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Justice League Unlimited revealed that Batman Beyond’s Warhawk was the child of Green Lantern and Hawkgirl, but the comics explained how this heroic family came together.
Though the Justice League eventually had its own shows in the form of Justice League and Justice League Unlimited, their first appearance in the DC Animated Universe came before either of those cartoons debuted. The League first appeared in the high-tech future of Batman Beyond, where the two-part story “The Call” featured the next generation of heroes. Though some characters like Superman and Big Barda were part of the original team, others were the children of original members.
This was the case for Nth Metal warrior Warhawk. When Justice League Unlimited returned to Batman Beyond‘s future in the story “The Once and Future Thing,” it was revealed that this winged warrior was the son of Green Lantern John Stewart and Hawkgirl Shayera Hol. By that time, though, the two star-crossed lovers had separated due to Hawkgirl’s betrayal of the team during the Thanagarian invasion of Earth. Throughout the whole Justice League Unlimited series, even after Stewart found out about Warhawk’s existence, he remained with his new love, Vixen. So how did he and Shayera first get together and have a son?
The answer was revealed in digital-first comics Justice League Beyond #7 and #8 by Derek Fridolfs, Dustin Nguyen, Eric Nguyen and Saida Temofonte. As Warhawk tells the tale of his heroic origins he reveals that, after Justice League Unlimited ended, things continued to get serious between John Stewart and Vixen. The Lantern had decided his longtime love deserved a ring of her own and was about to ask her to marry him. Though he got the answer he wanted, it came as she lay dying in his arms.
Vixen was killed in front of the hero’s very eyes by the Shadow Thief, who had featured a couple of times in the Justice League Unlimited series as the dark side of Carter Hall, aka Hawkman. When Stewart decided to hunt down his fiancée’s killer, Shayera joined him. A team-up with Adam Strange revealed that, after Hall was executed for Shadow Thief’s crimes, the killer was finally free to cause as much chaos as he wanted without Hawkman to curtail him.
When the three found Vixen’s killer, the Green Lantern broke his oath and used a gun to put an end to Shadow Thief. The Guardians called Stewart in and took away his ring for breaking their no-kill rule. They decided that Earth would have no Green Lanterns until they had found a human at peace in mind, body and soul. This, of course, hints at Kai-Ro, Earth’s Green Lantern in Batman Beyond‘s future. Having sought vengeance for Vixen, the two buried her in her home village of Zambesi. Now that John Stewart was no longer a Green Lantern, he had no obligations to the League and therefore decided to stay in Africa for a while. Hawkgirl, unsurprisingly, stayed there with him. Deciding that Vixen would have wanted John to be happy, the two former lovers gave in to their emotions and rekindled their relationship. Nine months later, they had a son.
Shayera retired from the League herself and the family moved permanently to Africa. Growing up, Rex Stewart learned about both his Earth and Thanagarian cultures. He soon learned how to master Nth technology and built his famous metal armor and wings, as seen in the DCAU’s high-tech future.
When he turned 18, John and Shayera’s son traveled to his ancestral home of Thanagar to free it from Gordanian occupation. He joined up with the resistance movement there and freed the planet from its oppressors. Though the Thanagarian’s rejected their savior at first because of his mixed heritage, the reminder of who among them led their people to victory soon silenced them.
Despite being accepted by the Thanagarians, he returned to Earth and joined the Justice League like his parents. This digital-first series answered one of the biggest questions Justice League Unlimited left unanswered. Though with clear tensions still visible in the ongoing Justice League Infinity, could there be more to this story?
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