Issue No. 109
February 1957 The Avalanche King: A brilliant geologist goes over to the Commies and uses his knowledge to cause avalanches in the Andes to destroy South American defense projects. Blackhawk deduces his identity and tracks him down. The Blackhawks save his beautiful daughter's life, even though she is working with her father. When the evil scientist orders the Blackhawks death, she protests and then saves the Black Knights out of gratitude. The good guys capture the bad guy and all is well. I don't know if this is a fluke or a trend caused by the shift from Quality to DC, but the beautiful damsel turned good in this story. Blackhawk the Sorcerer: In a tropical storm, the Blackhawks seek shelter on an uncharted island. There they find refugees from the Norman invasion of England in 1066. The Normans are in charge with English slaves under their thumb. They capture Blackhawk and Andre, and mistake Blackhawk for a sorcerer when he uses a flashlight. He continues to generate "magic" by communicating with the rest of the team by belt radio. The team uses their jets to produce an eclipse of the moon, daylight at night and rain. The Normans are defeated and the English slaves freed. Aside from the completely improbable setup, a pretty good story.
The Raid on Blackhawk Island: Blackhawk relieves Chuck from guard duty at their Victory Museum, where they keep watch over the powerful and dangerous machines they have defeated in the past (who guards these machines when the whole team is off on missions is a mystery). The next thing we see is a message over the intercom. Blackhawk is being attacked by the Electronic Brain (first appearance in Issue 81). When they get to the museum, they find a pit in the floor and Blackhawk's cherished golden gun melted nearby. The team erects a monument to their fallen leader and vow to carry on in his name. Soon they are under attack by the War Wheel , the Flying Tank, and the Steel Octopus; all under the control of a costumed villain who calls himself the Question Mark. Chuck figures out the true identity of the Question Mark, Blackhawk himself. He was suspicious because the villain knew about their secret parachutes and heard their plans over their belt radios, but he was convinced when he recognized a special "caw" that Blackie only used for the chief. Blackhawk devised the scheme to test to find who could take over the team if something happened to him. The finding, that any and all of them could take command if needed. This story was reprinted in The Greatest 1950's Stories Ever Told, DC Comics, Inc., 1990. It identifies the artist as Charles Cuidera and the colorist as Tom Ziuko.
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