Though short-lived, Star Hawks delivered a fun space opera adventure with great artwork for the daily comics page of the newspaper, and it is fondly remembered by those who followed it during its brief tenure.
What Is It?
This comic strip takes place in a future when humans have ventured out to the stars and made contact with other races in the galaxy. It follows the adventures of the Interplanetary Law Service (aka Star Hawks) as they try to keep the peace and maintain order throughout their jurisdiction. It focuses on the agents Rex Jaxon and Chavez and their robotic dog sniffer who are based on the “Hoosegow” in the Barnum System and who receive their orders from Chief Agent Benyon. They try to play by the book, but in a galaxy full of dangers, sometimes they must do whatever they can to maintain the peace.
Created by: Ron Goulart, Gil Kane
Original Run: 1977-81
Legacy:
This series arrived in the comics section of the newspapers at a time when sci fi had gained a newfound popularity due to the Star Wars phenomena. It did not last long, but it delivered a fun adventure strip in an interesting universe and stirred the imagination of those who read it on a daily basis.
A Closer Look:
After Star Wars exploded on the big screen in Summer of 1977, sci fi suddenly became popular with the general public and the entertainment industry responded by trying to get as much genre content out as possible. Movies, TV shows, books, comics, and more all tried to capitalize on the new interest in sci fi, and that opened an opportunity for the Star Hawks comic strip to join the comic pages of the the daily newspapers starting in October 1977. Buck Rogers had long since disappeared from the comics section but Flash Gordon was still running in some papers and there was enough interest at that time to bring in a new sci fi strip to to the papers. Ron Goulart initially came up with the idea and then brought on comic book artist Gil Kane to illustrate his story. It ran daily with a black and white strip Monday through Saturday, and then it had a color strip which ran on Sundays.
Star Hawks was definitely not ground-breaking, delivering a fairly straightforward sci fi adventure strip with flourishes of space opera that drew heavily on genre tropes. The two dashing leads–Rex Jaxon and Chavez–were the standard, alpha-male archetypes, and Chavez’s rather chauvinistic womanizing character has not dated well. The female characters were not typically relegated to the damsel-in-distress role–especially the female Star Hawks agents–though they did not get as much of the limelight. But despite some of the strip’s stumbling blocks, it was still a ton of fun and delivered a daily dose of sci fi for genre fans like myself that opened that kept up with each installment. And while it may not have been the most original series, it delivered an interesting universe–taking place within Goulart’s Barnum system–and offered an interesting assortment of characters and races. Then there was Gil Kane’s artwork which brought the strip to life and certainly energized the imagination of many who read it. His spaceships and technology seemed to channel some of the best days of Jack Kirby, and the characters were all well-rendered despite the confines of a newspaper comic strip format.
Star Hawks has mostly faded from the public view since it ran its last strip in May 1981, but it lingers on in the memory of many who followed it during its three-and-a-half-year run. It delivered quintessential sci fi adventures with an interesting cast of characters and a sense of fun, and even if it does not stand out as a game-changing comic strip, it still made a mark for itself as a genre gem from its era and it mostly holds up to the test of time.
Cancelled Too Soon?
Star Hawks ran from October 1977 to May 1981 which seems like a notable tenure but that is much shorter than the 48-year run of Buck Rogers and the 69-year run for Flash Gordon. Star Hawks was unique in the fact that it originally took up the space of two strips to tell its daily installment. That gave Gil Kane more opportunity to expand on his artwork and made the strip stand out on the page. Unfortunately, many papers were not interested in giving this untested strip that much extra space on their comics page. It limited the circulation of Star Hawks and may have set up its demise out of the gates. The strip was still carried by a decent number of papers, but it was cut back to the standard single-tier format in July 1979. Also around that time, Ron Goulart was pushed out from the writing chores and replaced initially with Archie Goodwin and then a succession of writers. The quality diminished during that time, especially with Kane’s artwork–the strength of the strip–cut back to a single tier. It remained popular with readers, but the editorial staff had never fully bought into the series and it was eventually cancelled. The final installment ran on May 2, 1981 and then Star Hawks disappeared from the papers.
The Story Continues
Ron Goulart would carry on the story of the Star Hawks in two paperback novels. The first was Star Hawks Empire Ninety-Nine which was published in January 1980–after Goulart left the daily strip–and it included illustrations by Kane. This one was basically a reworking of some of the early adventures from the comic strip with some fleshing out of the story since the author was not constrained to the limitations of the comic strip format. The second book was Star Hawks: The Cyborg King which came out one year later and shortly before the strip ended. Again, it adapted some of the existing stories and contained artwork by Kane.
Should It Be Rebooted?
Whether it is a reboot or a revival, I would certainly like to see more of the Star Hawks, and I believe the strip could prove quite popular with modern audiences. The comics page is disappearing from newspapers, but this would work perfectly well as a comic book. Both Ron Goulart and Gil Kane have since passed away, but there are plenty of creative teams who could take on this property and run with it. A revival could pick up with more adventures of the main team, thus giving plenty of back catalog material for new readers to enjoy. Or it could be rebooted to cut out the ’70s/’80s sexism, making it more palatable for modern audiences. But in either case, there is plenty to explore in the universe of the Star Hawks (possibly also bringing in other characters from Goulart’s Barnum System) and more adventures would certainly be welcome.
Where Can You Read It?
There have been multiple reprint editions collected over the years, but most of those have gone out of print. IDW has put together a three-volume series that includes the entire run and that is available in hardcover and paperback, though not in ebook format.
Interesting Facts:
In 1976, the newspaper syndicate NEA approached Ron Goulart about doing a science fiction-based comic strip. He worked up a strip originally named Star Cops and then brought on Gil Kane and it was renamed Star Hawks. The proposal was rejected at that time, but once Star Wars became a worldwide hit there was interest in the strip again and it hit the papers just over five months after the movie premiered.
Star Hawks takes place in the Barnum System which was the setting for many of Ron Goulart’s sci fi novels. It does not have a direct cross-overs with any of Goulart’s previous works, but the two Star Hawks novels are considered part of his Barnum System series of books.
