Ten Things I Like About Comics: #4--Blackhawk
Blackhawk was one of the more durable comics features, making it through the 1950s unlike so many other characters. The original series was published by Quality Comics until the mid-1950s when it changed over to DC Comics for the remainder of its run.
Blackhawk was both a character and the leader of a group called the Blackhawks. Originally a Polish youth orphaned in the early days of WWII, he started a flying group with six others that battled Hitler. After the war, the Blackhawks pretty quickly switched to fighting the communists, which may account for their surviving the end of the world war, unlike the Boy Commandoes, for example.
The Blackhawks featured Blackhawk himself, Chuck (an American), Andre (French) Stanislaus (Polish) Olaf (Swedish), Hendrikson (Dutch), and most importantly, Chop-Chop (Chinese).
The last was intended as a humorous sidekick, and like Ebony in the Spirit, it worked. Yes, by today's standards Chop-Chop was a horrifically racist caricature as you can see from this picture:
But he was mostly played straight in the Blackhawk stories (his solo features were another matter) and was quite capable of heroic action:
One cool thing about the Blackhawks is that they often sung a little ditty at the end of an adventure. The lyrics usually concerned how much they liked kicking tyrant butt.
