Writers of the Hawks

Gardner Fox (1911-1986)

Fox, a native of Brooklyn, was the creator in the writers department of the Hawks in early 1940, as well as a couple of other notable characters of the Golden Age. He first began writing on Batman's adventures in Detective Comics (working alongside Bill Finger, the artist), contributing five stories between issues #29-32, and may well have the biggest record of characters to his credit as creator, including the Golden Age Flash, Jay Garrick, Cliff Cornwall, the Golden Age Doctor Fate, Kent Nelson, Sandman, Starman, and even the first successful comic book team series, All-Star Comics, starring the Justice Society of America. He also did work in the 1950's for Marvel's early template, Timely Publications, and was most notable during the Silver Age for coming up with the second Atom, Ray Palmer, and even Adam Strange, and also the Silver Age incarnations of the Hawks, who got their own series in 1964, which led in turn to the creation of Zatanna. And, he also launched the Justice League of America in 1960. The last stories he wrote were for Marvel in the early 1970's, such as Dr. Strange and Tomb of Dracula. He'd been writing sci-fi novels as well as comics since the 40's, and following that, he decided to return to that career as well, which he continued in until his death.

Robert Kanigher (1915-2002)

Kanigher began working in comics in the 1940s, when he started with Fox Features Syndicate, writing Blue Beetle and other characters. He soon found his way to All-American, one of the companies that would later merge into the modern DC comics, and he stayed with the company, invarious capacities, almost exclusively though his retirement in the mid-1980s.

Even in context of a field that demanded a high level of output, Kanigher was prolific. He wrote and/or edited Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern, Hawkman, and the Justice Society of America feature in All-Star Comics, as well as many other super-heroes and even plenty of romance, love, crime, horror and war stories. He is considered one of the more visual comics writers, having created at least one signature page breakdown technique, that being three interlocking panels, with segments progressing in time, typically used for landscapes. He was a major player in the 1950s-60s "Silver Age" of super-heroes, inaugurating the modern Flash and creating The Metal Men, but is probably best remembered by most for his creation of SGT. Rock, who may have debuted in Our Army at War.

Kanigher and Tom Sutton (who passed away May 1) had worked together at least once -- as writer and artist (respectively) of the early 1970s version of The Heap, one of Skywald's brief flurry of color comics.

Even though he did most of his work for DC, Kanigher worked for many others -- Fox, Archie (on super-hero titles), Marvel for a brief period, Renegade, etc. He also wrote magazine articles and books on writing, comics and other subjects. Some bios say he wrote for radio.

And he went out in harness, having written a short Batman story published in 2001. He was also working on his autobiography at the time, excerpts of which have seen print.

John Broome (1913-1999)

Having begun his own writing career in the post-WW2 years, Broome began on some of the characters whom he'd also write later in the Silver Age as well, including the Flash, having written one of the first stories for the Fastest Man Alive in Showcase #4, and also Green Lantern, Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and a couple more.

There will be more to come in updates for this section soon, so please stay tuned.