Russkie-Smashers BLACKHAWK "Jet Menace!"

Behind This Rather Kool Dick Dillin/Chuck Cuidera Cover...

...(never-reprinted, BTW) lurks a tale (also never-reprinted )of Russkie sabotage and treachery!

Scripted by Robert Bernstein and penciled by Dick Dillin, and inked by Chuck Cuidera, the cover-featured story from Quality's Blackhawk #104 (1956) brings up an interesting,but obviously false, concept: if you have to bail out of a supersonic jet, you're incapable of flying one ever again!
If that was the case, Hal (Green Lantern) Jordan and literally all the Blackhawks would've been grounded pretty early in their jet-age careers!
Note: we're doing a Halloween-themed schedule for October, featuring super-heroes vs...

You'll see both well-known characters (and a couple of obscure ones) go up against various not-quite extinct giant lizards in hand-to-claw combat!

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Russkie-Smashers BLACKHAWK "Lost Island"

You've Seen Blackhawk and His Men Smash Russkies All Over the World, and Even on The Moon...

...now witness them doing so on an island with a time-lost population!

Written by Robert Bernstein, penciled by Dick Dillin, and inked by Chuck Cuidera, this never-reprinted tale from Quality's Blackhawk #101 (1956) brings back the shadow of European imperialism as everybody (including America) tries to claim an island which is already inhabited!

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Nazi-Punchers BLACKHAWK "Coward Dies Twice"

Last Week We Brought You Russkie-Smashing Blackhawk and his team...

...this week we bring you his younger self...when he and his crew were first organized to do some serious Nazi-Punching!

Added bonus: the first appearance of their distinctive aircraft, the Grumman Skyrocket!

Scripted/laid-out by Will Eisner, and penciled/inked by Chuck Cuidera, the second appearance of Blackhawk, from Quality's Military Comics #2 (1941) clears up a number of aspects, including the fact the team isn't operating openly as a part of the Allied forces!

(America hadn't entered the war at this pre-Pearl Harbor point in history,)
Besides the core group, we're introduced to Boris (Ukrainian/Russian) and Zeg (country unknown) along with numerous other unidentified personnel.
Zeg appeared several more times during the Golden Age, but Boris disappeared after this issue, popping up again in the Bronze Age as a one-shot villain seeking vengeance against the Blackhawks!
Trivia: Though this was the only appearance of the split-tail Skyrockets in the Golden Age strip, when the Blackhawks made their debut in the animated Justice League series in "The Savage Time", an episode set in post D-Day Europe, the original version of the aircraft was front and center!
(DC's 1980s revival of the WWII version of Blackhawk restored the split-tailed version to pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity, helping to define which WWII stories were Earth-One and which were Earth-X)!

Director/Animator Dan Riba even constructed a custom maquette of the Skyrocket and sent it to the Korean animation house for reference in animating aerobatics with the distinctive ship properly!

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Russkie-Smashers BLACKHAWK "Nightmare Cruise"

We're Winding Up a Month of Russkie-Smashing with the Busiest Russkie-Smashers of All...

...awww, you guessed!

Scripted by Robert Bernstein, penciled by Dick Dillin, and inked by Chuck Cuidera, this never-reprinted story from Quality's Blackhawk #105 (1956) showed no matter what environment (air, land, or sea), nothing stops the Dark Knights (yes, they were referred that way long before a certain Caped Crusader) from defending democracy!

Next Week: We're Back to Nazi-Punching...with Blackhawk and his team!
(He was around a loooong time!)

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Russkie-Smashers BLACKHAWK "Red Raiders vs Blackhawks"

Why is it that Villains (Russkies Included) Always Have the Urge...

...to create one-to-one match-ups against heroic teams?

(Especially since, in this case, it's based on ethnicity instead of abilities/talents?)

Unlike similar teams, including Baron Strucker's Blitz Squad who battled Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos several times, this ensemble from a never-reprinted story in Quality's Blackhawk #40 (1951), never returned for a rematch!

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