Comic Title: Secret Origins of the Super DC Heroes HC
Publisher: Crown/Harmony (Harmony Books)
Address: 419 Park Avenue South, New York, NY
Cover Date: 1976
Approx. On Sale Date: January 1, 1976
Cover Price: $10.95
Page Count: 240
Editor: Dennis J. O'Neil

Title: "Creature of a Thousand Shapes"
Pages: 25

Feature(s):
Hawkman (of Earth-1)

Writer: Gardner F. Fox
Artist: Joe Kubert

Reprinted From:
Brave and the Bold #34 (1961)

Feature Character(s)

• Hawkman (Katar Hol; first appearance; a police officer and scientist of planet Thanagar; assumes secret Earth civilian identity as Carter Hall, curator/director of the Midway City Museum, in this story; origin revealed; last appearance in Brave and the Bold #42; next appearance in Brave and the Bold #35)

Supporting Character(s)

• Hawkgirl (Shayera, nee Shayera Thal; first appearance; a police officer of planet Thanagar and wife of Katar Hol; assumes secret Earth civilian identity as Shiera Hall, co-curator/director of the Midway Museum, in this story; origin revealed; last appearance in Brave and the Bold #42; next appearance in Brave and the Bold #35)
• George Emmett (Commissioner of the Midway City Police Department; learns Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s secret identities in this story; next appearance in Brave and the Bold #35)
• Mavis Trent (a Midway City Museum naturalist and diorama artist; next appearance in Brave and the Bold #35)
• Joe Tracy (Midway City Museum press agent; next appearance in Hawkman #2)

Villain(s)

• Byth (Byth Rok; a master thief of planet Thanagar; gains changeling powers in this story; next appearance in Brave and the Bold #42)

Other Character(s)

• The Wingmen (police officers of planet Thanagar; not named in this story; first appearance; last appearance in DC Super Stars #14; next appearance in Brave and the Bold #42)
• Krotan (a scientist of planet Thanagar and creator of the changeling pill; dies in this story; no further appearances)

Comments:
A chronologically earlier appearance of the planet Thanagar is in the first story of DC Super-Stars #14.

An entrance to Skartaris, the extradimensional world which seems to exist beneath the Earth’s surface, is apparently shown in this story, although Skartaris is not named as such. Skartaris first appears in "Journey to the Center of the Earth" by Jules Verne, and is first named and shown in a DC comic in First Issue Special #8, a preview of the Warlord series.

Synopsis:
Interplanetary policeman Katar Hol and his wife Shayera of the planet Thanagar of the Polaris star system are following a criminal, a metamorph named Byth, from their planet to Earth. After using the Absorbascon, a device which absorbs all known information from a planet’s residents, the pair don their police uniforms, and contact Midway City Police Commissioner Geroge Emmett to explain the danger of Byth. In order to prevent the criminal from knowing of their presence, Emmett provides cover identities for them to replace his retiring brother as curators of the city’s museum, while they wait for Byth’s first move.

They settle into their Earth identities, using Anglicized versions of their names, and use their abilities to communicate with all forms of birdlife to spread the word to be on the lookout for a being fitting Byth’s description. The birds spot Byth stealing the Star of America diamond, and the winged lawmen confront him; Byth eludes them by becoming first a Thanagarian Kasta bird, and then a fish. Underwater, he discovers an underground world, which provides him with animal forms to imitate which confound the defenses of his pursuers.

Later, while studying a diorama researched by Mavis Trent, Carter recognizes a Thanagarian bird species in it, and realizes that she had unknowingly seen Byth in Hawk Valley, but they are unable to prevent the criminal from escaping when he becomes a termite. Two days later, he becomes a Thanagarian Brontodon in order to make off with the Bi-State Tunnel. This time, Hawkman and Hawkgirl slow him down with chemicals, then, using medieval weaponry borrowed from the museum, hit his twin brains simultaneously, and knock him out.

The couple send Byth back to Thanagar in a state of hibernation, and accept Commissioner Emmett’s request to stay on Earth to study police methods here.