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Military Comics Issue No. 14
December 1942
Writer: Bill Woolfolk, Artist: Reed Crandall (Cover art by Crandall)
Tondeleyo - The story opens with Germany's top ace, Hans Oberst, leaving the party celebrating his victories. His friends hear a gun shot and find him dead at his own hand, with a white rose on his chest. A note says he never knew the meaning of fear before, but now he can not even look at a plane. The scene changes to a Nazi aerodrome. Blackhawk lands, beats up a bunch of Nazi soldiers and leaves a note challenging Oberst to a duel. The Nazi commander realizes that Blackhawk does not know that Oberst is dead and decides to use the challenge to lay a trap for the Blackhawks. When Blackhawk returns to Blackhawk Island, he finds an incredibly beautiful woman (exceptionally well drawn by Crandall) who looks vaguely Polynesian and is wearing a sarong. She is surrounded by the attentive Black Knights who tell Blackhawk they don't know how she got there. They just walked in and there she was. She has white roses in her hair. She says her name is Tondeleyo, and that "I like it here! I have no other place to go." To which Blackhawk replies "er..just a minute. I'll talk to my friends." They decide to let her stay, even though she is causing obvious disruption to their normal operations. When the challenge is answered all the Blackhawks fly off to meet it, except Hendrickson who pleads illness. He is really under the spell of Tondeleyo and is feeling fear. Chop Chop wants to fly Hendy's plane but Blackhawk tells him to "go away." Of course, it is a trap and instead of a one on one duel, the Blackhawks find themselves surrounded by hundreds of Nazi planes. A terrific dogfight (excitingly depicted by Crandall) rages across the sky. Blackhawk radios to "break formation, every man for himself," which is not the right move in their situation since they will not be able to provide each other covering fire, but the writer apparently didn't think of that. Blackhawk sees one of his planes going down and shoots off the Nazi fighter on its tail. It crashes and it's Chop Chop at the controls. Blackhawk rescues Chop and they all escape back to Blackhawk Island where they arrive just in time to stop Hendrickson from putting a bullet in his head. They don't make the connection to Tondeleyo and over the next few days she brings them all under her power. When German heavy bombers strike at Blackhawk Island (so much for its "secret" location) the Black Knights are all too afraid to go up and fight them. Through sheer will power, Blackhawk overcomes Tondeleyo's spell and takes off to fight the bombers. Chop Chop (who apparently was ignored by Tondeleyo as not worth her concern) chides and shames the other Blackhawks into following their leader. Tondeleyo stops them at the door and almost rekindles her fear spell, until they see Blackhawk, who has run out of ammunition, crash his plane into a bomber. They all take off and wipe out the Nazi bomber force. Meanwhile, Chop Chop has his big knife and is about to put a permanent end to Tondeleyo when a torn and ragged Blackhawk, who has somehow survived the crash, stumbles in and stops him. Blackhawk tells Tonelelyo to leave and as she runs away a falling Nazi bomber kills her, or does it. As Blackhawk says in the last panel, "She was evil. Who can say when evil really dies?"
Other stories in this issue:
• The Sniper
• Blue Tracer
• Johnny Doughboy (one pager)
• The Phantom Clipper
• Private Dogtag
• Text story: Bill Hatch...Hero
• Shot and Shell
• Secret War News: Lifeline to the East
• The Pacific Patrol (one pager)
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