Omniverse: Birds of A Feather

There is a lost city, hidden by the clouds, drifting slowly above the modern world, every bit as silent as the tomb it has become. This was the city of an ancient civilization of winged humanoids, the Bird People. It had existed for eons before the future king of Aquilonia, Conan, came to it some 12,000 years ago. It was called Akah Ma’at, and its people were at war with the bat-winged humanoids of Ur-Xanarrh, something Conan helped them with.

The Hawkmen of Mongo may well be the descendants of an abducted group of Bird People. The cannibalistic hawkmen Travis Morgan encounters in Skartaris are certainly of the same lineage.

It may be that Akah Ma’at meant “Sky Island” and eventually came to mean “Aerie,” because when they clouds recede again, and the city appears in the modern historical record, those are the names it is given in translation. In the 1920s, an airplane because lost in a storm and crashes into the Sky Island. A young boy was the only survivor. He was taken in by the Bird People and would be the costumed hero Red Raven¹.

It is possible that the hero Black Condor (Quality Comics) represents the same individual, since the Black Condor’s origin as related in the comics of being raised by condors in the Gobi seems implausible--and not just because condor's are native to the Americas. Perhaps the Bird People were in the habit of taking in foundlings?

Red Raven eventually had to turn against his adoptive people when their warrior class, under the influence of the Bloodraven Cult of demon-worshippers, sought to make war on the surface world. The ensuing civil war destroyed part of the city and ended with population either fleeing or placing themselves in suspended animation. The city was left in the charge of two android Bi-Beasts who would later encounter the Hulk.

There is some confusion regarding the origins of the Bird People. Accounts suggest that are an offshoot of the Inhumans, but this ignores the prior existence of Akah Ma’at. Rather, there is an Inhuman offshoot people with more avian features. These are the Feitherans, the people of the superhero Northwind, who lived in a hidden city in the Arctic Circle, and also probably the Aerians that live near the South Pole in the Savage Land.

¹Red Raven’s flight costume was made with Cavorite, which may or may not be the same thing as nth metal, but certainly as similar properties.