Wally West was shunted off to limbo at the start of the New 52, in-story victim of his mentor Flash Barry Allen’s bad choices. When it was finally decided that legacy was a feature and not a liability, Wally returned as a symbol of hope and avatar of all the connective thread the DC Universe had been lacking — at least from Barry’s perspective. From Wally’s perspective, his wife didn’t know him and his children never existed, and the trauma was such to result in a dissociative episode that culminated in the ignominious deaths of some half dozen other heroes before, a miniseries or two later, Wally finally got his family back.

All of which is to say, there’s a not-uncommon phenomenon sometimes in the DCU where what benefits a larger, front-line hero results in under-rug-swept collateral damage to a secondary character. And writer Jadzia Axelrod is not mistaken to suggest, in Hawkgirl: Once Upon a Galaxy, that a few times lately, Kendra Saunders has been that character. Even setting aside that she’s the distaff version of a male hero whose pervading characteristic in her early days was that she just wouldn’t love protagonist Hawkman back, she was also benched during the New 52 but then resurrected with little explanation during Dark Nights: Metal and into Scott Snyder’s Justice League, where one sensed Snyder didn’t so much have plans for Kendra as that he really wanted a League reminiscent of the Justice League cartoon.

In the Dawn of DC era but particularly in DC All In, I’ve noticed a number of series finally reflecting the early 2020s Dark Nights: Death Metal “I remember it all” aesthetic. We have Superman and Green Arrow and Batgirl all now, if not engaging with pre-Flashpoint stories (sometimes significantly pre-Flashpoint stories) then at least nodding to them; these series may not be trying to square all these events, but neither are they ignoring them. Such is also the case for Axelrod’s Hawkgirl.

The six-issue Once Upon a Galaxy is imperfect, but considerably, considerably better than the scuttlebutt had led me to expect. But if there are points where I felt Hawkgirl got melodramatic, the fact that Axelrod engages with so much of Kendra’s truly tangled history was a significant plus in my book. The DCU and its writers haven’t treated Kendra Saunders well of late, and I appreciate Axelrod speaking up for her.

[Review contains spoilers]

It’s only a few pages in to Axelrod’s first issue that there’s a discussion of Hawkgirl’s previous teams, including the Blackhawks, to which Kendra replies wryly, “Please do not remind me of the Blackhawks,” and Superman chides, “It was a whole thing.” It’s not much, but like Tom Taylor’s Nightwing making a joke about his stint as “Ric” Grayson, it serves as an early nod to the reader that Axelrod’s hip to Hawkgirl’s recent history, both what makes sense and what doesn’t. How did Kendra become a Blackhawk? Whatever happened to them? How was she suddenly Hawkgirl again? The audience doesn’t know, but at least we do know that audience, character, and writer are now aligned on it being “a whole thing.”

But Axelrod isn’t done. A page or two later, there’s reference to the off-screen end of Kendra and Martian Manhunter J’onn J’onzz’s relationship from Snyder’s League — and even later, a sotto voce mention of how J’onn being reborn in the body of their alt-future child “just murdered our physical relationship.” Mark Waid’s Justice League Unlimited picks up with J’onn apropos of nothing, but of course there was a relationship and it did end, and ignoring that is a disservice to Kendra when, to an extent, she was mainly in that League book to be J’onn’s romantic foil anyway.

Really going back, Axelrod also references Blackest Night a couple times, where, also ignominiously, Kendra was killed, transformed into a Black Lantern zombie, and then not resurrected, replaced by Golden Age Hawkgirl Shiera Hall. But we come to find the inciting incident of Axelrod’s Hawkgirl, what brings Kendra to start a new life in Metropolis, stems from the latter part of Robert Venditti’s post-Metal Hawkman book, in which Carter Hall and the Thanagarian Shayera Hol loose the curse that had them endlessly resurrected. There’s mitigating factors, but it’s true that not a lot of detail was paid to how Kendra was affected by no longer being part of the reincarnation lineage. When Axelrod’s Kendra describes it as Carter going “off on some glorious destiny with a white version of me you like better,” well, that seems a fair point.

So I appreciate that Axelrod is giving Hawkgirl her due here. Superficially, Hawkgirl reminds of Leah Williams' Power Girl, in that each involve somewhat aimless heroes finding their way with the help of new female friendships. Among a few things that I thought were superior about Hawkgirl was that Kendra generally keeps her power set, unlike Power Girl’s new psychic abilities; the end of Axelrod’s story suggests Kendra’s increased participation in a swords and sorcery realm, which isn’t my preference, but at least we’re still generally involved in wings and a mace. I also enjoyed Axelrod bringing her young adult character Galaxy into the DC mainstream far more than Williams using the “Omen” name on an essentially new character with scant backstory. (See also this book’s early acknowledgment that Power Girl does, indeed, have a master’s in computer engineering).

Given all the treatment that I think Axelrod is correct to have Kendra criticize, it may not be on point for me to take issue with the way the story goes about it. But there’s a sequence in the third chapter where an owl-man taunts Kendra and I felt she got madder than seemed reasonable, from “I’m so tired of men telling me who they think I am” to “You dare think your vision of me, your opinion, is more important than who I think I am?!” Too, when Kendra is first possessed by the hawk-spirits, the “I! SEE! EVERYTHING!” might sound right spoken but is awkward, I think, when written.

I have noted some terrific lettering effects lately from Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou on Green Arrow and Poison Ivy, but here some of the exclamations just contribute to that sense of melodrama. Art by Amancay Nahuelpan is generally fine, though the creative team conceives of a humongous Kendra with bodybuilder physique that I didn’t think jibed with earlier portrayals.

I'm interested, following, to read Jadzia Axelrod and Nicole Maines' Justice League story with Dreamer and Galaxy. Interesting that, as far as I’ve seen, the book does not seem to also include Hawkgirl; after Hawkgirl: Once Upon a Galaxy, I wouldn’t mind seeing Axelrod get another chance at both characters together. At the same time, sitcom-y books have a hard time at DC — for every Conner/Palmiotti Harley Quinn, two different Power Girl books haven’t worked out. One wonders if there’s a traditional superheroics take on a Hawkgirl book out there that might finally have some (ahem) wings, or if this is a character perhaps just best suited for team books after all.

[Includes original and variant covers]