Superhero Partner: Hank Hall, AKA Hawk
First Appearance
Hank Hall is more of your typical casually sexist jock, especially at first--he's mostly interested in sports (especially competing and winning), and girls as love interests rather than friends. As Hawk, his confidence becomes a swaggering bravado, and like both Doves, he can sling around the sass while fighting. He is a full-contact fighter, tearing right into the fray and utterly destroying his enemies, using anger as his mightiest weapon (aside from his fists).
 | However, all this arrogance is merely a thin veil over a deep wound of grief and loss. Hank is not one to talk about feelings, but the sudden loss of Don has destroyed him, and he won't even admit it. In an attempt to honor Don's memory, Hank has tried to go on fighting crime as Hawk, but he keeps getting beaten, because without Don's calm assistance, Hank is an ineffectual brute, more a laughingstock than anything. Basically, Hank tries so hard to be the "strong guy" that deserves respect and admiration, but he's also horribly insecure, and the ignored grief and guilt over his brother's death eat away at him. This sets him on a self-destructive path of fighting harder and harder to prove himself worthy, and always failing. |
How Dawn and Dove Affect Him
Over the course of the comic series, Hank begins to feel more useful as a superhero, and even learns to cooperate with Dawn as they fight alongside each other. Dawn always comes up with crafty strategies for winning, and Hank learns he can trust her judgment on these, enough to steer the bad guys right into her various traps and ploys without killing them. He also learns that she is willing to listen and even try to help him grieve for Don, and though he doesn't want her help, he begins to appreciate and even admire her for trying.
This doesn't mean that he always agrees with Dawn, though; as the series progresses, the two of them have quite a few arguments, mostly about Hank feeling like Dawn thinks he's just a big dumb lunk, and Dawn feeling like she always has to go clean up Hank's superheroic messes. Still, Hank bears a certain amount of respect for Dawn, and perhaps, for him, he even comes to love her, though whether it's as a sister or as "the one that got away" is up for debate. (Knowing Hank's penchant for avoiding feelings, he's not about to tell her in any case!)
With Dawn working beside him as Dove, Hank's grief lessens a little, and though he still never exposes his feelings and gets aggressive more often than not, he does become a bit more stable thanks to Dawn's (and Dove's) influence on his life.