Who's This? The squadron behind Quality's aviation ace.
The facts: Though Blackhawk had a team around him from the beginning, the people who became THE Blackhawks (and that are consequently in the entry) aggregated over the first few issues of Military Comics. André, Olaf, Stanislaus and Hendrickson first appeared in #2, Chop-Chop in #3, and Chuck in #11 (see last post, I guess he's the wise-cracking American needling Nazi sailors). From that point, they're in every Blackhawk story, so you might as well go back one to read all about their career.
How you could have heard of them: And here again.
Example story: Blackhawk #231 (April 1967) "Target: Big-Eye" by Bob Haney, Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera
I'm not made of stone, so how could I resist showcasing the infamously ridiculous SUPERHERO versions of the Blackhawks, a strange turn taken in the 60s where those kinds of comics were a more marketable proposition than a post-war war comic? I couldn't. And since the Blackhawks appear in all the more standard stories I will use as examples, I think it's okay to take a detour to an era of Blackhawk all but the most sado-masochistic would rather forget. I can believe Bob Haney was tapped to do this (so I think I'll have fun), but I can't believe Blackhawk creator Chuck Cuidera was still working on the book decades on, inking it no doubt with his black, black tears.
So what HAVE the Blackhawks become? A quick recap.
So... When the Blackhawks are proven by the secret spy organization G.E.O.R.G.E. (the Group for Extermination of Organizations of Revenge, Greed, and Evil) to be inept and ineffective as a modern-day fighting force against the evils of the world, the team regroups and dons dramatic new identities that, as the U.S. President happily observes, returns them to their rightful place as one of America's "top trouble-shooting teams", and for 14 issues beginning with Blackhawk #228 (January 1967)... Blackhawk becomes The Big Eye, monitoring the team from the Hawk-Kite (oh geez); André becomes M'sieu Machine, designer of exotic vehicles (does Monsieur Mallah know about this?); Chop-Chop is Dr. Hands, martial arts with metal hands (does Dr. No know about this?); Chuck is the Listener, on coms and ear pajamas; for Hendrickson, the Weapons-Master, speaks for itself; Olaf becomes the Leaper thanks to a bouncy exoskeleton (does Batroc know about this?); and Stanislaus is the Golden Centurion, wearing the super-powered armor of a dead foe - explains the Jolly Roger - with which he flies and fires bolts of ionized pure gold (does Goldface know about this?). Oh, and Lady Blackhawk is also in this!
Gotta snicker at Chuck's inability to tell the difference between a man and a woman given the sensitivity of his portable radar woodjit, but from this reader's perspective, things just got more interesting. I don't think you need new powers and costumes to be a Blackhawk, just a sense of personal style. She's come with newspaper clippings about a famous scientist getting kidnapped and secret rocket parts being stolen, and perhaps not coincidentally, G.E.O.R.G.E. reports the heads of the World Crime Empire are meeting in Southern Europe to choose a new leader after the Blackhawks took the last one down in a previous adventure. Who will it be? Red Robe?
Looks like a coup, but sorry, when you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die. And when the booby-trapped throne explodes, you definitely die. (I say the Blackhawks just let the election resolve itself, probably reduce the ranks of the criminals and terrorists in the process.) No, the new leader is a voice that booms out across the underground coliseum and orders the hooded hordes to kill the Blackhawks. The sheep fall in line.
Back in the Hawk-Kite (man, I miss Blackhawk Island), Blackhawk has figured out that he's the Empire's next target through a mix of deduction, Silver Age plot convenience, and vanity. Or his computer told him. Whatever. The rocket is surely to blow the Kite out of the sky. Oh yeah, you gotta see this thing.
So "Operation: Anti-Missile Mission"... First Chuck lets the Empire destroy a decoy and sits under the waterline listening to their phone calls.
Gotta say, Dick Dillin is doing his damnedest not to have to draw the earful uniform. Olaf the Leaper uncouples a train car just in time for his rendezvous with André's personal locomotive.
It's carrying the captive scientist, but he's been brain-scanned (and brain-FRIED). The Empire doesn't really need him to finish the missile anymore. Meanwhile, Chop-Chop has discovered that the missing rocket parts were just deflected to a scrap yard where the enemy can take them more easily. He almost gets metal scrap dropped on him, but deflects it with his hands somehow, which just makes him vulnerable to Empire magnets!
Quicksand in the scrap yard? Where in this? "Moors" adjacent to the Channel. What. Mr. Hands is saved by the Golden Centurian (sic) who then rains liquid gold on his enemies the better for them to finance their next enterprise!
His jet pack gets shot, however, and he falls into the sea, but his armor lets him walk at the bottom, direction France. In orbit, Blackhawk reflects on how his boys have failed (except for Hendrickson who hasn't made his play yet). Blackhawk looks intently at satellite photos and can't find a launch site. Maybe the Blackawks AREN'T any better as superheroes. Dude, you should have left it up to Zinda. And turns out, she stowed aboard to face the end with her man. But also, her power is confidence, so she doesn't believe it IS the end for a second. Not that she does anything, as G.E.O.R.G.E.ie Porgie calls with tracking info on the rocket parts that leads Blackhawk to spotting the launch site off the coast of Scandinavia - inside an iceberg! All goodies converge, the Blackhawks on André's special sleds.
As the rocket begins its launch sequence, a weather balloon comes up to the Hawk-Kite with Hendrickson's last-minute gadget and... TO BE CONTINUED!
Well, I think we've had enough. Though this era of the Blackhawks certainly differentiated them in function and appearance, it's also quite silly. Zany Haney can pull it off, except if you give any thought at all to the Blackhawks' core concept, and we've lost too much of that here. You can get away with one or two changes - and the Squadron has had to at least change enemies a few times over the years - but you can't change their look, their modus operandi, their HQ, their main enemy, who/what they're working for, the tone of their adventures, AND THEN ALSO take away their planes. We're so far from what the Blackhawks were as to be unrecognizable. So what's the point of continuing their story if it's not really going to be them? When they returned in the '70s, this chapter of their lives would be forgotten. Maybe it only happened on Earth-B.
What's Next? Their home base.
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