Hawkgirl 2

Real name: Shayera Thal 2
Known relatives: Andar Pul (father), Shayera Thal 1 (mother, deceased), Thal Porvis (grandfather, adoptive father), Hyathis (grandmother)
First appearance: The Brave and the Bold #34, 1961 (original), Hawkworld miniseries, 1989 (more contemporary)
Team affiliation: Justice League of America, Justice League America
Hair color: red
Eye color: blue
Residential area: Detroit, Michigan, formerly planet Thanagar and Chicago, Illinois

History:

The illegitimate daughter of Shayera Thal 1, she was born via her mother and Andar Pul, Thanagar's administrator of Protection, after he had seduced the then 13-year old Shayera 1 into an affair, and the resulting pregnancy snowballed into a political scandal that could've brought her father's career to a standstill. To avoid further scandals, her mother abandoned her in Downside shortly after birth, leaving her with a guardian. By the age of ten, though still an obscure residant of Downside, she met her future partner, Katar Hol, during a trip he made to the Thanagarian slums on his first mission to inspect them.

When Shayera's Downside guardian was arrested by the police, she was sent to High Towers to live in an orphanage. There she was found and adopted by planetary administrator Thal Porvis, whose grief over the loss of his own daughter, Shayera 1, in a terrorist bombing had led him to search for and reclaim his granddaughter. But he didn't let her know that she was actually his granddaughter until years later.

When she came of age, Shayera 2 became an officer in the Thanagarian Wingman Corps, and later met with Katar again. During one of her missions, she found out that Katar was involved in an illegal smuggling operation in Downside and thinking it to be the gun running operation she was investigating, she confronted Katar to shut it down, but learned that it was really an operation at a clinic to smuggle medicines to the Downsiders, and that the real culprit behind the gunrunning was Byth Rok, a supposed planetary hero who had framed Katar for murder a decade ago. Teaming up, they were able to expose Rok and his operation, though he escaped with the help of a shape-shifting drug called Kortan. Nevertheless, their efforts managed to clear Katar of all charges and reinstate him as a Wingman. Both he and Shayera were given special winged helmets by the corps as a sign of honor.

Shayera and Katar would go on many fun adventures together in the galaxy, including at least one with Adam and Alanna Strange, the former being the archaeologist who became a space adventurer by coincidence. They would also find themselves at odds with Kanjar Ro, who would covet rule of their planet too. (Note: most of that is pre-Crisis, and may not count anymore.)

Byth later fled to earth to continue his criminal operations there, and Shayera and Katar were sent there to look for him, following Thanagar's unsuccessful participation in the Invasion crossover, and took up residence in Chicago, Illinois, managing a cultural exhibition as part of a goodwill tour in the effort to establish diplomatic relations with earth. She joined the Chicago police force and dated officer Verzell K. Jones. Byth discovered this and later murdered him, and then tried to frame her for his own murder when she was tracking him down. Katar luckily was able to expose Byth and get Shayera cleared of all charges, and she returned to Thanagar with the now captured Byth in tow.

Katar grew distant from Thanagar, and he and Shayera started running an operation to help smuggle Downsiders to earth to form their own society of metahumans and aliens formed their own society away from the normal world. But Thanagar's government found out, and Shayera and Katar applied for sanctuary on earth, as did even ambassador Klus.

They later battled Count Viper, and Shayera was seemingly killed, but, as Katar later found out, she hadn't died, and that Count Viper was now possessing her body while she lay dormant in a kind of mental asylum in his last body. Katar managed to lure Viper out in the open, but instead of beating him Katar ended up switching bodies with Count Viper, and then Katar found himself in the body of Shayera. Freeing his partner, he managed to capture Viper with the help of the Wonder Woman and the Justice League. Then in a spiritual quest, both Katar and Shayera managed to defeat Viper and return to their own bodies.

During Zero Hour, Carter, Katar, and Sheira were physically fused into one being(it sounds pretty weird, doesn't it?). This being was patterned on Katar's body and persona, but also enabled him to physically sprout wings and didn't need a Ninth Metal armor costume, as a result. Within him then were the spirits of combined Hawk Avatars, including Sheira's and Carter's. They were eventyally defused, but the change in personality Katar developed alienated Shayera, and she left for Detroit, Michigan, where she continued being Hawkwoman without the wings.

Later on, the demon Neron awoke all the past Hawk Avatars in Hol's mind. The spirits were angry that he hadn't put an end to Vandal Savage and took vengance upon him by controlling his body and causing him to murder innocent people, which was decidedly another huge writing error. When he turned to the Justice League and Martian Manhunter for help, the spirits overwhelmed the Manhunter, and after eventually overcoming any posession of the Hawk Avatar spirits, Hol sought to stop them in their tracks, coming upon them as they were trying to attack Shayera in J'onn J'onzz's body. He was able to save her, but reentering the battle with the spirits after he and Shayera declared their love for each other, he was seriously wounded while saving the Manhunter from the spirits as well. It was Arion's intervention that enabled him to reclaim the Hawk spirits. Knowing that they were too dangerous to be kept on earth, he had Arion transport himself to the Hawkgod Realm with them, where he perished, leaving Naomi, Shayera and their friends to mourn his loss.

Today, she's continuing her career as a police officer on earth, and in Geoff Johns' and James Robinson's run on the Hawkman series, she turned up in one of the story arcs.

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