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"The Flying Cannon": In the Democracy of Liberra, a leading scientist is deported to his native Viglandt, after being convicted of uttering slander against Liberra. Kurt Anton rejoices at his departure from the decaying democracy. In Viglandt, he is welcomed by grey-uniformed soldiers.

Quote1 This identification ring on its leg is the answer! I've a hunch this bird once belonged to a circus and flew away! That's why it understands instructions! Quote2
Blackhawk

Blackhawk #75 is an issue of the series Blackhawk (Volume 1) with a cover date of April, 1954.

Synopsis for "The Flying Cannon"

In the Democracy of Liberra, a leading scientist is deported to his native Viglandt, after being convicted of uttering slander against Liberra. Kurt Anton rejoices at his departure from the decaying democracy. In Viglandt, he is welcomed by grey-uniformed soldiers.

A few months later, Liberra's oil storage and arms production facilities are attacked from the air, by an extremely powerful and accurate flying weapon. This thing is as big as an office building and can shoot its energy weapon in any direction! The Blackhawks are on the scene, and scramble for their Lockheed interceptors. They engage the Flying Cannon, but are unable to damage it. They follow it, but the big machine covers its trail with a thick, wide smoke screen, and escapes, direction unknown. Returning to the city, the Blackhawks find Viglandt fifth-columnists trying to take over the city. After some shooting and fist-fighting, order is restored.

Some top Liberra officials meet with Blackhawk, who is convinced that the flying weapon was built by Kurt Anton, and is most likely in Viglandt. Therefore the Blackhawk Squadron will parachute into Viglandt, find the Flying Cannon, and destroy it. There is a spy in the room, one council member, who relays this news back to Viglandt. That night when the Blackhawks make their drop, an ambush is in place waiting for them. A large enough number of soldiers come at them from enough different directions to make it clear that they're beaten, but the team fights on long enough to send Blackhawk himself sprinting away alone, to carry out their mission. He falls and twists his ankle, then spends the night in a rocky gorge.

Next morning a remarkably intelligent black hawk shows up, injured, and Blackhawk has a first aid kit. Soon he and the bird are friends. Three more days and nights go by; the bird revisits Blackhawk again and again. After a week, Blackhawks ankle and the black hawk's wing are healed up enough to do some traveling. Blackhawk hikes into the capital city of Viglandt, using his belt radio to call the team, who are imprisoned, but they're all in the same cell and they still have their radios. Andre gives directions to the prison, and Blackhawk finds it, and figures out which window is the team's cell. Blackhawk happens to have a small hacksaw in his emergency kit, and his new friend is able to carry it up to that window and hand it off to Hendrickson. They all get out the window and climb down a knotted-bedsheets rope, and the last one out, to Blackhawk's surprise, is the team's cellmate Kurt Anton. He denies building the Flying Cannon, and describes the Space Ship Platform that he designed for the Viglandt government. But the nation's dictator betrayed him, and had the device re-engineered into a super weapon. But Anton knows where the Flying Cannon is hangared, and it isn't far away. He leads the team to an airfield. While they're taking out the guards and breaking in, the doors fly open, and the Flying Cannon roars past, and takes off to visit more death and demolition on Liberra. But while the giant engine is revving up, the Blackhawks steal a passenger helicopter, fly it into place, and drop onto the platform's huge wing. There is a fistfight out on the wing, with the black hawk pitching in, and soon the giant flying weapon's defenders are defeated. Sending the Blackhawks away, Professor Anton enters the weapons deck and takes the controls, then crashes the Flying Cannon into the Viglandt air base, to enormous destructive effect.

Afterward, the black hawk is adopted as the team's mascot, and named "Jet".

Appearing in "The Flying Cannon"

Featured Characters:

Animals:

  • Jet, a hawk (First appearance)

Antagonists:

  • Viglandt fifth columnists
  • Viglandt spy on Liberra government Council
  • Viglandt dictator (Behind the scenes)

Other Characters:

  • Professor Kurt Anton (Dies)

Locations:

Items:

  • Flying Cannon: Flies by using energy converted into jet propulsion from fire power of the gun. (Destroyed)

Vehicles:

  • Blackhawk Lockheed F-90Cs
  • Liberran 2-engine military transport aircraft
  • Viglandtian passenger helicopter


Synopsis for Chop Chop: "An Ill Wind"

This story is reprinted from Blackhawk #47.

Chop Chop gets cinders blown into his eyes and some crooks play a trick on him. A cop helps Chop Chop and stumbles across some loot that the robbers are hiding, and arrests them.

Appearing in Chop Chop: "An Ill Wind"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • two thugs

Other Characters:

  • beggar
  • cop

Locations:

  • large U.S. city

Synopsis for "Blind Victory"


Appearing in "Blind Victory"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Colonel Von Kramm (wears a monocle)

Other Characters:

  • Herr Hendrickson (Dies)

Locations:

Vehicles:

Synopsis for "The Z Bomb Menace"

An explosion on Katung Island was felt around the world, and thought to be a volcano as the power of the blast was greater than any hydrogen bomb. It was the Z bomb, the diabolical work of Dr. Eric Z. Baroc, who created the new element Zonium and fused it with Plutonium and Krypton.

The Blackhawks were sent to Chile to investigate. They encountered a squad of Red agents, on a mission similar to their own, and were led to Baroc's Laboratory. The Doctor quickly turned his attackers against each other, and in the confusion, Baroc and his assistant Meers forced Blackhawk to fly them back to Katung Island. His plan was to blackmail the world, as he had the power to to destroy it. Destroy it he almost did, if Blackhawk hadn't overheard the weakness of Zonium to strong heat. Seconds away from annihilation, Blackhawk caught the ticking bomb in the exhaust of his jet and destroyed the Zonium, saving the world.

Appearing in "The Z Bomb Menace"

Featured Characters:

Antagonists:

  • Dr. Eric Z. Baroc (Apparent Death)
    • Meers, hench-scientist
  • Red commando squad

Locations:

Items:

Vehicles:

Notes

  • The Flying Cannon:
    • A mechanical drawing and some specifications for the Flying Cannon are provided on the splash page. The Flying Cannon is destroyed by its own inventor in a suicide crash.
    • Blackhawk quick-draws and shoots a pistol out of an assassin's hand, Lone Ranger style.
    • Viglandt is a fascist dictatorship, not a communist one. Viglandt declares war on Liberra, and attacks it with an advanced flying weapon, then is defeated and surrenders, all in less than two weeks. During that time, Blackhawk spends a week in the wilderness with an injured ankle.
    • In the fourth panel of the last page of the first story, Blackhawk addresses the black hawk as "Blackie." But in the last panel of that story, Blackhawk names the hawk "Jet."
  • This issue's Chop Chop story is reprinted from Blackhawk #47.
  • Blind Victory:
    • Hendrickson believes that his father died in a Nazi concentration camp. Radio East Germany reports that his father is still alive. It's a trap, but the old man IS still alive, until just before the end of the story, when his heart gives out.
    • Blackhawk goes blind from the up-close flare of a pistol shot, and remains blind for the next few weeks, then gets better. Being a Blackhawk is dangerous.
    • This is the first story to give Hendrickson a first name, Hans.
  • The Z-Bomb Menace:
    • Dr. Eric Z. Baroc discovered, or developed, a new element, "Zonium," and was able to fuse it together with plutonium and krypton, to create a nuclear explosive that was vastly more powerful than a hydrogen bomb. Development took place at Katung Island, in the Pacific Ocean, and testing was done in the Chilean Andes. According to one scientist, this bomb could knock the planet off its axis.
    • Dr. Baroc last appears in the 4th panel of the 7th page, being grabbed from behind by Hendrickson. Body positioning suggests that Hendy might be stabbing him, but we aren't shown a knife. But we also never see or hear Baroc again, and Hendrickson has killed many an enemy.
    • Baroc's assistant, Meers, and probably nobody else, knows how to produce more Zonium. Meers was still alive at the end of this story.
    • The Red commandos, in Chile, dress in Mao-style uniforms but don't look Chinese, or talk with goofy accents. Their nationality is not named.
    • Blackhawk and Andre both get head-konked unconscious in this story. This is Blackhawk's sixtieth concussion,[1] and Andre's seventeenth.[2] Being a Blackhawk is dangerous.
  • Also featured in this issue of Blackhawk was: "Bombs Away" (text story, featuring Blackhawk).



See Also


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