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"The Gladiators of Blackhawk Island": A millionaire, Fred K. Cash, arrives by yacht at Blackhawk Island, and offers the team a group statue to commemorate the Hawks. In return, Cash asks the Black Knights to battle one another in a series of matches to prove which one is the best combatant. Unbe

Blackhawk #114 is an issue of the series Blackhawk (Volume 1) with a cover date of July, 1957.

Synopsis for "The Gladiators of Blackhawk Island"

A millionaire, Fred K. Cash, arrives by yacht at Blackhawk Island, and offers the team a group statue to commemorate the Hawks. In return, Cash asks the Black Knights to battle one another in a series of matches to prove which one is the best combatant. Unbeknownst to the Hawks, Cash is the leader of a gang that wants control of the Hawks' island base. He plans on killing the team with radioactive chalk bullets used in the weapons for the different matches. This would have worked, except the secretly-deadly ammunition was stolen by the many mischievous monkeys that live on Blackhawk Island. Chop Chop was able to produce enough new chalk bullets to replace the missing ammo. Thus the "seemingly harmless" gladiatorial combat between the Blackhawks actually was harmless. But Mr. Cash had extremely bad luck when he walked into the room, in the stadium, where the wild monkeys had neatly stacked their stolen ammunition, and the combined radioactivity of all of it, combined with Cash's bad heart condition, was enough to kill him on the spot.

Appearing in "The Gladiators of Blackhawk Island"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Fred K. Cash
    • his yacht crew

Animals:

  • many wild monkeys

Locations:

Vehicles:

The First Interplanetary War: "Attack and Counterattack"

Synopsis for The First Interplanetary War: "Attack and Counterattack"

This story is reprinted from Strange Adventures #14.

In the year 2007, war breaks out between Earth and Mars.

Appearing in The First Interplanetary War: "Attack and Counterattack"

Characters:

Locations:

Vehicles:


Synopsis for "20,000 Leagues Beneath the Earth"

The Mole, a madman who uses an Earth-drilling machine to capture and enslave miners and tunnelers, issues a challenge to the Hawks to try to stop him. He traps them and, breaking Blackhawk's will, forces the team into slave labor. The Mole's big scheme is to loot Fort Knox, striking from below, with the Blackhawks themselves at the control of his incredible Mole Master digging machine. But Blackhawk's broken morale is only a ruse, and he slips the magnetic dynamo from his belt radio near the Mole Master machine's Direction Charter, and the magnetic power throws the mechanism off. Quite by fortuitous accident, the monstrous machine crash-surfaces inside the State Prison, and is already surrounded by rifle-packing prison guards, who capture the Mole and free his enslaved crew.

Appearing in "20,000 Leagues Beneath the Earth"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • The Mole (First appearance)
    • Carl, henchman

Other Characters:

  • enslaved miners

Locations:

Items:

  • Blackhawk's Sonar device for detecting burrowing machines

Vehicles:

  • Blackhawk Lockheed F-90Cs
  • The Mole Master, the Mole's super burrowing machine
    • also capable of operating on the ocean floor

Synopsis for "The Winged Goliath"

The Condor Valley Dam has broken. Treacherous air currents make it impossible for the Hawks to attempt air rescue via planes, so by using an enlarging ray from their island war museum, the Hawks enlarge Blackie, their hawk mascot, to save the day. But things go awry when Blackie gets a big whiff of volcanic gasses, goes mad, and attacks a naval base.

But actually an arch-criminal calling himself The Brain has built a gigantic mechanical hawk, and he uses it to steal a submarine, a railroad car full of gold bullion, and a bank armored car. The Brain has also captured the real Blackie, to prevent the detection of his ruse. Blackie steals a handgun and shoots the lock off his cage, and attacks the Brain's crew and damages their control panel, causing the giant bird to crash. The Brain and his crewmen perish.

Appearing in "The Winged Goliath"

Featured Characters:

Supporting Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Giant-Maker (Flashback only)
  • Balloon Master (Mentioned only)
  • The Brain (Dies)
    • his gang (Dies)

Locations:

  • Blackhawk Island
    • Blackhawk Victory Museum
  • "the mainland"
    • Condor Valley
    • Naval Base
    • Center City
    • The Brain's Lair

Items:

Vehicles:

  • Blackhawk Lockheed F-90Cs
  • The Brain's mechanical fake giant hawk (Destroyed)

Notes

  • Gladiators of Blackhawk Island
    • Per page 4 panel 3, there is a stadium on Blackhawk Island, with hundreds of seats. Also wild monkeys live on Blackhawk Island. Neither of these things has appeared in any prior issues.
    • The late Fred K. Cash, and his still-living yacht crew, knew the secret location of Blackhawk Island; we're not told how.
  • 20,000 Leagues Beneath the Earth
    • The Mole will return in Blackhawk #125.
    • It should be honestly admitted that the Blackhawks beat the Mole much more by luck than by skill.
  • Winged Goliath
    • Blackie can type. In a splash panel in Blackhawk #111, Blackie was shown typing earlier, but that scene didn't actually happen in that story. Now there is movie film of Blackie typing.
    • Blackie can tie a pair of shoelaces together, can pickpocket a handgun out of a concealed holster, and shoot the lock off a cage door.
    • Captured super weapons in the Blackhawk Museum now include the Giant-Maker's equipment and the Balloon Master's Silent Raider. We've never seen or heard of either of these villains before.
      • The Enlarger Machine was captured June 10th, 1955. It takes seven days for its effects to wear off.
      • The "Silent Raider" is apparently just an ordinary antique model hot air balloon.
  • Also appearing in this issue of Blackhawk were:

Trivia

  • The previously unseen monkeys on Blackhawk Island are seemingly impervious to exposure to radioactive elements, because they steal and stack enough contaminated, radioactive ammunition to kill a full-grown man by simple exposure. Granting that the man had a preexisting heart condition, still, if this stuff was that radioactive, the stadium should be strewn with dead and dying monkeys, and there are none.


See Also

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