HAWK-AAA! (Blackhawk #151–95)

My reading of DC Comics's Blackhawk left off with August 1958's issue #127, the last issue collected in the black-and-white Showcase Presents Blackhawk collection (see item #3 below). I thought about collecting the uncollected single issues picking up right from there, but I couldn't find them for what I considered to be reasonable prices on the secondary market. I ended up starting with #151 (Aug. 1960), leaving a two-year gap. For this post, I'll cover the span up to issue #195 (May 1964), because #196 saw the first of a number of periodic relaunches of the team. 

As far as I can tell, the only development of significance in the issues I missed was the introduction of Zinda Blake, "Lady Blackhawk," in #133 (Feb. 1959). She is a part-time female member of the team, who doesn't live on Blackhawk Island with the others, but periodically drops in and goes on adventures with them.

Most issues feature three eight-page stories, but in some there's a two-part story; occasionally you get two twelve-page stories. There's one story that spans two issues. If the adventures collected in Showcase Presents Blackhawk were bad, these are worse. The stories continue to drift further and further away from the core appeal of the Blackhawks as a concept; there was a lot of generic crime-fighting in those early DC issues, but by this point, it's all low-grade sci-fi crap: space aliens, time travel, hopping dimensions, all the kind of things you'd see in any mediocre superhero comic of the period. There's very little aviation or anything else that plays to the strengths of the characters or the concept.

This was a slog. Every now and again there'd be something interesting. "Blackhawk's Secret Furlough" (writer unknown, art by Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera) in #184 was a fun story, where Blackhawk tries to take some time off but keeps bumping into trouble anyway. I also enjoyed "The Tales of the Blackhawk Emblem" (writer unknown, art by Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera) in #191, where the whole team except Lady Blackhawk vanishes. She goes to Blackhawk Island and picks up a book they were reading when they vanished, The Tales of the Blackhawk Emblem, and we get some neat flashbacks to the Blackhawks being inspirational that end up feeding into a present-day mystery.

Occasionally there'd be one so goofy it was enjoyable, such as "The Jailer's Revenge" (script by Dave Wood, art by Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera) in #193. In this one, a previously unmentioned enemy of the Blackhawks called the Jailer returns for revenge; he locks up all them except Chop-Chop, who had stayed at base with a cold. What does he do to save them? Travel into another dimension where the Blackhawks to borrow some super-technology from friends they made on a previous adventure, of course! In that dimension, people from ours have superpowers, so first he uses his powers to help them out, and then they loan him a time-travel device he uses to save his comrades. As you do! (I am pretty sure this dimension actually appeared in a previous issue I read, but was too lazy to check.)

Things of note from this period:

• There is still no hint that the Blackhawks' adventures take place in what we would now call the "DC universe."
• At some point, they acquire a "mainland barracks" in an unnamed city.
• The only recurring nemesis is Killer Shark, though even he doesn't appear very much. Most notably in a story in issue #170, "Lady Blackhawk vs. Killer Shark" / "The Mermaid Lady Blackhawk" (script by Jack Miller, art by Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera), where Lady Blackhawk defeats him thanks to a fortuitous transformation into a mermaid. 
• There are occasionally other recurring characters, like a circus midget who is made into the honorary "Tom Thumb Blackhawk"! They also get a second mascot, a monkey.
• Whenever an alien turns up, the story is careful to note that they speak English because of a "translator disc" or somesuch. Sure, because that's the one implausible thing that needs a clear scientific explanation in these stories.
  
• Near the end of this run, the upgrade their planes to ones with helicopter rotors in the wings, allowing for vertical takeoff and landing.
• All of the issues in this one feature at least one one-page humor comic from Henry Boltinoff. They are occasionally funny.
• There are one-page text stories in every issue. Early in the run, these are fiction; later, they become fact-based (supposedly, anyway), usually with some vague tie into aviation.

Of course, these comics weren't designed for a thirty-nine-year-old adult reader. My five-year-old will often join me while I read them over breakfast, asking me "what's the issue?" (i.e., confusing the idea of the comic issue with the idea of a problem). I'll then summarize the stories as I go. And to them, the Blackhawks fighting a miner transformed into a radioactive monster out for revenge is quite exciting! Alas, these copies are too fragile to ever loan them, but maybe someday they can read my Showcase volume.

Probably the most interesting thing to happen in the whole run was when my kid asked me why, if Chop-Chop was a Blackhawk, he didn't wear a uniform like the others. "Well, that's down to racism," I explained, pointing out that even good people such as the Blackhawks can exhibit racist behaviors that they don't realize are bad, such as valuing a team member less because he is Asian. A nice little teaching moment.

This is the fourth post in a series about the Blackhawks. The next installment covers issues #196-227 of Blackhawk vol. 1. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Blackhawk Archives, Volume 1 (1941-42)
2. Military Comics #18-43 / Modern Comics #44-46 / Blackhawk #9 & 50 (1943-52)
3. Showcase Presents Blackhawk, Volume One (1957-58) 

Usually I do my own cover scans for these posts, but most of these issues were too fragile for me to want to go digging around in them again for scanning purposes, so thanks to the Grand Comics Database for the images.