Line #66 ComicBook/Blackhawk


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blackhawk_3002.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Hawkaaa! [[note]] Left to right: Chuck, Hendrickson, Olaf, Blackhawk, Chop-Chop, Stanislaus, and André[[/note]]]]
3	->''"Hawkaaa! We are the Blackhawks!''
4	->''Hawkaaa! We're on the wing!''
5	->''Over land and over sea,''
6	->''We will fight to make men free ''
7	->''And to ev'ry nation liberty we'll bring!''
8
9	->''Hawkaaa! Follow the Blackhawks!''
10	->''Hawkaaa! Shatter your chains!''
11	->''Seven fearless men are we,''
12	->''Give us death or liberty,''
13	->''We are the Blackhawks,''
14	->''Remember our name...."''
15	-->-'''The Song of the Blackhawks'''
16
17	A war/military adventure feature from Quality Comics, and later, after Quality went out of business, Creator/DCComics. The series first appeared in ''Military Comics'' #1 (August, 1941), created by Creator/WillEisner, Chuck Cuidera, and Bob Powell. The Blackhawk Squadron was an international team made up mostly of aviators from nations occupied by the Axis in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. They continued appearing in ''Military Comics'' until issue #102 (October, 1950). They also had their own eponymous magazine, starting in 1944, which survived Quality itself. The series was published continuously between 1941 and 1968, with revivals published in 1976-1977 and 1982-1984 (a highly-regarded run by Creator/MarkEvanier and Dan Spiegle.)
18
19	The Blackhawk Squadron that existed between 1941 and 1983 consisted primarily of:
20	* Blackhawk (aka, sometimes, Bart Hawk - [[DependingOnTheWriter Polish, American, or Polish-American]])
21	* André Blanc Dumont (France)
22	* Olaf Bjornson ([[NorseByNorsewest Sweden... or possibly Norway]])
23	* Chuck Wilson (USA, specifically Texas... or possibly [[BrooklynRage Brookyln]])
24	* Hans Hendrickson (Netherlands)
25	* Stanislaus (Poland)
26	* Chop-Chop (aka Liu Huang or Wu Cheng, China)
27	* Zinda "Lady Blackhawk" Blake (USA)
28
29	In a 1988 miniseries, Creator/HowardChaykin introduced an updated, somewhat revisionist and "reimagined," version of the team, which carried over into a subsequent ongoing series running from 1989-1990 (plus a 1992 one-shot.) While the miniseries took place during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, the ongoing series took place in the early years of the UsefulNotes/ColdWar. Blackhawks from this continuity included:
30	* Janos "Blackhawk" Prohaska (Poland)
31	* Stanislaus Drozdowski (Poland)
32	* André Blanc-Dumont (France)
33	* Olaf Friedriksen (Denmark)
34	* Carlo "Chuck" Sirianni (Italian-American)
35	* Ritter Hendricksen (Netherlands)
36	* Weng "Chop-Chop" Chan (China)
37	* Natalie "the other Lady Blackhawk" Reed (USA)
38	* Grover Baines (USA)
39	* Quan Chee Keng (Malaysia)
40	* Paco Herrera (Mexico)
41
42	For a while, the Chaykin Blackhawks seemed to be the "official" version in Creator/DCComics continuity, but since the [[TheNineties 1990s]], the continuity status has become unclear, with the 1941-1983 versions seeming to predominate, but characters and concepts from the Chaykin version also being used at various times, in various stories.
43
44	One element from the 1989-1992 series that has been used in several DC series is ''Blackhawk Express'' (or ''Blackhawk, Inc.'') -- a corporation handling [[DependingOnTheWriter air freight and/or mercenary activities]] that was established by members of the original Blackhawk Squadron. The [[FishOutOfTemporalWater time-tossed]] Zinda "Lady Blackhawk" Blake owns 1/8 of this corporation. Zinda (who did not appear in the "Chaykin continuity") was the only member of the team appearing regularly, and its last surviving member, in the ''Comicbook/BirdsOfPrey'' series, until 2011.
45
46	An index of Blackhawk appearances outside the regular ''Blackhawk'' comic book (through 2001) [[http://ourworlds.topcities.com/blackhawk/media/index_ap.htm appears here.]]
47
48	In 2011, DC relaunched ''Blackhawks'' as part of the ComicBook/{{New 52}}, this time featuring a modern incarnation of the group -- "an elite force of military specialists equipped with the latest in cutting-edge hardware and vehicles", under United Nations authority. Headquartered out of "The Eyrie", a secluded mountaintop base, their hangar is packed with dozens of state-of-the-art aircraft for various situations. The 2011 series was canceled after eight issues. ''These'' Blackhawks (who appear unrelated to any previous incarnation) include:
49
50	* Andrew "Blackhawk" Lincoln
51	* Lady Blackhawk[[note]]This one was never referred to by her actual name, but appears unrelated to either Zinda Blake or Natalie Reed.[[/note]]
52	* Kunoichi
53	* The Irishman
54	* Canada
55	* Wildman
56	* Attila
57
58	''Blackhawk'' was a very popular series in its day, and inspired several adaptations, including a short-lived 1950 RadioDrama, a 1952 [[FilmSerial movie serial]] starring Creator/KirkAlyn (who also, incidentally, played Franchise/{{Superman}} in serials), and a 1982 [[{{Novel}} prose novel]] written by William Rotsler. The Blackhawks have also appeared in several episodes of the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' animated series and the ''[[ComicBook/DCTheNewFrontier Justice League: The New Frontier]]'' movie.
59	----
60	!! Blackhawk provides examples of:
61	* AcePilot: All of them.
62	* ActionGirl: Both versions of Lady Blackhawk, of course, but there have been other recurring Action Girls over the years, including [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Fear Miss Fear]] and (in the 1982 series) Domino. Kunoichi and the "new" Lady Blackhawk provided examples in the 2011 series.
63	* UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler: The ultimate BigBad, of course. Hitler actually shows up in person in a number of Blackhawk stories.
64	* AffectionateParody: Whitedove from ''Film/NationalLampoon Comics'' #1 puts a pacifist spin on the Blackhawk premise.
65	* BadassCrew.
66	* TheBaroness: Domino
67	* BrainwashedAndCrazy: During the UsefulNotes/{{the Silver Age\|of Comic Books}} in Blackhawk, Zinda Blake (Lady Blackhawk) was captured by villainous Nazi operative Killer Shark, who used a chemical potion to brainwash her, forcing her to take up the identity of the costumed Queen Killer Shark. She battles her former comrades several times before she was freed of the effects of the potion. Later in ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey, she was captured again by Killer Shark (who was revealed to be the grandson of the original), help beat and caught her teammate Huntress (Helena Bertinelli), lead Killer Shark to the original one treasure. Zinda was freed with some help from her teammate Helena Bertinelli, and Killer Shark was defeated. In Blackhawk, Zinda Blake Queen Killer Shark's personality was cold and ruthless to the point that she had no loyalty to Killer Shark, having abandoned him twice and even outright betrayed him. While in Birds of Prey, Zinda Blake Queen Killer Shark's personality is entirely loyal to Killer Shark, with her being completely in love and devoted to him, to the point that it's implied that [[spoiler: she had a sexual relationship with the original Killer Shark and is more than willing to sleep with the current Killer Shark while thinking he his grandfather.]]
68	* CantBatheWithoutAWeapon: Blackhawk did this during his run in ''Action Comics Weekly''; pulling a gun from beneath the suds when ambushed in his hotel room and riffing on the "never bring a knife to a gunfight" line from ''Film/TheUntouchables1987''.
69	* CatchPhrase: The Blackhawk battle cry, "Hawkaaaaaaa!"
70	** Olaf: "Yumpin' Yiminy!"
71	** Chop-Chop had several, almost all embarrassing. Most dropped by the '60s, thank goodness:
72	*** In the earliest, most horribly stereotyped version of the character: "I been double-clossed!"
73	*** 1940's/1950's Chop-Chop: "Oh wobbly woes!"
74	* CharacterFocus: "Detached Service Diary," a series of solo stories that appeared in the 1982-1984 revival.
75	* ChefOfIron: Although originally intended as a comic relief character, later retcons made the Blackhawk's cook Chop-Chop a skilled martial artist and fighter pilot equal to the rest of the team.
76	* ChuckCunninghamSyndrome: The early stories in the 1940s featured three squadron members named Zeg (Polish), Boris (Russian) and Baker (English). They all vanished without trace after their initial appearances; a story in ''Secret Origins'' acknowledged them and established that they all died early in the team's activity.
77	* ContinuitySnarl: A fairly low-key snarl by comics standards (mainly because Blackhawk hasn't been a regular feature since 1990, and the characters and concepts used infrequently in the wider DC Universe.) Nevertheless, a snarl it is, with confusion as to exactly what elements of Blackhawk's long history remain in continuity.
78	** Not a new development, as can be seen by simply asking "What is the lead character's name and nationality?"
79	** Zinda Blake presents a particularly interesting continuity problem. She first appeared in 1959, long after UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (and the series was ''not'' a PeriodPiece in those days). But Zinda was pulled to the present (during the events of ComicBook/ZeroHourCrisisInTime) specifically from UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. This suggests she would have a different origin from the 1959 character, though it's a story yet to be told.
80	* CoolPlane: The Blackhawks had several, most notably the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_XF5F_Skyrocket [=XF5F-1=] Skyrocket]], which provided the visual model for the Blackhawks' planes until they were replaced by jets around 1949. The Skyrocket stands out with its unusual design and Blackhawk paint scheme, and remains the iconic aircraft of choice for any Blackhawk story set in the '40s.
81	* CrisisCrossover: The Blackhawks tend not to feature much in these big events, but there are exceptions:
82	** Lady Blackhawk was brought to the modern era (and reintroduced to comics in general following a long absence) by DC's ComicBook/ZeroHourCrisisInTime event.
83	** Blackhawk, Stanislaus, and André had a cameo in ComicBook/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths.
84	* CutLexLuthorACheck: In the Evanier/Spiegle run, American scientist Professor Merson worked for the Nazis, creating various super-weapons like the War Wheel. The Blackhawks captured Merson several times, but he would usually be freed somehow and return to the Nazis... until Winston Churchill cut him a bigger check to work for the Allies.
85	* DaddysLittleVillain: Sybil Mayhew, daughter of Death Mayhew, who follows in her father's footsteps after his death.
86	* DarkerAndEdgier: Chaykin's miniseries.
87	* DistaffCounterpart:
88	** Zinda.
89	** In ''Blackhawk''#110 (March 1957), the Tigresses are an entire DistaffCounterpart team, made up of widows of men murdered by a criminal the Blackhawks had repeatedly jailed (but who kept escaping.) Blackhawk initially scoffs at the idea of [[StayInTheKitchen women crimefighters]] but when they prove competent, switches to denouncing their plan to [[ThouShaltNotKill permanently dispose of the criminal]].
90	* DragonLady: Miss Fear
91	* EagleSquadron: To some extent. Many of the Blackhawks were, in fact, citizens of countries at war with the Axis powers, or occupied by them.
92	** Chuck fits the trope most exactly, as an American who joined the RAF before becoming a Blackhawk.
93	* EveryoneLooksSexierIfFrench: André fits all the "French ladies' man" stereotypes.
94	* EverythingsBetterWithRainbows: On the cover of ''Blackhawk'' #156, a villain called the Plutonian Raider fires rainbow beams to paralyze the protagonists.
95	* EvilCounterpart: Death Mayhew was this to Blackhawk.
96	* ExpositoryThemeTune: Despite appearing in a non-audio medium, the Blackhawks gained their own theme tune, complete with sheet music, in a 1942 comic. A modern recording of "The Song of the Blackhawks" can be heard [[http://www.comictreadmill.com/CTMBlogarchives/2005/2005_Individual/2005_05/000789.php here]].
97	** When the Blackhawks appeared on ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' ("The Savage Time"), the producers couldn't afford the rights to "The Song of the Blackhawks." Composer Lolita Ritmanis recorded a new "Blackhawk Theme" for the show, however, and the new music was written to fit the ''lyrics'' from "The Song of the Blackhawks." The scene with music-only backing appears as an EasterEgg on the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' Season One DVD, so feel free to sing along!
98	* {{Expy}}: Blackhawk shares noticeable similarities to "Black Falcon", the mysterious customed pilot of the 1939 FilmSerial ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_G-Men Flying G-Men]]'' and his team of "Skyhawks", a team of four pilots who turned into [[FBIAgent US Government agents]].
99	** The Blackhawks inspired many Expies over the years, but were themselves Expies of a slightly earlier Quality Comics feature, ''The Death Patrol''. The Death Patrol was a group of American criminals who escaped to Europe to fight the Nazis. Mostly PlayedForLaughs, it inspired the creation of ''Blackhawk'' as a similar (but played straight) feature.
100	* EyepatchOfPower: Both the Natalie Reed and 2011 series incarnations of Lady Blackhawk.
101	* FaceHeelTurn: Lady Blackhawk served Killer Shark during the Silver Age as Queen Killer Shark.
102	* FieryRedhead: Chuck.
103	* FishOutOfTemporalWater: Zinda, transported from UsefulNotes/WorldWarII to the 21st Century where ComicBook/{{Oracle}} recruited her to the ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey.
104	* FrozenInTime: Averted in the original run. ''Blackhawk'' wasn't a "period piece," but a modern military adventure feature that just happened to start during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. Unlike the vast majority of such series, ''Blackhawk'' was popular enough to last into the postwar era, and the setting advanced with them.
105	* GoGoEnslavement: Lady Blackhawk is kidnapped and brainwashed by super villain Killer Shark and even has her own super villain outfit, [[http://images.wikia.com/marvel_dc/images/8/8a/Zinda_Blake_Queen_Killer_Shark_001.png here]], [[http://images.wikia.com/marvel_dc/images/1/1a/Zinda_Blake_Queen_Killer_Shark_003.png here]] and [[https://www.flickr.com/photos/m_burkhardt/4524880831/ here]].
106	* HellBentForLeather: All of the Blackhawks, though it's not always entirely clear that they're wearing leather. They wore cloth jackets in the 1952 movie serial.
107	* HowWeGotHere: The first chapter of "The Junk-Heap Heroes" (the inaugural story of [[AudienceAlienatingEra The New Blackhawk Era]]) starts with the Blackhawks fighting against a robot designed to see if they are relevant enough to take on the modern world of crime. After Hendy and Stan are taken out, the story goes on to show the events that led to this scenario. The extended flashback sequence is bookended with the current Andre exclaiming that he's feeling "ze grand fear!"
108	* ImprobablePilotingSkills: The Blackhawks exhibited just about every type of improbable flying, but unlimited fuel and range was particularly common. Typically, the Blackhawks are depicted as able to reach any location in Europe (and sometimes outside Europe) and return to Blackhawk Island with little trouble - even when the location is ''deep'' within Axis territory, like Czechoslovakia in 1940.
109	* IslandBase: Blackhawk Island (specific location unknown and [[DependingOnTheWriter shifting]]) is the base for the squadron and repository of various captured secret weapons and souvenirs.
110	* {{Jerkass}}: Chaykin's version of Blackhawk himself, in the miniseries.
111	* LostEpisode: The entire 16-episode run of the 1950 Blackhawk RadioDrama appears to be lost, with no extant recordings.
112	* MagicSkirt: Zinda.
113	* MiniDressOfPower: Zinda's is very [[http://cdn.buzznet.com/assets/users16/newageamazon/default/some-mid-week-zinda-blake--large-msg-124467447892.jpg powerful]] [[http://www.hembeck.com/Images/FredSez/LadyBlackhawkPage450.jpg indeed]].
114	* MonowheelMayhem: The [[http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2009/02/26/thursday-whos-who-the-war-wheel/ War Wheel]] was a signature adversary for the Blackhawks.
115	* TheMultiverse: According to [[WordOfGod writer Mark Evanier in the letter columns]], his 1982-1984 series was the first to take place on Earth-1. All previous Blackhawk stories took place on Earth-2 or Earth-X (though Evanier declined to take on the job of figuring out the Earth-2/Earth-X division.)
116	* NamedAfterSomebodyFamous: Depending on your definition of "famous," anyway. Howard Chaykin named his version of Blackhawk after Janos Prohaska, a [[StuntDouble stuntman]] who worked on various TV shows including ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries''.
117	* NeverBringAKnifeToAGunFight: see CantBatheWithoutAWeapon, above.
118	* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: Death Mayhew from the Chaykin mini-series was very obviously modeled on Errol Flynn, and specifically on the idea (unsubstantiated in RealLife) that Flynn was secretly a Nazi sympathizer.
119	* OutdatedHeroVsImprovedSociety: [[AudienceAlienatingEra The New Blackhawk Era]] was brought about in a story arc spanning from Issues 228 to 230, where the Blackhawks discover that their usual methods are ineffective against modernized crime, so they reinvent themselves to compensate, both in tactics and presentation.
120	* ThePsychoRangers:
121	** The White Lions, led by Death Mayhew, were the Nazi counterpart to the Blackhawks.
122	** In ''Blackhawk'' #112 (May 1957) we meet the Crimson Vultures, who are one-for-one criminal counterparts to the Blackhawks, right down to their TeamPet.
123	* PunchClockVillain: Professor Merson, who designs wonder weapons for the Nazis, but only because they pay him well.
124	* PuttingOnTheReich: [[WordOfGod Original Blackhawk artist Chuck Cuidera stated]] that he "swiped [the Blackhawk uniform] from the Nazis... their boots and pants, and the top part I designed myself."
125	* RailroadTracksOfDoom: In the movie serial, one of the cliffhangers featured Blackhawk's car being forced on to railroad tracks in front of an oncoming train.
126	* RainbowMotif: On the cover of ''Blackhawk'' #131, a MadScientist is changing the Blackhawks' uniforms to the colors of the rainbow (red, yellow, green, blue and violet are shown).
127	* [[HesBack She's Back]]: Lady Blackhawk joins the Comicbook/BirdsOfPrey:
128	-->''We're a non-profit unauthorized group that's willing to risk our lives to do some good in the world. Does that sound like anyone you know?''
129	-->--'''Black Canary'''[[note]]ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey #75[[/note]]
130	* {{Retcon}}: In the Blackhawk comic series, when Zinda Blake was brainwashed by Killer Shark to be his partner Queen Killer Shark, she had no loyalty to him. She abandoned Killer Shark to escape the Blackhawks twice in ''Blackhawks'' #200 and #204. And when Killer Shark and Queen Killer Shark capture the Blackhawks in #225, she betrays him, threatens his henchman to turn on him, and imprisons him with the Blackhawks. In ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey, her brainwashed personally is shown to be completely loyal to Killer Shark, with her being completely in love and devoted to him, to the point that it's implied that she has been sleeping with him in the past.
131	* SkyPirate: The Blackhawks sometimes faced Sky Pirates, and were treated as such themselves, at least early on. In their second story, an English pilot lashes out at Blackhawk: "Why, you're nothing but air pirates and assassins!"
132	* TheSquadette: The Zinda Blake incarnation of Lady Blackhawk, who could apparently outdrink any of the men in the squad.
133	* StarterVillain: Captain von Tepp, a Nazi officer terrorizing Poland, who killed Blackhawk's siblings and inspired him to take up a quest for vengeance before being gunned down at the end of his issue.
134	* StupidJetpackHitler: The Blackhawks regularly faced the bizarre fruits of Nazi Science - most famously, the War Wheels.
135	* SuperPrototype: The Blackhawks' main WWII plane, the [=XF5F=] Skyrocket, never made it past the prototype stage in RealLife.
136	* ThoseWackyNazis: Regular adversaries of the Blackhawks, both in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and beyond.
137	* TokenMinority: Chop-Chop is the only Asian character in the comic book.
138	* {{Tontine}}: The Blackhawk Squadron had a tontine in the form of a bottle, which was drunk by Lady Blackhawk, the last surviving Blackhawk, in a toast to the fallen.[[note]]''ComicBook/BirdsOfPrey'' #75[[/note]]
139	* TrickArrow: Used by the Shaft, a crossbow-wielding villain with his own castle.[[note]]''Blackhawk'' #121 (1958)[[/note]]
140	* YouClonedHitler: Hitler appeared to have returned in a 1957 story, but it turned out to be just a ruse by a crook impersonating Hitler to swindle a Nazi sympathizer out of $25 million in gold.
141

Context ComicBook / Blackhawk