Are you a fan of DC comics’ Hawkman? I don’t know how much success the character has actually had. I’ve carried out a quick straw poll of my non-geek associates and none of them actually knew who he was and two of them thought I was talking about Condorman, the Disney movie with Michael Crawford.

If Warners and DC follow through with plans for a freshly-rumored Hawkman movie that low profile will be bound to change, courtesy of multi-million dollar marketing budgets.

Of course, the studios are pretty much past the immediately recognizable Spider-Man, Batman and Superman types and deep into the second-tier sorts like Iron Man, Elektra and Green Lantern and still having a certain amount of success. Hawkman is as likely to succeed, or for that matter fail, as any of them - with an attractive cast and good advance word of mouth, they could get an Iron Man size return, with unappealing actors and some dodgy looking trailers and posters, they’ll likely get an Elektra.

One of the key decisions will be just which version of Hawkman they decide to bring to the screen because the options seem quite varied.

Wikipedia offers a series of fictional character histories, ranging from Carter Hall, the current Hawkman, through Katar Hol, the Hawkman that I’ve read a little of, and on to Grant Morrison’s Zauriel, an attempt to reinvent the character in the 90s. I’d guess that Carter Hall would be the variant they’d go for, tying in to current comics continuity. Here’s his little bio:

In the days of ancient Egypt, Prince Khufu is engaged in a feud with his rival, the Egyptian priest Hath-Set. The priest eventually captures both Khufu and his consort Chay-Ara, and kills them. Millennia later, in 1940, Khufu is reincarnated as American archaeologist Carter Hall, and Chay-Ara as Shiera Saunders.

Using the properties of “Nth metal” to craft a gravity-defying belt, Hall creates wings and a costume to become the first Hawkman.

A lot of gaps in that string of events, but it matches nicely with the story at Pajiba which dished up the rumor to start with. They’re telling us:

Warners… describes the movie as part Indiana Jones, part Da Vinci Code and part Ghost.

Okay, nothing really matches nicely with the ‘part Ghost‘ bit, does it? Intriguing.

There’s a live action Hawkman about to hit screens in the special Justice Society episode of Smallville. When that goes out on January 29th it could be the beginning of the public’s modern romance with the character but I really would have thought that DC could rustle up a character who doesn’t take quite so much suspension of disbelief (why’s he wearing a big fake beak, mommy?) to take up to the big leagues first.