Wednesday, May 12, 2021

Asian Avengers BLACKHAWK "Operation White Dragon" Part 2

...during World War II, the Blackhawks are sent to Japanese-occupied China to help the Resistance against the invaders.
They encounter a costumed hero named The White Dragon who leads a band of rebels harassing the Japanese!
The team then contacts the local leader, who refuses to help them in their operations, to avoid antagonizing the Japanese, and his son, who collaborates with the occupiers!
To appease the Japanese military governor, the leader gives up the location of the White Dragon's headquarters.
When the invaders ambush and capture the hero, he's revealed to be the Chinese leader's son and ordered to be executed...
Though still called "Chop-Chop", Liu Huang was an equal member of the team, even flying his own aircraft (In the old days, he was stuck in the passenger seat of Blackhawk's plane.)
A couple of years later, with sales dropping, DC "updated" the series by making the middle-aged aviators into superhero/spies with outlandish  powers and code-names.
Liu, as the youngest of the group, became "Dr Hands", started speaking hipster jive, and was given a tuxedo...and titanium gloves...
There was never an explanation of how the gloves worked.
At least DC didn't put the team into spandex, considering their ages ranged from mid-30s to mid-50s...
To read the entire sordid story, click HERE and Follow the links at the end of each chapter!
Bonus: Click HERE to read Chop-Chop's Golden Age origin in our "brother" RetroBlog, Not Safe for Work Comics!
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Wednesday, May 5, 2021

Asian Avengers BLACKHAWK "Operation White Dragon" Part 1

...and we'll be returning to his story shortly!
But now, we present the never-reprinted Silver Age tale of The White Dragon...a Zorro-like character leading the local Resistance against the Japanese in World War II-era China!
The story concludes...
Note: writer Bob Haney makes a common mistake!
In China, family names are first, and given names are second.
"Liu Huang" and "Khan Huang" should be "Huang Liu" and "Huang Khan"
And, since "khan" is like "caesar"...a title of office...is it the elder Huang's title or name?
This story from DC's Blackhawk #203 (1964) by Haney, penciler Dick Dillin and inker Chuck Cuidera is radically-different from Chop-Chop's premiere appearance and intro to the Blackhawks in Quality's Military Comics #3 (1941).
DC had a similar problem with it's other characters who had uninterrupted runs from the Golden Age to the Silver Age like Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman.
The creation of Earth-Two, placing the Golden Age versions on a separate world solved most of those problems with the exception of clearly-defining where the Golden Age-related tales ended and where the Silver Age versions began, which varied from character to character.
(It also gave the opportunity for Golden Age and Silver Age versions of the characters to meet!)
BTW, the Quality Comics characters were on Earth-X ((where Nazis won World War II).
The Blackhawks were shown as deceased in DC's Justice League of America #107 (1973), during the annual "Crisis on..." team-up between the Justice League and Justice Society.
So we can take it as given that the post-WWII stories (most featuring Communists) by Quality were part of the Silver Age Blackhawk history.
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