Blackhawk Vol 1 48

"Hawks of Horror": The United World Council has gathered the greatest scientists of the world at the Citadel of Science on a remote island. Dr. Ivander is shot while taking a phone call in his office, however he is soon seen unharmed. Meanwhile, Blackhawk has invented a robot dog capable of

"Hawks of Horror"
Cover
Blackhawk Vol 1 #48
January, 1952
Publisher	Quality Comics
Executive Editor	Everett M. Arnold
Cover Artists	Reed Crandall
Hawks of Horror
Pencilers	Reed Crandall
Inkers	Reed Crandall
Editors	Al Grenet
Chop Chop: "The Great Palaver"
Writers	Paul Gustavson
Pencilers	Paul Gustavson
Inkers	Paul Gustavson
Letterers	Paul Gustavson
The Confessions of the Blackhawks
Pencilers	Bill Ward
Inkers	Bill Ward
The Port of Missing Ships
Pencilers	Reed Crandall
Inkers	Reed Crandall
Previous Issue	Blackhawk # 47
Next Issue	Blackhawk # 49

BRAIN vave? HA! On dot sqvare-head, Olaf, he vould find nodding to MAKE patterns!

— Hans Hendrickson

Blackhawk #48 is an issue of the series Blackhawk (Volume 1) with a cover date of January, 1952.

Synopsis for "Hawks of Horror"

The United World Council has gathered the greatest scientists of the world at the Citadel of Science on a remote island. Dr. Ivander is shot while taking a phone call in his office, however he is soon seen unharmed. Meanwhile, Blackhawk has invented a robot dog capable of tracking someone by their brainwaves. He has recorded the brainwaves of all the Blackhawks to test it. Blackhawk takes the robot and the recordings to the Citadel, where he is knocked out and the inventions are stolen. Blackhawk has compound skull fractures and it takes him several days to recover.

When he returns to Blackhawk Island, Blackhawk is attacked by a robot hawk with a jet engine. Blackhawk shoots the hawk, but another appears. Blackhawk determines the hawks must be tracking their brainwaves and have bombs set to go off when they get close to their targets. He orders the others into the cellar and disarms the other hawk. They then hear a radio broadcast from someone calling himself the Hawk Master. Within the hour he will kill the leaders of Saigonia, then kill the leaders of one country every hour until the world surrenders to him.

In Saigonia, a flock of robot hawks enter the capital building and explode. Blackhawk determines that the metal used in the robot is a new kind, developed at the Citadel of Science. They fly to the Citadel and gather the scientists. Blackhawk tells them that one of them is an impostor, but he previously recorded their brainwaves and can detect the impostor that way. Dr. Ivander calls for guards, but the Blackhawks defeat them. Blackhawk reveals that the real Dr. Ivander is dead and the impostor is his twin brother, who recently escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane.

Appearing in "Hawks of Horror"

Featured Characters:

• Blackhawk Squadron
  • Andre
  • Blackhawk
  • Chop-Chop
  • Chuck Wilson
  • Hans Hendrickson
  • Olaf
  • Stanislaus

Supporting Characters:

• United World Council

Antagonists:

• Dr. Ivander's insane twin, as the Hawk Master

Other Characters:

• Dr. Ivander (murdered and impersonated)
• World Press Radio Reporter
• President Ang Koo of Saigonia (Dies)

Locations:

• U.N.W.'s Citadel of Science
• Blackhawk Island
• Southeast Asia
  • Saigonia
• Africa
  • Afro City (Mentioned only)

Items:

• ram-jet-powered robot hawks

Vehicles:

• Blackhawk Lockheed F-90Bs
  

Synopsis for Chop Chop: "The Great Palaver"

Chop Chop has lost his wallet and is need of money, so he agrees to deliver a suitcase to a hotel room. Unknown to him, the suitcase contains a new dummy for a ventriloquist. After entering the room, the suitcase comes open. Chop Chop thinks it is a dead body, so he hides it behind the radiator. When the ventriloquist arrives, the dummy's wax face has melted, so he forces Chop Chop to take its place. The audience complains because the "dummy" is so unrealistic.

Appearing in Chop Chop: "The Great Palaver"

Featured Characters:

• Chop-Chop

Other Characters:

• Great Palaver, ventriloquist
  

Synopsis for "The Confessions of the Blackhawks"

The Blackhawks receive a radio message that Stanislaus' mother is dying. He parachutes behind the Iron Curtain to see her. Arriving at her house he finds that it is a trap. His mother actually died several months earlier. Stanislaus is put on trial, charged with attempting to plant an atomic bomb on a busy street. Surprisingly, Stanislaus confesses. When the other Blackhawks hear this, they assume that Stanislaus has been tortured and fly to rescue him. However, the Red Army is watching for them and the Blackhawks are quickly captured.

Later, after they are fed, the Blackhawks seem listless, and the next day, they are all placed on trial. When told to confess, they suddenly refuse and attack, surprising everyone in the courtroom. They grab Stanislaus and escape on motorcycles through the subway. The Inquisitor who was behind the plan is sent to Siberia.

On the flight home, Blackhawk reveals that the food was too spiced for Stanislaus' home country, so he realized that it was drugged. They tossed the food out the window then pretended to be drugged in order to surprise their captors.

Appearing in "The Confessions of the Blackhawks"

Featured Characters:

• Blackhawk Squadron
  • Andre
  • Blackhawk
  • Chop-Chop
  • Chuck Wilson
  • Hans Hendrickson
  • Olaf
  • Stanislaus

Antagonists:

• Comrade Inquisitor
  • Red Army

Locations:

• Blackhawk Island
• Stanislaus' Homeland

Vehicles:

• Blackhawk Lockheed F-90Bs
  

Synopsis for "The Port of Missing Ships"

While returning from a distant mission in their Lockheed F-90Bs, the Blackhawk Squadron's engines all die. Coming down through an eerie fog, they discover the fabled Sargasso Sea, legendary Port of Missing Ships. They land on an enormous mass of fragrant seaweed, giving off vapors which affect the atmosphere. An assortment of ships, from many ages and nations, is stranded here, and their surviving crew members are friendly, and seemingly immortal. But motors do not work, and navigation thru the seaweeds is impossible. The Blackhawks meet Captain Cutlass, a former associate of Captain Kidd, Erick the Viking, who is almost 1000 years old, and Ezio, who sailed with Columbus. Also, there is a supply of wood which has allowed the inhabitants to build walkways between their ships.

Within a few days, the Blackhawks have settled into the relaxed, stress-free life of the Sargasso Sea. Soon a new ship arrives: a Nazi submarine! The sub's crew had refused to surrender at the end of World War II, and had turned to piracy. They awaited the day that a new fuehrer would arise in Germany. They clash with the Blackhawks, and are more heavily armed; the Blackhawks are soon captured and clapped in irons. The sub's captain guns down Erick the Viking, but Captain Cutlass sneaks away below decks, and soon is able to set free the Blackhawks.

There is a very brief exchange of cannonfire, between Cutlass' wooden frigate and von Hunte's steel U-boat, before the Blackhawks are able to commando-sneak their way onto the sub, and defeat the ex-Nazi pirates in a fistfight. Captain Cutlass assures Blackhawk that time, and the atmosphere of the Sargasso Sea, will soon make the captured pirates peaceful.

Blackhawk reasons that the sub's electric motors should still work, being unexposed to the local atmosphere. The Blackhawks build some big rafts, load their F-90Bs onto them, rig towing cables from the rafts to the stern of the submarine, and the seven of them operate that U-boat as they tow the rafts out of the Sargasso Sea. After reaching open air, the Blackhawks leave the U-boat, ignite their jet engines, and take off vertically from the towing rafts, then fly home to Blackhawk Island.

Appearing in "The Port of Missing Ships"

Featured Characters:

• Blackhawk Squadron
  • Andre
  • Blackhawk
  • Chop-Chop
  • Chuck Wilson
  • Hans Hendrickson
  • Olaf
  • Stanislaus

Antagonists:

• Captain Fritz von Hunte (in dress-white uniform with a monocle)
  • his submarine crew

Other Characters:

• Captain Cutlass
• Erick the Viking (Dies)
• Ezio the Spaniard
• Roman officer
• Egyptian officer

Locations:

• Sargasso Sea
  • Port of Missing Ships
• Blackhawk Island (Mentioned only)

Vehicles:

• Blackhawk Lockheed F-90Bs
• derelict barges, clippers, galleons, galleys, longships, etc.
• one U-boat (captured then abandoned)

Notes

• Hawks of Horror
  • Blackhawk gets head-konked unconscious, with a club. This is his forty-seventh concussion. Unlike almost all of his previous concussions, this time Blackhawk has compound skull fractures, and it takes him several days to recover. Also he now has a silver screen surgically grafted onto his skull.
  • U.N.W.'s Citadel of Science is built on a remote island in an unnamed ocean.
  • Blackhawk claims to have recordings of the brain wave patterns, on film, of all the leading scientists at the Citadel of Science. He's bluffing, but he now has the technology to acquire such data.
  • Per the fifth panel of the tenth page of this story, in the Quality Universe, H-bombs have been outlawed.
• This issue's Chop Chop story is reprinted in Blackhawk #95.
• Confessions of the Blackhawks
  • Stanislaus' home country is not mentioned by name in this issue. Other stories have identified it as Poland.
• Port of Missing Ships
  • The now-common term "Bermuda Triangle" had not yet been coined in 1952. In the Quality Universe, this area has seemingly supernatural properties, and its multinational transhistoric settlement of stranded seafaring inhabitants seem to be immortal.
  • Hendrickson calls one of the Nazi sub crewmen his fellow countryman. In the Quality Universe, Hendrickson is German. In the Earth-One Universe, Hendrickson is Dutch. It's fair to say that Blackhawk is confusing.
  • The Blackhawks have sworn among themselves to never reveal the location of the Port of Missing Ships.
• Also featured in this issue of Blackhawk was:
  • "Feathers of Justice" (non-Blackhawk text story)

See Also

• Cover gallery for the Blackhawk series
• Images from Blackhawk Vol 1 48