I'm glad I gave 'Hawkgirl: Once Upon a Galaxy' another chance, after a library read a couple years ago.
I knew next to nothing about Hawkgirl/Kendra Saunders before reading 'Once Upon a Galaxy', but I commend Jadzia Axelrod for writing her as cool, stubborn, sympathetic, three-dimensional, and a badass (as well as every other aspect of the author's writing in this comic).
Kendra Saunders is a Cuban American human being given godlike, dimension-defying wings and powers - not to mention the memories of thousands (more?!) of past Hawkgirls before her, and their haunting ghosts - to contend with, along with her own complicated and tragic past. She is also written to be assessable to new readers of her character, despite some confusion and gaps about her origin and the (now dead?) characters whose loss she is dealing with.
Hawkgirl is a reincarnated goddess - often compared to an angel, like her previous lives lived- who is very much human, in her past and her present. She has a galaxy's swirl of identity crises. She is not Thanagarian ('Aren't you Thanagarian?' 'I'm Cuban.' - one of the many funny exchanges in the comic). As if repeatedly dying and saving the universe isn't hard enough on her.
However, through socialising and healing, as her individual self, Kendra - the girl with a kettle around her heart, the whipping girl (these two are what the villain calls her), the Morningstar mace girl, the Daughter of Hawks, the Knight of Nth World - will form bonds and connections again, and be her own person, with a group of queer women, both superhero and civilian.
However however, the main draw - the reason I wanted to reread 'Once Upon a Galaxy' - is Galaxy.
Human name Taylor Barzelay, she has come a long way from her awkward and troubled beginnings in 'Galaxy: The Prettiest Star' and later 'Bad Dream: A Dreamer Story' (Dreamer is mentioned once here). This is Galaxy's best appearance so far. She is a young, optimistic, slightly naïve, adorable, preppy, peppy and successful superhero, partnering herself up with (and buttering up) Hawkgirl, to contrast with the latter's more morose and cynical loner persona.
Galaxy, a comic relief girl made of stars who befriends a hawk, is synchronously smart, brave, determined, and never gives up. She is like a purple, turquoise-haired trans lesbian Starfire. With a talking robot corgi sidekick, Argus, who is the Skeets to her Booster Gold.
It is in 'Once Upon a Galaxy' where I found out that Galaxy is in fact trans. In her origin, it was not merely that she had to disguise herself as a human boy on earth, before she "came out", but she was assigned male at birth on her doomed home planet Cyandii, and she apparently came out before it was destroyed. I'm fairly certain this is a retcon by Axelrod to counteract the criticisms of the flimsiness of the trans metaphor in 'The Prettiest Star', and to correct the realised mistake, by making Galaxy/Taylor actually trans, for more sincerity in representation. Whatever the reason it happened, it was a good call.
Galaxy is transgender, gay, and an alien in every sense - everything we as a society have been taught to hate and fear since birth. Yet she is in DC comics, and is a fully qualified superhero, with a full personality and happy personal life.
Well done, DC. Now include her more and make her more mainstream, for wider rep and visibility.
Also featured are Black Canary, Power Girl, Superman, Batman, the Talons of the Court of Owls, Supergirl, and Steel/Natasha Irons.
And Galaxy/Taylor's girlfriend Kat, and Kendra's queer AF civilian friend/potential love interest Abilene. And Alysia, Barbara Gordon/Batgirl's trans best friend, who's a head chef, and her wife Jo!
Such pleasant, colourful queer surprises in 'Once Upon a Galaxy'! Nearly everyone is female and LBGTQ+.
Sapphics rule!
And they make the best of friends.
What a revelation. And how revolutionary.
'Hawkgirl: Once Upon a Galaxy' - it's weird, queer, campy, colourful, kinetic, cataclysmic, spotty, and all over the place, and it's a darn entertaining, funny, hopeful and life-affirming superhero comic.
It's also framed and themed around fairy tales of non-western cultures, religion, angels, birds, and the Nth world and metal. There's a shapeshifting, timeline/life-stream-travelling fox/vixen villain, a dragon that attacks Metropolis, an owl monster in Gotham, and dancing with the girls in a gay nightclub in Metropolis.
Now this is what comics should be all about!
Finally, there are these pieces of dialogue from Hawkgirl, slightly tweaked:
'You don't know me! I am so tired of men telling me who they think I am! [...] I had a literal angel look me in the eye and tell me I'm someone else! That I don't know myself! And I was dumb enough to believe them! Dumb enough to believe every last one of them! As if their opinion mattered! You think because you've got a pair of wings and a mace you know things?!? You know me?! You going to tell me who I am and then leave? Go off on some glorious destiny with a white version of me you like better?! You dare think your vision of me, your opinion, is more important than who I think I am?! I. AM. HAWKGIRL! I earned that title! It's mine! I get to say what it means, not you! You don't know me! You never did! You only saw what you wanted to see! I've saved the damn world! Without you!'
'The world is always ending. It's when I do my best work.'
Friend group dialogue exchange: 'We hold up a light in the darkness as an act of defiance against injustice. Nothing you haven't done before.' 'But first, a toast! To new beginnings!' 'How about just to good friends?' 'And to bright futures!'
Click on the links below to read my other reviews concerning my thoughts on Galaxy/Taylor:
'Galaxy: The Prettiest Star'
'Bad Dream: A Dreamer Story'
Final Score: 3.5/5
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