Created by
Dennis Neville and Gardner Fox.
Hawkgirl vs. Hath-Set
Kendra did some digging around at the Stonechat Museum and she came up with a link to Hath-Set and the Valley of the Kings. It turns out Dr. Jeremiah Whetherington Esq. had procured Hath-Set’s canopic jar on August 29, 1928 for the antiquities collection at the Gotham Museum of Archaeology . The jar was found in 1922 during an expedition which was led by a Lord Carnarvon. The jar is carbon dated back to the 4th dynasty. Hawkgirl flies to Gotham City and notifies Batman that she is on her way. She passes by Windemere Children’s zoo and notices Batman is beating up some thugs so she makes it to the museum first. Kendra is greeted by Hector and Rosie, members of the night staff who instruct Kendra to head to Dr. Ahmose Rassmussen’s office.
Dr. Rassmussen became in charge of the museum’s library after Jonathan Wesley Sandhurst, Director Emeritus past away. Unfortunately for Batman, a mass of people have gone under some kind of hypnosis. Batman figures its Mad Hatter until the mob starts chanting the name Hath-Set. From what Batman could deduce, these people in one way or another come from Hath-Set’s bloodline. These people came from all walks of life like Russtoli’s, Arlen’s gas station and Barrent’s preparatory school. The mob began heading to the corner of Bluebird and 19th street where the museum was located. Batman was outmatched so he calls in Superman to do crowd control.
Some members of the mob come crashing through the museum’s atrium and attack the night staff. As for Kendra, her host Dr. Rassmussen fell under Hath-Set’s sway and he is transformed into the Bennu, the great Heron of fire as well as divinity, the phoenix of Ancient Egypt and the soul of Ra. Batman and Hawkgirl had their hands full fighting off the mob in the atrium as well as Dr. Rassmussen while Superman was dealing with the chaos outside.
A dozen mob members provoke the Man of Steel to the point where he uses his heat vision to disarm them but he didn’t realize that they were playing him for a big set up. Superman’s heat vision accidentally hits a gas main and the entire front side of the museum is engulfed in flames. The atrium eventually catches fire but the sprinkler system kicks in. Hawkgirl activates a small electro shock from her Nth metal mace which stuns everyone in the atrium. Dr. Rassmussen reverts back to his human form and the mob is finally released from Hath-Set’s hold because Hath-Set has a back up plan to get Hawkgirl.
Lt. Chalmers of the fire department puts out Superman’s fiery mistake but Superman makes up for it by transporting injured civilians to Elsbeth Memorial Hospital. When Dr. Rassmussen came to, he gave Hawkgirl an encrypted disc with the information she needed. Hawkgirl heads to Oracle’s base at Kord Tower and begins a decryption process on the disc. The disc contains the fabled Turin King’s list in Ancient Egyptian hieratic. The list was supposedly made at the museum of Turin and it has an inventory of all the pharaohs in every dynasty as well as a map for every royal tomb in Egypt. The list depicts the reign of Khufu and Hath-Set’s short term dominion after Khufu’s death.
All of sudden, the Willy Nelson ring tone on Oracle’s cell goes off. The voice on the cell tells Oracle to put this conversation on speaker. Within a few seconds, Hawkgirl realizes that the voice is Kristopher Roderic’s. Roderic wants Hawkgirl to meet him at Mug’s Pub in Gotham Bay. Hawkgirl arrives at the location and enters the pub. The pub is filled with descendants of Hath-Set and they all point to a door that leads to the back entrance of the bar. Hawkgirl goes through the doorway and the door shuts behind her. Kendra knows this is a trap but she wants to end Hath-Set’s curse once an for all.
For a moment, Hawkgirl was surrounded by complete darkness until the fire from Egyptian torches light up. The light exposes every surrounding in the room. It seems Roderic has designed the room to be a replica or bas-reliefs of a 4th dynasty temple burial chamber. In the middle of the room, there is a Queen’s sarcophagus. The sarcophagus has an effigy or raiment of Chay-Ara and next to the tomb is a decorative box of her most precious possessions. Unfortunately, Hawkgirl wasn’t alone in the room. Roderic activates a trigger which opens the sarcophagus then he comes up from behind Hawkgirl and shoves her into the tomb which closes in after her.
Kendra is claustrophobic but Roderic was kind enough to give her Kendra a tank of oxygen for a long trip. Roderic had apparently transformed the inside of a metal container into the burial chamber. The next day, Roderic has the container placed on the Golden Crane, a freighter that is heading toward Egypt. Roderic convinces the harbor master that the manifest of the container has ancient artifacts from Alexandria which he is returning after Western countries looted it when Egypt was under diplomatic anarchy.
Roderic knew that Hawkman wouldn’t be too far behind since Oracle would have contacted him already. Hawkman reaches the docks a minute too late. Carter interrogates the harbor master and demands to know which ships are heading to Egypt. The harbor master tells Carter that the Golden Crane is going to Alexandria. Meanwhile, Kristopher takes advantage of Hawkgirl’s current predicament by trying to rape her. Fortunately, Hawkgirl uses her feminine wiles to lure Roderic into a false sense of comfort then she knocks him into the sarcophagus and locks it up. Roderic bangs and screams in the sarcophagus but his cries for help are muffled by the waves of the Atlantic Ocean.
The ship arrives in Egypt and the payload is loaded onto a truck convoy. The convoy heads to the Valley of the Kings, the necropolis of pharaohs which is 450 miles south of Alexandria or Cairo and west of the Nile. The convoy heads up the wadi of the valley’s basin. The western side of the valley has fewer tombs than the eastern side but according to the Turin King’s list, Hath-Set’s tomb is located there along with several others. Hawkgirl prays to the goddess Ma’at that she is not too late to stop Hath-Set from rising from the dead. Hawkgirl flies over the valley and notices a dozen men butchered and the convoy is heading to Hath-Set’s tomb.
The Egyptian descendants of Hath-Set took the convoy and unloaded its contents then they placed it in a temple. One descendant began to chant an incantation which caused the essence of Hath-Set’s canopic jar to enter his mummified corpse. Hawkman appears shortly after Hath-Set was resurrected but Carter is captured by the deviant priest when he conjures a sandstorm. The sandstorm sends Hawkman to an underground stockade and Hath-Set begins to gloat over his enemy’s defeat.
It turns out the reason why Hath-Set killed Khufu and Chay-Ara is because Chay-Ara spurned his affections for him. After killing Khufu and Chay-Ara, Hath-Set prayed to Apophis the Destroyer as well as Ammit the Bone Eater in order to exact his curse. The curse would doom Khufu and Chay-Ara to a cycle of tragic reincarnations. Hawkgirl arrives in order to distract Hath-Set long enough for Hawkman to escape. Carter breaks free of his prison and uses a spear to puncture the priest’s head then Hawkgirl splits Hath-Set right down the middle with the same Nth metal sword he used to curse Khufu as well as Chay-Ara. Hawkgirl puts her fears about Hath-Set to rest by setting his corpse on fire. With Hath-Set’s body no longer mobile, the priest decides to transfer his essence or ka into Kristopher Roderic and break Carter’s museum into pieces.
Hawkgirl; Curse of the Maw
Brightest Day: Hawkman & Hawkgirl
During the events of Brightest Day Hath-Set is revealed to be building a mystical portal using the bones of Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s former incarnations. Hawkman and Hawkgirl followed Hath-Set through the portal to Hawkworld where Hath-Set has allied with the Queen of Hawkworld. Though he captures Hawkgirl in order to bait Hawkman, Hath-Set is killed by her when she snaps his neck with her legs.
In Other Media
Arrowverse
In the Arrowverse, Hath-Set and Vandal Savage are the same person. Rather than reincarnating as the former does in the comics or gaining his immortality from a meteorite as the latter does, he maintains immortality by murdering Hawkman and Hawkgirl in each of their incarnations and stealing their life-force. He has an obsession with Hawkgirl that he characterizes as love. As Savage, he is the focus of the first season of Legends of Tomorrow, as the Legends seek to prevent him from conquering the Earth and murdering Rip Hunter’s wife and son in 2166.