Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 5 by Curt Swan, George Klein, et al.

Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Volume 5

Collection published: 1994
Contents originally published: 1966
Acquired: July 2025
Read: January 2026

Writers: Jerry Siegel, Edmond Hamilton, Jim Shooter
Pencillers/Layouts: Curt Swan, Jim Shooter
Inkers/Finished Art: George Klein, Sheldon Moldoff, George Papp
Letterers: Milton Snapinn, Vivian Berg 

In my experience, you never know what you're going to get with a volume of Legion of Super-Heroes Archives. Sometimes it's stupid as all get out... but sometimes it's an enjoyable and clever 200+ pages of Silver Age comics. Thankfully, volume 5 is one of the latter. In the foreword, Mark Waid trumpets the arrival of Jim Shooter as Legion writer, but this is a solid collection even before Shooter turns up for its last four issues.

The first story is a two-parter where Brainiac 5 builds Computo; he's hoping to make a superintelligent robot to help the Legion, but it backfires and Computo decides to take over the world. I think this is the first-ever "Brainiac is too smart for his own good" story, which will eventually become an overused Legion trope, but nicely sets himself apart from the other Legionnaires in these early days. Unfortunately, I don't think the second issue quite stands up to the first; while the first is written by Jerry Siegel, the second is credited to "Edmond Hamilton or Jerry Siegel" in the archive edition. Neither would surprise me, as it does very much have the feel of someone with no idea how to end the story and making it up as he goes along. While that could be a different writer coming in, plenty of Jerry Siegel stories have that vibe when he writes them in their entirety!

Famously, Computo kills one of Triplicate Girl's three selves. This establishes him as a strong threat... but the moment is pretty much forgotten right away; she's just like, "lol i guess i'm Duo Damsel now" and that's it. 

Maybe in the future, therapy is so good you can just get over your trauma in a moment.
from Adventure Comics vol. 1 #340 (script by Jerry Siegel, art by Curt Swan & George Klein)

I was pleasantly surprised by the next story, "The Legionnaire Who Killed!" In this one, Dream Girl comes back (she previously appeared in Adventure #317, collected in volume 2, over two years prior), and Star Boy is forced to kill someone to protect her, in violation of the Legion's code against killed. Brainiac 5 puts him on trial, with Superboy as the defense; I had totally forgotten that there's a later set of stories where Star Boy and Dream Girl are in the Substitute Legion, and thus I was quite surprised when the stor ended with Star Boy being kicked out of the Legion! (I totally loved that all the female Legionnaires voted to acquit Star Boy... except for Saturn Girl, of course. That's my girl.) My expectation for stuff like this in the Silver Age is that there's always a cop-out, like maybe the dead guy turns out to be a robot, or it's a frame-up, or whatever. One of the thing that really sets the Legion apart from contemporary DC stories is the feeling it's a genuine ongoing saga, and we see that really effectively in this issue.

How do they get back in the Legion, anyway? I bet I've read that story already and don't remember it.
from Adventure Comics vol. 1 #342 (script by Edmond Hamilton, art by Curt Swan & George Klein)

Again, we see some serialized storytelling in the next issue, where the Legionnaires become convinced they're under a bad luck curse, what with Computo and Duo Damsel and Star Boy and so on, not to mention all the bad things that have happened to Lightning Lad. And of course, it's Saturn Girl who refuses to buy into this nonsense. I thought the Luck Lords, aliens who use hypnosis to convince you you're experiencing bad luck, were great villains; I don't remember then ever appearing future Legion stories, which is disappointing. I'd totally bring them back if I was writing a Legion story.

Saturn Girl always cuts through the bullshit.
from Adventure Comics vol. 1 #343 (script by Edmond Hamilton, art by Curt Swan & George Klein)

The story after this is another great one. The initial setup is a bit contrived—a guy who hates law enforcement so much he goes around putting superheroes in a space prison??? sure why not—but the story told with it is excellent. Along with a bunch of other teen superheroes from across the galaxy, the Legion is locked up and must use their wits and their powers in subtle ways to escape. It's a strong premise, and it's very well done. Of course, Saturn Girl once again saves the day. And there's a key role for Matter-Eater Lad! What else does one need? (My only objection is I think the fact that the Superboy who gets killed was really a Durlan ought to have been hidden from the readers for at least a bit.)

ME READING THIS PAGE: Wow, I bet that power comes in handy all the time.
ME A FEW PAGES LATER: **sobbing as I finally understand how useful his power is**
from Adventure Comics vol. 1 #344 (script by Edmond Hamilton, art by Curt Swan & George Klein)

After this come the stories of Jim Shooter. Legendarily, Shooter was just a kid who sent in some unsolicited scripts and got them published; because he knew nothing about comics scripting, he included drawings of the whole story, and the editor just got an inker to go over Shooter's stuff. Even once Shooter knew what to do, he continued to supply images for penciller Curt Swan. Swan is a solid artist, of course, one of the greats, but I found that giving him Shooter's layouts to work from made Swan's work a lot more dynamic and interesting. Shooter must have had a good eye for angles and composition.

Haven't we all accidentally taken a nap next to a leaking nuclear reactor?
from Adventure Comics vol. 1 #348 (script/layouts by Jim Shooter, finished art by George Papp)

I found the actual Shooter stories a mixed bag. The one that introduces four new Legionnaires has some good moments, though, especially the initiation battle between Superboy and Karate Kid. (I love Karate Kid.) The other two are a bit wacky and contrived. Why does Sun Boy just happen to get amnesia when a villain from his past turn up? Why does he take a nap in a nuclear reactor?? Why is Universo's plan so bizarrely complicated??? That last panel of his son is excellent, though.

Has Karate Kid ever beat Superboy? I bet he could.
from Adventure Comics vol. 1 #346 (script/layouts by Jim Shooter, finished art by Sheldon Moldoff)

I've already read the next volume, but looking back at my review, I was surprised to see how scathing I was about Shooter's work. I'll be rereading some of it soon, so maybe I'll like it more this time around.

I read a Legion of Super-Heroes collection every six months. Next up in sequence: DC Comics Classics Library: The Life and Death of Ferro Lad

The NEW Blackhawk Era!: From Junk-Heap Heroes to the Return of the Black Knights (#228–43)

To a certain type of comics fan, the story of "The New Blackhawk Era" is a familiar one. The Blackhawks were in continual publication from 1941 to 1967; despite having been designed as World War II heroes, they had survived the end of the war and even a change of publishers, going from Quality Comics to DC, and moving on from battling dictators, to battling criminals, and later aliens, and later nascent supervillains. But as the 1960s continued, the Silver Age of comics was in full swing, and a group of war characters was out-of-date. There was one attempt to rejig the Blackhawk concept with 1964's issue #196 (see item #5 in the list below), but it didn't last.

Still, clearly something needed to be done. I don't actually have any behind-the-scenes insight here, but a comic doesn't undergo a creative change like this one if everything is working fine. In the three-part The Junk-Heap Heroes! storyline (issues #228-30, written by Bob Haney, art by Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera), the Blackhawks go an a mission where things go horribly wrong—and suddenly the President of the United States has called in the Justice League to evaluate the Blackhawks.* Their assessment?

In the words of Batman, "They just don't swing!" (It was the 1960s. Try to imagine Kevin Conroy saying that.)

from Blackhawk vol. 1 #238
(script by Bob Haney,
art by Dick Dillin & Chuck Cuidera)

Over the course of the story, the Blackhawks are disbanded, they split up, they each come up with new "superhero" identities, and then they reform. The identities include such winners as Olaf getting a mechanical costume that lets him jump really far as "the Leaper," Andre displaying a previously unmentioned penchant for building machines and becoming "M'sieu Machine," Chop-Chop getting his hands encased in metal so he can be "Dr. Hands," and Chuck wearing pyjamas covered in ears because he is now "the Listener."

Okay, say that you buy the Blackhawks needed a makeover... but did they need this makeover? Surely not! Look at Hendrickson as "the Weapons Master"... is this guy supposed to look more cool? He looks dumb, surely they even thought so in the 1960s!

(That said, I did kind of like how Chop-Chop mixes "ancient Chinese wisdom" with "happening 1960s slang" in this iteration.)

One of the things that fascinates me about superhero comics, especially minor ones, the whole reason I undertake projects like my Justice Society one, like my Green Arrow one, is how they get reinvented over time, how the premise warps and mutates to accommodate what is popular. Superman and Batman can set the trend, but Green Arrow responds to it. The Blackhawks, it seems to me, are a particularly vulnerable case of this, as their original premise is so closely rooted to the context of World War II. Can you update the Blackhawks to be relevant to the 1960s without also losing what made them the Blackhawks to begin with?

Not if you do it this way, at least. Nothing of what made Blackhawk enjoyable in his original incarnation is to be found in the adventures of "Big Eye."

So far, so familiar; I'm not saying anything lots of comics critics haven't said before. Lots of comics fans know the story of "The New Blackhawk Era" and have judged it as a colossal mistake. And surely it was.

(There's a bit in issue #232 where Blackhawk asks, "Is this the New Blackhawk Era or a clown convention?" You're just tempting fate with a question like that!)

But... what about the stories?

I don't think I've ever read a review of this era that actually discusses the actual stories told about this version of the Blackhawks. Like, I've heard about the premise a million times, but that's just the first three issues. What about all the other ones?

The new Blackhawks work for G.E.O.R.G.E., the "Group for Extermination of Organizations of Revenge, Greed, and Evil"; they have a boss with a blank face (much like Mr. Cypher from the previous era) named Delta; they go on James Bond–style missions against S.P.E.C.T.R.E.-style global criminal organizations. For all the fact that they've been reinvented as superheroes visually, the actual stories owe a lot more to Cold War spy-fi. Gone are the airplanes, but now they are leaping into action in strange locales across the globe.

And do you know what else? They are actually kind of fun. Because, you know, they are written by Bob Haney, and Bob Haney is the kind of comics writer who lives the insanity. You say, "Bob Haney, the characters you have been treating as serious crimefighters are now goofy superheroes," and Bob Haney says, "Bring it." The stories crackle with energy and invention. Put aside how dumb the premise is—and I've never seen a commentary on this run do that—and they are actually kind of enoyable. The Junk-Heap Heroes! is full of energy, but I enjoyed even more the first full adventure of the new era, a three-part story running across issues #231-33 ("Target: Big-Eye"/"With These Rings I Thee Kill!"/"Too Late, the Leaper!"). I couldn't begin to explain to you why the Blackhawks are in space, but I loved the experience of reading it. On art, Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera prove they can pretty much do anything, responding well to the vim and vigor of Haney's scripts.

Well, anything except make the new costumes look good. Most comics creators struggle to come up with one good superhero design, and unfortunately, they had to think up seven.

from Blackhawk vol. 1 #232
(script by Bob Haney, art by Dick Dillin & Chuck Cuidera)

That said, you can tell Haney was making his stories up as he went along, and he doesn't always get away with it. In "The Terrible Twins"/"A Coffin for Blackhawk" (#234-35), we lurch from complication to complication, and what began as a Cold War thriller ends with the Blackhawks learning that the circus owner was a G.E.O.R.G.E. agent all along, who can just solve all their problems for them... presumably because Bob was out of pages. "Melt, Mutant, Melt!" (#236) is similarly rushed, but I did really enjoy "The Magnificent 7 Assassins"/"The Walking Booby-Traps!" (#237-38), where the Blackhawks discover they may have caused the death of a fellow G.E.O.R.G.E. agent... only he's still alive? And... evil!? And... an android?!? Go for it, Bob Haney, why not. Again, it kind of fumbles the ending, but when the journey is such a pleasure, I don't really care.

(Also, Lady Blackhawk is accidentally restored from her Queen Killer Shark identity in #228... and the proceeds to stand around making tea for the remaining issues. Is this really my Zinda Blake? I'm not sure why they bothered.)

Alas, this is clearly the point where DC realizes the series can't be saved. With issue #237, it goes bi-monthly; with issue #240, the main stories drop from twenty-four pages to sixteen, with an eight-page reprint to pad it out. (#240 reprints 1957's "The Perils of Blackie, the Wonder Bird" from #111; #241 reprints 1961's "The Phantom Spy" from #160.) Issue #241 marks another important change; the editor begins apologizing. (GCD says Dick Giordano took over from George Kashdan with #242, but Giordano clearly did at least the lettercol for #241.) Sorry, they say, the new Blackhawks are stupid.

And then in #242 ("My Brother–My Enemy!"), the New Blackhawk Era is quite definitely ended. While the Blackhawks are on vacation, literally everyone in G.E.O.R.G.E. is killed. Since they left their new costumes at the G.E.O.R.G.E. base, the Blackhawks must readopt their OG WWII-era uniforms to fight the villain, who turns out to be Blackhawk's Nazi-brainwashed brother. The story is plotted by Marv Wolfman, but still scripted by Bob Haney! I tell you, the man can do anything, even completely reinvent the characters he just completely reinvented eighteen months prior, and casually dismiss the entire premise he'd spent fourteen previous issues building up.

This is the first story to tell us Blackhawk's real name, and unfortunately, it's "Bart Hawk," but other than that, I found it pretty solid, especially thanks to the stylish, dark artwork of Pat Boyette. Good use of the series's WWII roots, though I think the origin for Blackhawk doesn't fit what we learned in Military Comics #1 or Blackhawk #198.

from Blackhawk vol. 1 #243
(script by Bob Haney, art by Pat Boyette)

I also enjoyed #243 ("Mission Incredible"), again by Haney and Boyette, a largely grounded spy thriller about the Blackhawks having to evacuate a little girl from the other side of the Iron Curtain. It seemed to me that the creative team was working out a space for Blackhawk in the spy-fi era... but even though the lettercol in issue #243 promises more would come, it never did. Blackhawk was finally cancelled after a run of eleven years and 136 issues at DC, not to mention its previous sixteen years at Quality.

But cancellation at issue #243 doesn't mean there's no issue #244. Stay tuned for next time!

This is the sixth post in a series about the Blackhawks. The next installment covers Blackhawk vol. 1 #244-50 and The Brave and the Bold #167. 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) 
4. Blackhawk vol. 1 #151-95 (1960-64) 
5. Blackhawk vol. 1 #196-227 (1964-66)

* This is the first explicit indication that the Blackhawk stories take place in the DC universe. In the pre-Crisis cosmology, this surely must be Earth-B.

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.

Showcase Presents Blackhawk by Dick Dillin, Charles Cuidera, et al.

Showcase Presents Blackhawk, Volume One

Collection published: 2008
Contents originally published: 1957-58
Acquired: March 2024
Read: May 2024

Pencilled by Dick Dillin

Inked by Charles Cuidera, Sheldon Moldoff

Writer: Dave Wood

Quality Comics's Blackhawk came to an end with issue #107 in December 1956, but without missing an issue or a month, DC Comics picked the title up right from there, continuing with issue #108 in January 1957. The DC version of the title ran all the way to issue #273, but of these 166 issues, all that have been collected are the first twenty; by this point, each issue consisted of three eight-page stories, so this Showcase Presents volume contains sixty stories, reprinted in black and white (as was usual for the Showcase line).

The early issues collected here are not very good... and somehow the book manages to get worse as it goes. If Blackhawk has a unique selling point, it's that it's about fighter pilots taking down dictators in World War II. But the fact that these characters are fighter pilots is almost entirely incidental; they use their airplanes to get to adventures, but the airplanes are very rarely part of the adventures.

But worse is the fact that these are very generic Silver Age stories about fighting "Crime," in that really boring way I associate with the squarest of Batman stories. In every installment, some boring-ass villain with some stupid gimmick pops up, and the Blackhawks put him away, looking as smug as all get out as they do so. Something that gave the original Blackhawk stories in Military Comics an edge was that the Blackhawks were renegades, they were operating outside the law, without government sanction, to do what they thought were right. These Blackhawks are the kind of obnoxious do-gooders who have chummy lunches with mayors.

As the stories go on, they even managed to get worse, as they become more and more like a generic DC superhero comic, with stories of alien invasions and time travel and people with superpowers. This, surely, is not what anyone wants out of Blackhawk. I accept that World War II was probably old hat in the 1950s, and we weren't far enough away from it for nostalgia to kick in, but surely there must have been a way to maintain a unique identity for this title other than this. Just have them flipping do things in their airplanes if nothing else!

I complained about characterization in my review of the Military Comics Blackhawk stories, but it's usually even worse here. Blackhawk himself might as well be the only character most of the time; Andre, Olaf, and Hendrickson get the occasional bit of dialogue with characteristic French, Norwegian, or German phrases sprinkled in; I'm not sure the writers even remember Chuck and Stanislaus exist, I'm willing to bet that only artist Dick Dillin does and just keeps sticking them into group scenes. The racial caricature has been significantly dialed down for Chop-Chop... but oddly, this ill-serves the character, because now he's just another person to stand there and contribute nothing to group scenes. In the old days, he did stuff!

Dick Dillin is a bit of a square-jawed illustrator; I know him best from his later run on Justice League of America (from 1968 to 1980), where I really enjoyed his stuff. He's fine here. I bet if these were good stories, he would be great, but he's just not being given much to work with.

One thing I am curious about is when the Blackhawks technically become DC universe characters. The only hint of that here is in one where Blackhawk temporarily gains superpowers, and he compares himself to Superman... but of course Superman could be a fictional character that he knows about from reading comic books!

This is the third post in a series about the Blackhawks. The next installment covers issues #151-95 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)