Celebrating the First Aviators Team of Golden-Age Comics

By Ted White

American kids have loved airplanes and aviation since the Wright brothers launched their first trial flight at Kitty Hawk. What is today usually the province of trained, skilled technicians at one time attracted every young daredevil who dreamed of barnstorming his way across the country. This appeal naturally spread to the comic strips, where Smiling' Jack was a hit for many years—and to comic books, where the Blackhawks leapt into World War II before our nation did.

The Blackhawks' career has spanned more than 50 years. That makes them among the longest-lived characters in the comic book universe. The premise may be a little more compelling during times of war, but successive revivals have kept the Blackhawks active in comics over an amazing stretch of time.

The first issue of Military Comics, dated August 1941, introduced the high-flying team. The U.S. didn't enter World War II for another six months, but Military Comics wasn't the only comic book to jump the gun. Chuck Cuidera drew the earliest adventures of the multinational team of volunteer Nazi fighters.

The characters' physical features, language and personalities were stereotyped by nationality. The members' origins symbolize the countries threatened by Hitler's war machine. Their leader was Blackhawk. Though some versions of the strip de-emphasized his roots, the charismatic team leader was originally depicted as a native of Poland. When the United States entered the war, the writers made him an American. (Later versions restored his ethnic ties.)

Joining him were André, the suave and romantic Frenchman; Olaf, the hefty Swede; Hendrick (also known as Hendrickson), an older, stout Dutchman; Stanislaus, the Pole (who was the only member given any notable degree of individuality—perhaps because his namesake, comic artist Stan Powell, was himself of Polish extraction); Chuck, another American added to the Blackhawk team after the United States entered the war; and finally, the loyal Chinese sidekick, Chop-Chop.

Like a number of Quality Comics titles and characters, the Blackhawks were created under the supervision of Will Eisner, the creator of The Spirit. He began work on the Blackhawks in early 1941, almost a year before America entered the war. Eisner's main stimulus in creating the Blackhawks was the impending war.

"In the case of the Blackhawks, the war was on already in Europe," Eisner explained some years back. "Germany seemed invincible at the time. The Blackhawks represented to me a super-guerrilla group. I liked the idea of a group having an island of its own, outcasts from every nation." Eisner designed the Blackhawk's costumes, named the characters and selected the type of airplane they flew. However, he openly acknowledges the help of his fellow artists in the shop, particularly Bob Powell and Chuck Cuidera.

Eisner was what his fellow cartoonists called "an idea man." He would create a new feature, design costumes and props, write and lay out the first few episodes, and then turn the story line over to a team of writers and artists who would continue to produce it under his editorial direction. Blackhawk was no exception to this rule. "In those days, in my shop at least, no script was written in concrete," he said. "Anybody who wanted to change a script had a right to do it. If the penciler or inker—they were usually the same guy—came up with something better, they could just change the dialogue. That's how we did it in my shop; everybody had a hand in it."

"Now, Bob Powell was hung up on planes," Eisner said. "He ultimately joined the Air Force, as a matter of fact. So we came up with the idea of using a certain model Grumman airplane, which had a very strange configuration. It had tail fins coming out from under a wing. It also apparently had the capacity to make a rapid takeoff from the deck of an aircraft carrier. It was a Navy plane, as I remember, not an Army or Air Force plane. Actually, in real life, it turned out not to be as good a plane as everybody thought it would be, but it sure looked sexy!"

Letterer Sam Rosen completed the original team on Blackhawk. In time he was replaced by Martin DeMuth, whose distinctive banner-shaped captions contributed to the look of the entire Quality Comics line. Reed Crandall then took on the art chores, although by this time Eisner had been drafted. "As I remember, by the time Reed Crandall got there, I was in the Army. Reed had come over from Jerry Iger's shop (which produced work for Fiction House Comics). Dave Berg also worked on Blackhawk—I think he did back-up stories, helped with inking, things like that," Eisner said. When Eisner returned to civilian life he severed his relationship with Quality Comics, concentrating on his weekly Spirit newspaper section. Although Quality did publish a comic book containing reprints of Spirit sections, Eisner never again wrote or drew any features for the company.

The Blackhawks survived the war but had a rougher time with peace. In 1956 Quality Comics went out of business and National (DC) Comics took over Quality's titles, continuing only Blackhawk—which it has published, off and on, through a variety of unlikely character revisions over the years.

Ted White White is a MicroChannel Manager for Collecting Channel. These are the opinions of the author, not the opinions of eBay, and therefore eBay does not validate the accuracy of or endorse these opinions.

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The preceding material was written by Lee Bernstein. These are the opinions of the author, not the opinions of eBay, and therefore eBay does not validate the accuracy of or endorse these opinions.