Military Comics Issue No. 1
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August 1941
Writer: Will Eisner and Bob Powell, Artist: Chuck Cuidera (Cover art by Eisner and Gil Fox)
Poland, 1939 -- the Germans have invaded and the generic fighters of Captain Von Tepp's infamous "Butcher Squadron" are systematically gunning down what appears to be a squadron of PZL P-50a Jastrzab fighters (even though only a few of these aircraft had come off the production lines and only two actually made it into combat). Only one of the Polish aviators escapes, a masterful pilot in a jet black airplane who is shot down only after taking more than his share of Butchers with him. He crashes in one of those common, generally harmless "pancake" landings. Von Tepp, seeing the pilot escape from his crashed plane, swoops down and tries to bomb him but hits a near by farm house instead. By unbelievable chance, the pilot's brother and sister are in the farm house. He rushes there to find his sister, Connie, dead and his brother, Jack, dying (no explanation for these un-Polish names is provided). As he carries his dying brother from the building, the pilot swears vengeance against Von Tepp. Months pass and news trickles back to occupied Europe that someone calling himself Blackhawk has begun flying and fighting out of a remote island somewhere in the Atlantic. Von Tepp is about to execute a beautiful Red Cross nurse named Anne when Blackhawk and a small army come to the rescue. They quickly overpower the Nazis and when Von Tepp makes a cowardly retreat, Nurse Anne trips him. Blackhawk takes everyone back to his secret island base in what appear to be several B-17 bombers. Blackhawk challenges Von Tepp to an aerial duel, he in his PZL P-50a and the German in a generic inline-engined fighter. Blackhawk defeats Von Tepp in the air but because the Nazi had sabotaged Blackhawk's fuel system before they took off, the fight nearly ends in a tie. But Blackhawk manages to crash next to Von Tepp's wreck, were he finishes the job on the ground, mano a mano. Anne nurses the wounded Blackhawk back to health.
(Editor's Note: This story is reprinted in Blackhawk #7.)
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