Who's This? A space cop.
The facts: One of Julius Schwartz's Silver Age reinventions of Golden Age stars, Hawkman was rebooted as policeman Katar Hol from the planet Thanagar who comes to Earth in search of a criminal and decides to stay (with his sexy wife Hawkwoman). This, according to Gardner Fox and Joe Kubert in The Brave and the Bold #34 (1961). Through the 60s, he joined the Justice League and held his own title for a brief while (27 issues) before it was merged with the equally under-performing Atom for a further 7 issues. A revitalization came in the 80s with the Shadow War of Hawkman mini-series leading to a monthly (for 17 issues in 1986-1987). But though some of these adventures are post-Crisis, as are other appearances such as inclusion in Justice League International during Invasion!, the Hawkworld mini-series would completely revamp and reboot the character, retconning some of those appearances as a Thanagarian mole called Fel Andar. Some would say this Katar's story ends here, in 1989.
How you could have heard of him: He's still the Hawkman of the Super-Friends cartoon and the Super-Powers action figure line, so gone, but not forgotten. Visually close to the Golden Age's Carter Hall, casual fans may not see a difference between them.
Example story: Convergence: Hawkman #2 (July 2015) "Revelations II" by Jeff Parker, Tim Truman and Enrique Alcatena
Is it cheating to use Convergence as a spotlight on a character? Is it anachronistic to have a Silver/Bronze Age Hawkman story drawn by that version's assassin, Tim Truman? Maybe I don't care. It's the Silver/Bronze Age Hawks' last possible hurrah - as the Absorbascon has predicted their little bubble Convergence universe will soon be destroyed - and they want to go out fighting. This is who they are.
"We can only choose how to face it." And though we expect them to use a bunch of Medieval weapons against whatever Bat-Men and Rat-Men are at the gates (from the Great Disaster timeline - Tim Truman knows what he likes to draw), they also say there's now no reason not to use the Thanagarian technology they denied themselves on Earth. Who knew it was built INTO the Medieval stuff?
They get swarmed by the Man-Bats, captured and tied to a missile pointed at their version of Gotham City. My favorite thing about this Hawkman is that his partner is his sexy wife, and the comic acknowledges that he is so much less without her. So though this is a HawkMAN spotlight, I hope you'll indulge me this bit where Hawkwoman is his everything.
Just in time, too, because the missile takes off, is zapped, and comes back down on the Rat-Men. Before finding out who helped them, our heroes race for their wings.
As they rise, the Bat-Men return and the surprise allies reveal themselves - the same Thanagarians who had given up hope. Together, they defeat the Rats (of the land and of the air). But nothing can stop the timeline from being erased, as the Hawks confirm with the Absorbascon:
But as their world, and their Earth, disintegrate in Hypertime's final act of annihilation, they also sense that something else will exist (and as WE know, another and another and another), which doesn't matter to Hawkman, because this was always a love story...
What else is there to say? While they've done a lot with Carter Hall in recent decades, this Katar Hol is all but gone. I don't mind the Hawkworld version, not at all, but I miss the original (so to speak), and I never understood why he couldn't be more of a headliner.
Who's Next? A winged fury.
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