LEGENDARY HEROES #45

BLACKHAWK

Blackhawk was a long-running comic book series first at Quality Comics and later at DC.  The character was primarily created by Chuck Cuidera with additional assistance from Bob Powell and Will Eisner.  The exact nature of the individual contributions of Eisner, Powell and Cuidera will never be known, though credit was sometimes contentious between Eisner and Cuidera, each of them taking major credit at different times.  Blackhawk debuted in Military Comics #1 in August 1941 and was given it's own title in the Winter 1944.  Blackhawk ran in Military Comics (later renamed Modern Comics) until issue #102 in October 1950.  When Cuidera joined the service in 1942 (Eisner was drafted as well) Reed Crandall took over the art beginning a long association that would last until 1953.  Crandall, one of the great comic illustrators, turned Blackhawk into a classic and it was during this time that Blackhawk hit it's sales and popularity zenith.  During the war years it routinely outsold every comic book except for Superman and Captain Marvel.  And Blackhawk was one of only five comic book characters to be published continuously in their own titles between the 1940s-1960s (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and The Phantom were the other four).

The Blackhawk Squadron led by Blackhawk was a small team of international WWII-era ace pilots.  They operated from a hidden base known only as Blackhawk Island and flew Grumman XF5F Skyrocket fighter planes.  They shouted their battle cry of "Hawk-a-a-a!" as they descended from the sky to fight tyranny and oppression.  The squadron all wore matching blue & black military uniforms with a hawk insignia on their chests.  They fought the axis powers with recurring foes King Condor and Killer Shark, as well as an array of gorgeous and deadly femme fatales.  

A radio series was launched in 1950 with Michael Fitzmaurice portraying Blackhawk.  The show was a half hour unsponsored broadcast that aired on Wednesdays at 5:30 pm on ABC.  The show ran from September 13 to December 27, 1950 and consisted of at least 16 episodes.  Columbia released a 15-chapter serial in 1952 with Kirk Alyn as Blackhawk.  Alyn had previously played Superman in movie serials and being the 1950s the enemies had changed from Nazis to Communists.  The Blackhawk movie serial was the last aviation serial to be produced.  The Blackhawk comic book series was equally popular in England and Boardman Books in the UK ran reprints from 1948-1954.  In the United States, Quality Comics ceased publication with comics dated December 1956.  The final Blackhawk issue was #107.  DC was quick to lease the characters before they eventually bought them outright.  DC Comics continued publishing Blackhawk until 1968 when the series was cancelled, only to be resurrected with Blackhawk #244 in January 1976.

Ever since the early 1980s there have been constant rumors that Steven Spielberg is interested in doing a Blackhawk movie.  Supposedly Spielberg passed on Blackhawk in order to do "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in 1981, and it is again rumored that he plans to do a Blackhawk movie once his remake of "Westside Story" is finished.