Blackhawk Squadron Recommended Reading

The Blackhawk Squadron is a team of daredevil aviators who fight over land and over sea to make men free, and don't care of danger. They have been around since 1941, first appearing in Quality's Military Comics #1, and later appeared in their own title, which has been a quarterly, bimonthly and monthly title with three Blackhawk stories, one text story, and one Chop-Chop tale for comic relief. Quality and its characters were bought by DC Comics, and Blackhawk was one of the few titles continued by DC, picking up at issue 108.

Over the years, the team's been the subject of a lot of changes. They started out as a World War II squadron, fighting Nazis, pirates and petty dictators. When they war was over, they fought commies, pirates and petty dictators. But decades after the war, the shtick got old. They were reimagined first to tie in with the adventurer-teams like Cave Carson and the Sea Devils, and much later, after Batman and Superman told them how outdated they were, they became costumed super-heroes. It did not sit well with fans, and the series was cancelled.

Mark Evanier rebooted the series in 1982, keeping the original numbering, with Blackhawk #251. It placed the team back in World War II, and erased most of their post-war adventures. The series lasted until issue 273.

After the Crisis, Howard Chaykin gave the team another reboot, starting with a new #1 in a three issue miniseries. The team was completely changed, and the tone was made to match the then-current themes in comics. The miniseries was followed by a new ongoing series, and they were featured in Action Comics Weekly.

Zero Hour changed a lot. Zinda Blake was brought back into continuity, and the team - in their rare appearances - is a mix of the original team, the Evanier reboot, and the Chaykin reboot.

After the 2011 event Flashpoint, the Blackhawks were rewritten as the Blackhawk Program, with no apparent activity in the War.

New Readers

• Batman: Blackhawk Down: Batman, Zinda Blake and Janos Prohaska fight old enemies Killer Shark and Ted Gaynor.
• Birds of Prey: There Would be No Spring: Details Lady Blackhawk's life before she joined the Birds of Prey.
• Birds of Prey: Metropolis or Bust: Zinda relives her times as Queen Killer Shark.
• Birds of Prey: War and Remembrance
• Blackhawk (Volume 2): Howard Chaykin's reboot miniseries.
• Sandman: The Blackhawk: Pre-costume Janos Prohaska teams up with Sandman to stop Nazis in 30s New York.
• Blackhawk Special #1: A Cold War adventure, with the Chaykin Blackhawks versus the Russians.
• Crisis on Earth-X

Further Reading

• Action Comics Weekly: had a feature based on Chaykin's reboot.
• The Blackhawk Archives, Volume One: reproducing the Blackhawk segments of Military Comics #1-17, this is the only reprinted collection of Quality's Blackhawk stories.
• Blackhawk (Volume 3)
• JLA: Year One
• Showcase Presents: Blackhawk Vol. 1: black and white reprints of DC's early issues, on non-glossy paper. Only if you really want to learn about the Silver Age; it reads like a phone book.

Single Issues

• The Brave and the Bold (Volume 3) #9: The Blackhawks team up with the Boy Commandos in wartorn Egypt.
• The Brave and the Bold (Volume 3) #28: Flash finds himself trapped in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge.

Miscellaneous

• The Savage Time
• First Wave

This article is part of the DC Database Recommended Reading project, a series of articles written by our editors. They are meant as a guide to help both new and old readers, either getting into comics for the first time or looking to read more on their favorites. These should not be taken as a definitive guide; obviously you can start wherever and with whatever you want, but they're some general suggestions that we think you might find useful and enjoyable.