Asian Avengers BLACKHAWK "Operation White Dragon" Part 2

When Last We Left Our Heroes...

...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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Blackhawk

by William Rotsler

The only novel based on the comic book!

Asian Avengers BLACKHAWK "Operation White Dragon" Part 1

Previously, we brought you the Asian super-hero known as The Green Turtle...

...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...

Next Wednesday

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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Blackhawk

by William Rotsler

The only novel based on the comic book!

Summer Blogathon BLACKHAWK "D-Day for the Blackhawks" Part 3: Showdown at Omaha Beach

We Have Already Seen...

...in the present (1964), Blackhawk and his team respond to a message from a French Resistance fighter who aided them on their first mission, right before D-Day, twenty years earlier!

After they re-unite, the assembled veterans relive the adventure that brought them together...

As we said, this origin rewrites history since Blackhawk and crew were shown operating in late 1940-early 1941 in their original Quality Comics incarnation...and the DC version was carried over, lock, stock, and Grumman XF5F Skyrockets from Quality to DC without a break in publication schedule or format!

Unofficially, this never-reprinted tale from DC's Blackhawk #198 (1964) was considered the origin of the Earth-One Blackhawks, with the Quality stories considered the Earth-Two team's tales!

This helped explain the Justice League's presence during the infamous "New Blackhawk Era" when the middle-aged aviators became super-heroes!

(You've got to see it to believe it!)

This was reinforced by DC using the back of the book to tell new WWII stories in "Combat Diary", which sometimes contradicted Quality stories they were based on!

But even this "update" wasn't exactly adhered to!

When the "New Blackhawk Era" mercifully-ended and the group went back to their WWII roots, the first issue of their revamp presented another new origin for the characters!

And, when the Justice League and Justice Society did their annual summer "Crisis on..." multi-part story in 1973, they ended up on Earth-X, where most of the Quality characters (including the Blackhawks and Plastic Man) had been killed by the Nazis, who had won World War II!

After yet another reboot making the Blackhawks high-tech mercenaries, there was one final revamp putting them back in the 1940s in the hopes a rumored Steven Spielberg film would be made.

(The HTF paperback novel listed below is a by-product of that incarnation.)

Don't even ask about the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths history of the Blackhawks!

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Blackhawk

by William Rotsler

The only novel based on the comic book!
(and it tells a radically-different version of their origin!)

Summer Blogathon BLACKHAWK "D-Day for the Blackhawks" Part 2: Jigsaw Goliath

When Last We Left the Newly-Unified Blackhawks...

...they were heading out on their first mission as a unit, just before D-Day, June 6, 1944!

To Be Concluded...
TOMORROW!

Writer Arnold Drake, penciler Dick Dillin and inker Chuck Cuidera update the vague origin Blackhawk was given (in his first appearance in Quality's Military Comics #1 (1941) and a somewhat more detailed tale from Blackhawk #50 (1952) in this never-reprinted story from DC's Blackhawk #198 (1964)...though this tale contradicts the fact that Blackhawk and his team were operating from 1940 onward, long before D-Day!
What's the explanation?
Find out tomorrow!
Note: This is part of our annual Summer RetroBlog Blogathon, this year covering how various comics characters participated in D-Day!
You can see the Normandy invasion activities of Sgt Rock HERE and Sgt Fury HERE!

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Official Blackhawk 12" Action Figure

Summer Blogathon BLACKHAWK "D-Day for the Blackhawks" Part 1: Origin of the Blackhawks

We've covered the Blackhawks' unfortunate dabbling in 1960s superhero antics...

..but even before that, DC was tinkering with the team, changing them from wartime aviators to a team of scientific adventurers handling all sort of weird threats!

(You'll note as the tale begins, the team are in their red and green "adventurer" uniforms instead of their WWII leather outfits!

Also note that, in the final panel of the page directly below, Blackhawk and Stan are speaking each other's dialogue!)

To Be Continued...
TOMORROW!

Writer Arnold Drake, penciler Dick Dillin and inker Chuck Cuidera update the vague origin Blackhawk was given (in his first appearance in Quality's Military Comics #1 (1941) and a somewhat more detailed tale from Blackhawk #50 (1952) in this never-reprinted story from DC's Blackhawk #198 (1964).
Note: This is part of our annual Summer RetroBlog Blogathon, this year covering how various comics characters participated in D-Day!
You can see the Normandy invasion activities of Sgt Rock HERE and Sgt Fury HERE!

Please Support Hero Histories

Visit Amazon and Order...

Blackhawk: the Movie Serial

starring Kirk (Superman) Alyn