comics, you know?  They were upset, like, that we didn’t have Aquaman in her place; they were, “Why Hawkgirl?”  So, there’s a whole group of fans who—to this day—still hate Hawkgirl; they just really don’t like the character and, you know, that’s just too bad because we love her, and she’s always gonna be a part of the show. (qtd. in “Commentary of ‘Starcrossed’”)

In terms of her character design, the creative team moved away from her “STAS team-up” look (above left) and—as Bruce Timm stated above—kept very closely to her Silver Age design (the only major difference being the strapless top; above right). Regarding her characterization, I would hazard to say that, at least initially, the creative team pulled some character notes from the Hawkworld incarnation of Hawkwoman, but a stronger impact can also be traced to a very unlikely source.

Based solely on the number of comparisons Bruce Timm made between them during the initial press tour, it is hard not to see the influences that Justice League’s Hawkgirl took from Wolverine. In several interviews, Timm referred to how, when in battle, her warrior instincts would cause her to behave like the infamous X-Man (Davis; Moro 62; Jankiewicz 30), and this link can also be seen in the similarities in their headgear (as seen in the two Bruce Timm illustrations above) as well as the fact that, at their core, they are both warriors from savage backgrounds that are aided by a miraculous, logic-defying metal.

Finally, there was the matter of casting a voice actor for the beautiful mace swinger, and Voice Director Andrea Romano found her in veteran actor Maria Canals-Barrera. Probably better known for her live-action work, having starred in Wizards of Waverly Place (2007-2012) and Cristela (2014-2015), she also possesses a formidable background in voice acting, having starred in Static Shock (2000-2003), The Proud Family (2001-2005), and Danny Phantom (2004-2007), to name a few. In a February 21, 2004 interview with the now-defunct Comics2Film website, Canals-Barrera discussed how she got into voice work, as well as how she approaches it:

I was sent to an audition for another cartoon by my agent, and I just loved it.  So, I kept going to other voice auditions and started getting more and more roles.  To me, [voice acting] is the same thing [as onscreen acting], but I can’t be seen; I can only be heard.  So, I enjoy it just as much.  I do theatre, commercials, film, television—in English and in Spanish—and [voice work] is just another vein in the craft of acting to me.  If anything, it’s a bit more of a challenge because I have to express everything with just the voice.  I really enjoy that challenge and, to me, I think Justice League is the best show an actor can get animation-wise.  I feel very blessed. (qtd. in Yukinori)

Brought into audition based upon her role as Shelly Sandoval on Static Shock, she was initially unfamiliar with the Thanagarian officer (Yukinori), but she was soon “having a blast” performing the character, as she revealed in a November 14, 2001 interview with Comics Continuum:

She is fearless, she is mysterious, which I love about her.  When you see it, you’ll see how beautifully they animate her when she flies.  She lifts up in the air, and she flies and spins and somersaults.  She’s very graceful, and yet, the next minute, she’s kicking a space alien’s butt.  She’s very tough.  She has this weapon—my mace—and I have this war cry that I love when I get to do it.  It relieves a lot of stress when I do it. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Maria”)

Of course, Canals-Barrera’s casting as Hawkgirl had an added benefit, as it contributed further to the diversity that Bruce Timm and the others wished to present in the series, as Romano discussed in a 2004 interview with RetroVision CD-ROM Magazine:

Hawkgirl is a character we didn’t have in any earlier incarnations.  Because she’s from another planet, we again wanted, for lack of a better term, an exotic sound; a sound that was not an All-American girl sound.  What we decided to do ultimately was cast a Latina actress.  We didn’t want her to necessarily have an accent, but there is something to that voice that is not your typical All-American girl voice.  It’s not Supergirl.  It’s a different character, and the actress we cast, Maria Canals, was actually of Cuban descent.  That was very nice.  When we would have episodes where we needed to cast other characters from her planet, we would also cast Hispanic actors.  It was a nice way to get a cross-section of actors:  we had a [B]lack Green Lantern, we had a [B]lack J’onn J’onzz, we had a Latina Hawkgirl—I like that, I like multi-racial casting,  I like blind color casting.  I think whoever’s right for the role should get it.  She does a beautiful job. (qtd. in Gross 23, “Hawk”)

And, of course, this diversity also informed her performance, as she revealed in the aforementioned Comics2Film interview:

She had great nostalgia for her home planet, so I remember focusing on wanting that warm feeling of being home.  At the audition, I read a part where I talked about how I miss Thanagar, and I remember getting a little bit emotional, because I used to live in Miami and moved to Los Angeles, so I thought about my family, my aunts.  And my parents are Cuban, so I thought about the Cuban culture and the food—all the things that represent home to me. (qtd. in Yukinori)

Set up with a strong personality, design, and actor, Hawkgirl was ready to join the Justice League. However, there was one additional aspect to the character from the get-go … one that would frame her appearances for the entirety of the Justice League series.

War Hawks

With a few exceptions, the series of the DC Animated Universe (DCAU) traditionally followed the guidelines of episodic television, where each episode stood alone and could generally be watched in any order. Obviously, there were exceptions to this rule—first appearances of key characters, the Darkseid arc on STAS—but that was the general approach. However, during production of the Justice League series, Bruce Timm and the creative team decided to experiment more with serialized television, where plots would play out over multiple episodes and, in doing so, decided to pull a fast one on long-time fans. Bruce Timm discussed their initial plans in the aforementioned interview with RetroVision CD-ROM Magazine:

This is something that we literally had in the works since day one.  […] We had a meeting with Paul Levitz, who at the time was the vice president of DC Comics and now he’s the president, and he suggested that, somewhere in the course of the show, we should do a big stunt episode where one of the major characters gets killed or one of them betrays the League.  Even though this came from his own lips, we knew from experience that they really would not allow us to kill off one of the regular characters.  It’s a real touchy thing.  So, we knew we wouldn’t do that, but the notion of a betrayal was intriguing.  The next step is deciding who will betray the League.  Obviously, it can’t be Superman, Batman, or Wonder Woman.  We quickly narrowed down the list of suspects to Hawkgirl.  It had to be her.

At the same time, even though we hadn’t even started writing her, I’d always had great affection for the character in the comics.  In a way, we knew that would make it that much more of a conflicted story, that you would actually have much more of a tragedy if she betrayed the League against her better judgement, if she was conflicted about it and not just out-right evil.  Hopefully, if we played our cards right, the audience would be sympathetic to her and feel her anguish in the story.  And just to increase the tragedy of the whole thing, we felt she needed to fall in love with somebody in the League, and John Stewart was the obvious choice.  Maybe not so obvious at first, since they’re both fairly military, it would give us an opportunity to play them against each other initially.  But then gradually fall in love over the course of the first two seasons.  […] It’s a dirty trick to pull on your audience, but you’ve got to do these things.  You’ve got to change up.  The audience is so sophisticated, and they’ve been seeing these kinds of shows for their entire lives, they can predict story points way in advance, so you’ve got to throw them curve balls. (Gross, “Justice” 26-27)

This would later be corroborated by Rich Fogel during the January 21, 2024 installment of the Justice League Revisited podcast, adding how it was Levitz who actually “suggested Hawkgirl because she was sort of the least developed and least well-known of the characters” (qtd. in Eisenberg and Enstall).

From the beginning of its development, it was decided that Hawkgirl was going to eventually betray the Justice League, and the best way to pursue this storyline was by making her a spy preparing Earth for a Thanagarian invasion. As mentioned above, there was precedent for this storyline in the comics, and it began with The Shadow War of Hawkman #1 (May 1985), a four-part series featuring the Hawks confronting a group of Thanagarians who seek to eliminate them in anticipation of a future conflict. Later, following a tease in Swamp Thing #58 (March 1987)—where the Thanagarians attempt to obtain Zeta Beam technology from the planet Rann that could, in theory, allow them immediate transport to Earth—the invasion occurs across Hawkman #10 (May 1987), Action Comics #588 (May 1987), Hawkman #11 (June 1987), and Action Comics #589 (June 1987). Obviously, the army was defeated thanks to the efforts of Hawkman, Hawkwoman, and Superman (and the upcoming Hawkworld series made the entire event into questionable continuity), but the template was there for a solid Hawkgirl story.

Of course, the event would be ruined unless it could be kept secret, and to facilitate that the creative team went so far as to create a fake backstory for the character in the Justice League series bible (Allstetter, “Justice League’s ‘Starcrossed”; Eisenberg and Enstall; “Inside”; Rossen 58). Similar to how the creative team created a fake Supergirl profile to trick DC Comics into allowing them use of the character for STAS, this biography—created by writer Rich Fogel (Allstetter, “Justice League’s ‘Starcrossed”; Eisenberg and Enstall; Rossen 58)—was specifically designed as a “disinformation campaign” intended to throw hardcore fans off their trail (qtd. in “Inside”). Reproduced below is Cartoon Network’s original character profile for Hawkgirl, officially released on October 19, 2001:

Shayera Hol was an undercover detective on her native planet of Thanagar.  Several years ago, while pursuing some criminals who were trafficking in forbidden technology, she was zapped by a dimensional transport beam.  Her molecular structure was ripped apart and sent halfway across the galaxy.  When she awoke, she found herself on an uncharted planet called Earth.  Using her survival training, she adopted a human identity and learned to blend in with the native population.

Although Shayera hopes to return to Thanagar someday, she has developed a strong bond with the people of Earth.  As Hawkgirl, she uses her Thanagarian powers to serve and protect her adopted home.  Hawkgirl has the power of flight, lethal hand-to-hand combat skills, and the ability to communicate with birds.

As a trained detective, she has phenomenal powers of observation, deeply impressive to Batman.  A great team player, the others consider Hawkgirl one of the guys, making it easy to forget that she comes from another world.  Despite her pleasant and unassuming personality, she is a fierce combatant.  She can strike with a sudden ferocity surprising to her closest teammates. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Justice League Characters”)

This cover story, referenced during the series in “In Blackest Night” and “Twilight,” became the perfect smokescreen to obscure their true intentions for both the character and the series. And, with her narrative in place, the stage was set for Justice League’s premiere and, after decades of suffering in the supporting cast, Shayera Hol was ready for her first leading role.

Ancient History

Of course, before delving into Hawkgirl’s arc on Justice League, some time must be spent recapping what is known about the series’ background on Thanagar, which—while important to the narrative—was only revealed piecemeal over the course of Justice League, Justice League Unlimited (JLU), and various message board posts from writer, Story Editor, and JLU Producer Dwayne McDuffie. Much like they are in the comics, Thanagar is the center of an empire, and it is a world populated by an aggressive, militaristic civilization of winged humanoids whose weapons are derived from Nth Metal, which is kind of like the Vibranium of the DC Universe. Of particular note is their location because while, in the comics, Thanagar is revealed to be orbiting the star Polaris—a yellow supergiant star located in the Ursa Minor constellation, which is roughly 430 to 445 light-years away—but, in the DCAU, Hawkgirl revealed in “Twilight” that “Thanagar is so far away we’ve never even come into contact with the Green Lantern Corps,” so it’s possible that it is located somewhere even more distant in the Milky Way Galaxy. Of course, this could have been a lie, but considering how members of the Green Lantern Corps didn’t recognize her as a Thanagarian in “In Blackest Night,” I’m inclined to believe her.

We also learn that the Thanagarians have existed for millennia, though the origins of their civilization came at a great cost. In “The Terror Beyond,” Hawkgirl revealed that, thousands of years ago, her people worshipped ancient, extradimensional beings known as The Old Ones. In exchange for ritual sacrifice, the eldritch beings—through their leader, Great Icthultu—provided them knowledge of agriculture, mathematics, and philosophy—the foundations of their culture. However, over time, the Thanagarians outgrew their dark benefactor, and—by mining the transuranic iron ore native to their planet and refining it into Nth Metal—they developed mighty, magic-negating weapons with which to oust these beasts from Thanagar. Rid of Its influence, the Thanagarian people vowed never again to bow to another higher power.

Sometime later, in “Shadow of the Hawk,” we learn that, in 6600 B.C. (Earth time), a pair of Thanagarian law officers, the married Katar and Shayera Hol, went off course and crash-landed in ancient Egypt. Unable to return home, they decided to use their technology and wisdom to create a paradise, a utopian society 3,000 years before the rise of the Pharaohs. Worshipped as gods by the native people—much to their chagrin, considering their peoples’ track record with deities—their civilization lasted for decades before they died by poison (one by murder, the other self-inflicted). Without them, their society collapsed within twenty years, and their bodies, weaponry, and star ship were entombed together in a crypt, where they remained for eight thousand years until they were discovered by the archeologist Joseph Gardner, who soon had his name legally changed to Carter Hall.

A great admirer of birds and other flying animals, the Thanagarians originally used their Nth Metal to manufacture winged, flying harnesses allowing them to soar and glide, as they have in the Hawkman comic books. However, according to Dwayne McDuffie in a September 19, 2005 post on his now-defunct Delphi Forum message boards, the creative team’s invented series’ lore afforded them other options:

Thanagarian Cheat Sheet:  Shayera’s wings are organic; like all modern-day Thanagarians, she was born with them.  Carter Hall [from “Shadow of the Hawk” and “Ancient History”; more on him later] is human; his wings strap on.  He learned how to make them from the Thanagarian tech in the tomb he was studying.  Not explained on the show (but according to Bruce Timm), Thanagarians used to make their wings; only in the past several hundred years have they genetically engineered themselves to grow organic wings.

The pre-Egyptian history era Katar Hol and Shayera Hol had artificial wings.  They lived thousands of years before Thanagarians engineered themselves to grow organic wings.  Warhawk—Rex Stewart, future son of Shayera Hol and John Stewart [from the Batman Beyond episode “The Call”; more on him later as well]—was born without wings; this is as a result of his half-human heritage.  Warhawk’s wings are artificial.  Shayera and a Thanagarian male would produce organically winged offspring, like any other Thanagarian couple. (Maestro)

So, according to McDuffie, the Hawkgirl of the DCAU—and all modern-day Thanagarians—possess real, organic wings. Save for only the post-Zero Hour Hawkman, I believe that this is an original addition to Hawkman lore specifically created for the series. It is worth noting, however, that the creative team has been no stranger to the benefits of genetic engineering, considering the long-running splicer story arc that was frequently used as plot points across multiple series.

In recent decades, the Thanagarian Empire has been engaged in a war with the Gordanians (as shown in “Starcrossed”), a hostile, reptilian race from the Vega star system (in the comic books, at least). On the verge of defeat, a plot was hatched to use Earth—among other worlds—as a means to create a Hyperspace Bypass Generator, allowing them to open a series of wormholes allowing the Thanagarian fleet to get past the Gordanians’ fortified defensive line and make a direct assault on their homeworld, Karna. Though Earth and the other worlds would be destroyed, the maneuver would save billions of Thanagarian lives. Of course, to prepare Earth for the necessary occupation, they needed a scout to lay the groundwork prior to their arrival. Enter Shayera Hol.

A lieutenant and instructor in espionage for the Thanagarian military (according to the episode “Hunter’s Moon”), Shayera Hol was only told that her mission was to study the planet’s defenses and determine its weaknesses should the Gordanians attack. She was eager to serve her people, though it meant time away from the man she intended to marry, General Hro Talak. As stated above, her cover story was that she was a detective tracking thieves on her home world until she was struck by a dimensional transport beam that stranded her on Earth when, in reality, she was a spy on an intelligence-gathering mission on behalf of her military. At any rate, Shayera—noticing the growing number of costumed heroes on the planet—chose to embed herself in their ranks as the aerial ace known as Hawkgirl.

Birds of a Feather

It is unknown how long Shayera Hol operated as Hawkgirl before joining the Justice League in “Secret Origins,” though the episode revealed that it was long enough for Batman to have heard of her. Looking back, one can only imagine her off-camera realization that her first major action as a superhero was preventing the occupation of Earth by an alien force, only to facilitate another occupation by the Thanagarian military years later. At any rate, she quickly became a valued member of the team, serving honorably against threats both terrestrial and otherworldly, even if she remained something of a cipher for the majority of Season One, considering how she never received a spotlight episode. Instead, all of her character work was done as reaction to her teammates—Superman’s disapproval of her aggression in battle, the Flash’s juvenile attempts to hit on her, etc. Speaking of which, the Flash’s tease regarding the existence of a “Hawkboy” in “In Blackest Night” was the closest we got in terms of background and, when asked about her comic book colleague in an April 24, 2001 interview with Comics Continuum, Bruce Timm was careful to toe the line and play coy:

We’re not doing anything with Hawkman at the moment.  Again, we don’t have a lot of time to go into everybody’s origin stories.  We don’t really explain a whole lot with Hawkgirl.  She does mention that she’s from Thanagar, but there’s really not a whole lot of room in the show to have Hawkgirl and Hawkman.  It brings up a lot of questions and backstory [that] we really don’t have time to get into.  So, she’s pretty much a singleton at the moment. (qtd. in Allstetter, “Bruce”)

Of course, her best scenes in Season One largely involved her interactions with Green Lantern, a character that—at first glance—should not have worked because of their excessive similarities, both being military officers  wielding exotic weaponry on behalf of an extraterrestrial agency. However—beginning in “War World” and carrying out over “Legends,” “Metamorphosis,” and “The Savage Time”—we saw their relationship evolve from contentious to friendly to something approaching affectionate. Because of these interactions, the fan community immediately began shipping the two characters, and these fires received more kindling during the second season.

Following a period of minimal attention and supporting roles, Season Two brought Hawkgirl firmly into the limelight, primarily to set the stage for “Starcrossed” and the Thanagarian invasion. As recounted by Rich Fogel in the aforementioned installment of the Justice League Revisited podcast, bringing her from the margins to center stage was important to the series’ progression:

In the first season, we did episodes that featured all of the characters but really didn’t put a spotlight on Hawkgirl until the beginning of the second season, and then, as the season went on, we sort of kept building her part up because we wanted the audience to be really invested in her.  So, there was definitely a plan for that arc going into the thing.  So, then we, you know, got to the point where we had to decide whether we were going to pull the trigger on it or not.  And we didn’t know whether we were going to be renewed for another season or not, so we were, like, “Well, if we’re going to do it, this is the time to do it,” and so, we dove in with both feet and did it.

So, you know, the scenes between [Phil LaMarr and Maria Canals-Barrera] in the Christmas episode and in “Wild Cards” were real important for sort of teeing this thing up because the audience was really invested by that point, and then we could sort of come in there and have it really hit home. (qtd. in Eisenberg and Enstall)

Top row, left to right: Hawkgirl experiences claustrophobia in “Only a Dream,” and she comforts Solomon Grundy in his final moments in “The Terror Beyond.” Bottom row, left to right: Hawkgirl takes Green Lantern barhopping on an alien world in “Comfort and Joy,” and the couple share their first kiss in “Wild Cards.”

Season Two really allowed the audience to get to know Hawkgirl as a person, specifically through her burgeoning relationship with Green Lantern, as well as her unlikely friendship with Solomon Grundy. Over time, the character that gave us nothing in Season One opened up in a big way here, allowing viewers to learn about and care for the Thanagarian officer who carried herself with the ease and approachability of the girl next door. The audience—many of them questioning her presence at the show’s beginning—began to respond positively to her character, appreciating her contributions as they did those of Wonder Woman, J’onn J’onzz, and the Flash. And all was well … until the season finale, when everything came to a head.

The Wolf in Hawk’s Clothing

It began when a Gordanian Class 7 Cruiser decloaked over the National Mall and began firing in the skies over Washington, D.C. The Justice League and the military attempted to intervene, but the ship was suddenly grounded by a Thanagarian armada. One ship landed before a stunned League, and out stepped a Thanagarian commander whom Hawkgirl introduced as General Hro Talak. Calling an emergency meeting before the nations of the world, he introduced his people as a friendly civilization who wanted to safeguard Earth against a Gordanian invasion. Eager to protect themselves, the nations of the world opened themselves up to the arriving forces, only to find themselves mired in an occupation. It was then that the Justice League realized that Hawkgirl had betrayed them and, to add insult to injury, this was also when John Stewart learned that Shayera Hol was engaged to be married to Hro.

After two seasons of teasing fans with the prospect of Hawkman’s appearance, the series blindsided them with an adversarial analogue of the character’s Silver Age incarnation. In the aforementioned installment of the Justice League Revisited podcast, Rich Fogel revealed the background of Hro Talak’s adaptation:

A little sort of tidbit that you might find interesting is that, […] because the Hawk people came off sort of the villains of this episode, DC would not allow us to actually use Hawkman in this episode.  Hawkman in the comic book is Carter Hall [actually Katar Hol], and so Hro Talak is actually an anagram for [Katar Hol], so we just created a new character that way. (qtd. in Eisenberg and Enstall)

While not truly villainous—that honor would go to Kragger and Paran Dul—Hro Talak served as an antagonistic foil in the story. Not outwardly hostile to humans (even if he considered their lives beneath those of his people), he had no particular animosity towards Earth; its destruction was merely a means to an end. That said, his personal angst over losing the love of his life to Green Lantern elevated his rage, leading to a three-way fight between them during the story’s climax.

As for Shayera Hol, the creative team was careful to present her as a military officer bound to her duty until the moment she realized she was lied to, at which point she felt an obligation to protect her adopted home. In a 2004 interview, Bruce Timm discussed the tightrope they had to walk in regard to making her likeable despite her actions in the episode:

The tricky part of it was that she’s a character that, even though we hadn’t even written anything with her yet and our version of Hawkgirl didn’t really exist before our show—she has some of the same characteristics of the comic book character, but her personality is pretty unique to the animated series—from the get-go, we all really liked the character.  That made it even more obvious that she was going to betray the League, because if somebody betrays the League, and it’s somebody you don’t like, then you get nothing.  It’s like, “Oh, that rotten person; I never liked her anyway.”  But if it’s somebody you like and have sympathy for, then you’ve got conflict, you’ve got drama. (qtd. in Nolen-Weathington 80)

Of course, the character’s likeability relied heavily upon the performance of the actor voicing her, and Maria Canals-Barrera certainly delivered, even if—at first—she took the news of her character’s actions personally, as recounted by Timm and Producer and Character Designer James Tucker in the aforementioned 2006 DVD commentary for “Starcrossed”:

BRUCE TIMM:  I remember when we plotted this whole thing out and, you know, we had grown to love the character so much and, of course, we love Maria Canals, who plays her.  When we did the looping on this episode, I think it finally dawned on Maria that she wasn’t in the Justice League anymore, and at the end of the recording session, she came up and said, “So, wait a minute, so—so that’s it?  I’m out?”  And I’m like, “Well, at least for a little while.  We’re going to bring you back, but just not for a while.”

JAMES TUCKER:  I don’t think she believed us.  [LAUGHS.]

BRUCE TIMM:  And she’s says, “Well, how soon?”  She was, like, really upset; she was like angry, you know?

JAMES TUCKER:  She was really upset.

BRUCE TIMM:  She was really upset and, uh, yeah, so that was tough, but—

JAMES TUCKER:  She took it personally.  [LAUGHS.]

BRUCE TIMM:  Yeah, I said, “Well, you know, we-we-we-we-we’ll bring you back, but we have to make it emotional.  It’s, like, you know, we can’t miss you if you don’t go away,” and she was just like, “Uh huh.”

JAMES TUCKER:  Yeah, she was—

BRUCE TIMM:  “I’m not happy.”

JAMES TUCKER:  Yeah, she was almost near tears, I think.

BRUCE TIMM:  Not tears, but she was—

JAMES TUCKER:  No, she talked to me outside after she left. (“Commentary of ‘Starcrossed’”)

Understandably upset in the moment, Canals-Barrera later came around on the story, as she revealed in the aforementioned installment of the Justice League Revisited podcast:

I was so immature; I was such an actress.  I was like, “Why are they doing this?  Why am I such a bad guy?”  I was so dumb.  And like I’ve said before, only after—actually during—did I realize, “Wow, this is what makes great drama!  All this conflict!”  And it was just fantastic.  It made my character not only more interesting and complex but, as an actor, it gave me so much to work with.  I loved it.  And rewatching it again!  Oh, my gosh, it was so well done.

The writing was fair—it was fair and very one-sided, like, you really get [to know Hro Talak and] where he’s coming from.  He wants to save his people and, you know, you get why she even started it, but then she was misled, and then you understand her position about, well, “It’s not worth all the killing—all these innocent people—we must find another way.”  […]  I also thought [what] was very interesting is how virtue, truth, and a real sense of justice overshadowed tribalism.  She was able to think clearly and say, “Yeah, I understand what you’re saying, but this is so wrong.  I know our people are at stake, but there must be another way because this is wrong.”

[…] What struck me too when I rewatched it was, like Batman, I was willing to give myself up when I said, you know, “Take me, but leave them alone.  Let Earth survive.”  And then, when Batman just goes and to take [on a suicide mission]—there’s so many wonderful surprises.  It’s just so inspiring; I see why people still love the show years and years and years later. (qtd. in Eisenberg and Enstall)

Even with the Justice League defeating the Thanagarian military and saving the planet, “Starcrossed” still concluded on a low point, with the Justice League’s headquarters destroyed and Hawkgirl resigning from the team. Fortunately for her, the creative team would honor their promise, but little did the fans or her voice actor realize that, in the end, this change would bring out the best in her.

Bird on a Wire

Initially absent from the Justice League Unlimited series, Shayera Hol returned midway through the first season—first in a cameo during “The Return,” and then a full appearance in “Wake the Dead.” Over the course of those episodes, we learned that she—now in exile from Thanagar, the Justice League, and John Stewart—found shelter with Doctor Fate and Inza, whom she befriended in “The Terror Beyond.”  Filled with self-loathing and lacking purpose, she spent her days consumed by her past and losing chess games to Aquaman and AMAZO. It took the chaos magic-fueled return of Solomon Grundy to motivate her to return to action and, during the fight, she learned that the Justice League would welcome her return. With some trepidation, she rejoined her teammates, only this time not as Hawkgirl, but simply as Shayera Hol.

Her decision to forsake her Hawkgirl identity did not come lightly. As revealed by Bruce Timm in a January 16, 2005 post on the Anime Superhero (formerly Toon Zone) message boards, her former identity “represents the part of her life that she’s totally conflicted about, almost ashamed of” (b.t.). Dwayne McDuffie would later agree with this statement, adding in a June 3, 2005 post on his now-defunct message boards how “[s]he’s refusing to wear [the Hawkgirl costume] because she’s ashamed of what her people almost did to Earth, so she’s not going to ‘fly their flag,’ as it were” (Maestro), later adding that “[i]t would be like calling herself ‘Nazi Girl’ in post-WWII Europe” (Maestro). As for the option of a new costumed identity, McDuffie dismissed the option as pointless in a November 6, 2005 post, as she “doesn’t have a secret identity” (Maestro), later adding (in a June 3, 2005 post) how “[s]he won’t wear an Earth-style superhero costume because she’s ashamed of her own actions; she doesn’t feel she’s worthy” (Maestro).

However, while Shayera Hol elected to molt her Hawkgirl identity, she did need some kind of costume. “I was so tempted to keep [Shayera] in her ‘Wake the Dead’ outfit,” said Timm in another January 16, 2005 post on the Anime Superhero (formerly Toon Zone) message boards, adding how “ultimately, [we] decided she needed something a little more practical. […] No mask, though; she’s far too pretty to keep covered up” (b.t.). He went on to describe the look in a further message board post:

Her new outfit isn’t very “superhero-y,” it’s very basic and functional, kind of a modified tracksuit thing.  Remember, she’s still in transition, still not 100% sure of her place in the world.  So, it’s not like it’s her “permanent” new outfit (though I doubt she’s ever really gonna go back to a full-on straight superhero look). (b.t.)

Her new costume debuted in “The Once and Future Thing” as a white, stylized jumpsuit (above top center), which she wore in “The Doomsday Sanction” and “The Balance.” However, beginning in “Hunter’s Moon,” she switched to a yellow version of the outfit (above bottom center), which she kept for the remainder of the series. While Dwayne McDuffie confirmed that the yellow jumpsuit was a reference to the then-incomplete 1972 Bruce Lee film Game of Death (above left) in a March 3, 2009 message board post (Maestro), it is worth noting that Uma Thurman wore a similar outfit (above right) in Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003), which coincidentally also drew influence from the Bruce Lee film (Bose). Still, while either one works, it’s hard for me not to see a greater influence from Kill Bill, as Shayera Hol’s mace feels very similar to The Bride’s samurai sword.

(As for why they bothered with the white version of the outfit, I suspect they used it simply to do the “angel” joke in “The Balance” but, in the end, the yellow in the second one better resembles the color palette of the original Hawkgirl costume.)

Out of her funk and dressed for battle, Shayera Hol returned to the Justice League a less guarded, more open figure, which—surprisingly—reinvigorated her character. By dropping the Hawkgirl identity and fighting crime as herself, it allowed the creative team to craft more intimate stories about her with increased frequency; it was almost as if the Hawk identity was holding her back. With the burden of secrets removed from her shoulders, she rose up to take on the latter half of Justice League Unlimited as aggressively as her former namesake.

Flying Colors

After appearing in the previous television series as a cipher, with Unlimited she became more open, less guarded character, which better allowed her to process the drama she had accumulated for the duration of the former series. Presumably much like Superman following the STAS episode “Legacy,” she was now seeking to atone for her actions following the Thanagarian invasion, as well as wrestle with her guilt. Surprisingly, mired as the series was in the Cadmus arc, her return to the League never really came up as an issue, nor did she face any criminal charges for her actions. According to Bruce Timm in the aforementioned 2006 DVD commentary for “Starcrossed,” the Justice League presumably protected her and, with her history of good works going back to “Secret Origins,” that may have been enough (“Commentary of ‘Starcrossed’”). After all, if Superman could get Lex Luthor a full pardon in “A Better World,” surely the League could do the same for the former Hawkgirl. Regardless, during this period Shayera received storylines that her previous identity could never carry, including her own villains, a new romance, and a conclusion to her “will-they-or-won’t-they” relationship with John Stewart.

With the notable exception of J’onn J’onzz, Hawkgirl was the only team member in the original Justice League series to not have any of her Rogues’ Gallery from the comics appear. There were, of course, attempts to tie her to villains like Copperhead (as hawks often prey on snakes) and Killer Frost (as winter cold negatively affects hawks), but neither of them really stuck. Arguably, Hawkgirl’s biggest enemy pre-“Starcrossed” was Great Icthultu, but JLU allowed her to garner her own enemies both new (Paran Dul, Kragger, and the Thanagarian military in “Hunter’s Moon”) and old (the Shadow Thief in both “Shadow of the Hawk” and “Ancient History”). It is often said that a superhero is as only as good as their enemies, so it was nice for Shayera Hol to finally have some foes to call her own.

Villains aside, a greater challenge arose in the form of Carter Hall, a Midway City archeologist who—after an unfortunate experience with an ancient, telepathic Thanagarian database called an Absorbacron—became obsessed with Shayera Hol, as well as dressing up as a male counterpart to her former costumed identity, Hawkman. After adapting the Silver / Bronze Age Hawkman in the form of Hro Talak, the creative team took advantage of the then-recent work of JSA writer Geoff Johns, who took the Golden Age Hawkman, stripped away the dead weight, and modernized him in the early 2000s, beginning in JSA #23 (June 2001). And while there was some controversy with portraying Hawkman as a cosplaying stalker, the creative team was careful to play up his actions as more misguided than creepy, as his exposure to the Absorbacron led him to falsely believe that they were the reincarnated spirits of the ancient Thanagarians Katar and Shayera Hol. Also, in the end, he recognized that his unrequited love for Shayera was no match for the connection she had with Green Lantern, and so he gracefully bowed out.

Speaking of whom, the end of Justice League Unlimited brought a close, of sorts, to the long-simmering romance between Shayera Hol and John Stewart. Following their painful breakup in “Starcrossed,” both heroes mourned their loss in private but, over time, they rebuilt themselves. However, in Shayera’s case, this involved returning to a League where Green Lantern had moved on, as he had started dating fellow teammate Vixen. Fortunately, playing against conventional TV logic, they did not come to blows fighting over a man, like Lois Lane and Lana Lang used to in the Silver Age Superman books. Instead, they became friends and, with Vixen acknowledging that they had only been together a short while, they both gave John space to make his own decision regarding his affections. However, there was one factor that neither of them could have anticipated: the impending existence of Warhawk, Shayera’s son with John Stewart.

As previously discussed, in “The Once and Future Thing, Part Two: Time, Warped,” Green Lantern (along with Batman and Wonder Woman) were thrown fifty years into the future and encountered the Justice League of that era, the Justice League Unlimited. During their encounter, one of them identified himself as Rex Stewart, the son of John Stewart and Shayera Hol, a man whose very existence implied that their reconciliation was inevitable. Returning to the present day, John was haunted by this encounter, as—his feelings for Shayera aside—he couldn’t shake the thought that this was being forced upon him, thereby making his own choices and opinions on the subject irrelevant. In a September 20, 2005 message board post, Dwayne McDuffie explained that “John [Stewart] actually fears that there’s nothing he can do to change the future; he interprets this as his having no free will.  This is a source of great consternation for him” (Maestro). Eventually, he decided to defy destiny by remaining with Vixen, but not before revealing to Shayera the truth. Much like with “Starcrossed,” their relationship ends here on a down note, but it is tinged with the idea that they would get back together again in the future, a detail fully supported by McDuffie, who said the following in an undated post from his message boards: “[a]s Warhawk was born to Shayera Hol and John Stewart [as seen in the Batman Beyond episode ‘The Call’] before Chronos ever polluted the timestream, that future is intact” (Maestro). Later, following a number of contrarian posts questioning his stance, he supported his logic by adding the following:

Based on the face value evidence in the episode, and all evidence that’s been presented since then, the most reasonable conclusion to draw is that Warhawk is Rex Stewart, son of John and Shayera Stewart.  If people want to believe otherwise, they certainly can, […] but [they] have to stretch to get there. […] Moreover, even if you don’t believe in the future history, the story is complete.  John defies destiny and tries to continue his relationship with Vixen.  Shayera goes to Batman to learn about the child that she will never have.  Either way, that portion of the story is resolved. (Maestro)

In agreement with McDuffie is Bruce Timm, who offered his thoughts during the DVD commentary for “Ancient History”:

So, the way I see it, is that GL and Vixen are going to be together for a number of years, probably—maybe they even get married—but either she dies, or they get divorced or whatever, and then he eventually will get back together with Shayera.  I always think of Shayera and John kind of like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton or Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner.  It’s like “they’re together, then they break up, and then they meet later in life and get married and, you know, whatever.”  And I think this whole flashback kind of reinforces that too, with the fact that they’re kind of, you know, she and John are kind of eternal lovers in a weird kind of way. (qtd. in “Justice”)

At any rate, while it may not have been the ending that fans were hoping for, it was an ending, and the characters involved had to act according to their natures. Still, the nature of this ending reminds us that, in its way, their romance would continue, even if only off-camera.

Free Bird

Unfortunately, with the demise of the DCAU, this specific incarnation of Shayera Hol has been retired, but echoes of her influence can be seen in multiple projects over the past several years. Most prominently, a solo Hawkgirl appeared in the the recent Superman film (2025; above left), and she left a notable impression on audiences, essentially guaranteeing future roles in the developing cinematic universe. Performed by Peruvian actor Isabela Merced, this also continues the character’s presence as a Latinx figure, as pioneered by Maria Canals-Barrera. Meanwhile, in the comics, the Kendra Saunders’ Hawkgirl continues to be a presence both as a member of various DC Comics’ teams as well as solo, having headlined in a 2006-2007 ongoing series and a 2023-2024 limited series (above center). And, finally, a new Hawkwoman (above right) has surfaced in Green Lantern Corps #1 (April 2025), with this one apparently having had a past relationship with Green Lantern John Stewart, mirroring the former animated series. Once again, creative choices like these remind us that while the DCAU is over, its impact can be felt on new generations of both fans and media.

Two decades removed from Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, it is fascinating to consider how Shayera Hol became the best version of her character by not only removing Hawkman from the equation but also her entire Hawk identity. By separating her from both decades of continuity and subservience to her male opposite, she could finally be herself, and the character that developed from this extraction remains a jewel in Justice League’s crown. During interviews, Dwayne McDuffie frequently referred to Shayera as his favorite character on the series (Singh), and he continued to sing her praises in a July 2006 interview:

It’s one of those kind of rare things.  There are characters who are a writer’s friend.  There are characters that, scenes don’t stall when they’re in them.  There are characters that, when you put them in a scene, the scene opens up and new and interesting things happen.  When you put them next to other characters, they reveal facets of those characters that you don’t normally get to see, and it’s a very fortunate thing when that happens.  Rocket’s [from the Milestone comic book Icon] the best example of that I’ve ever worked on.  Hawkgirl, on Justice League, is another really good example of that, which is why I like writing her so much because you put her in a scene, the scene’s gonna go. (qtd. in Wilson)

And again, in a September 2, 2004 post on the Anime Superhero (formerly Toon Zone) message boards:

I like to write characters, not collections of powers.  In stories, I like to explore conflict and issues of humanism.  I couldn’t care less who can bench press what.  In the context of this series, Hawkgirl’s a more interesting character than any of the others, as her reactions aren’t restricted by standard notions of heroism, or expectations based on what we know about her from other media.  Her motivations are complex, often unpredictable, yet still relatable.  And Maria can play any note you give her, from action hero bravado to humor, from tenderness to rage, and play it beautifully.  What’s not to love? (Dwayne McDuffie)

And, finally, in a November 2005 interview with Comic Buyer’s Guide:

Shayera (Hawkgirl) is easiest [to write].  She’s just a brilliantly constructed character, with her emotions right out there in the open.  She’s warm, intelligent, strong, and direct.  If you’re fighting, she’s your worst enemy; if she’s on your side, she’s the best friend you can have.  Any scene she’s in will never stall because her presence makes things happen. (qtd. in Smith 36)

Looking back at the Shayera Hol from both animated series, I believe her character arc can be best summarized through a quote by the late poet and singer, Leonard Cohen: “Like a bird on the wire / Like a drunk in a midnight choir / I have tried in my way to be free” (lines 1-3).

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