Issue No. 113
June 1957
The Volunteers of Doom - A team of scientists who have invented fantastically dangerous weapons ask the Blackhawks to test them. Riga, a crimanal chief, has learned of the tests and has one of his men sabotage two of the devices. Piloting the "sea saucer," Andre hits a whale and the saucer plunges beneath the waves. The rest of the team rescues him, but did the saucer fail because of the sabotage or just bad luck? Next, Hendrickson steers a high-speed boring machine underground until the engine explodes. The team uses the exhausts from their jets to blow Hendy back to the surface. Stanislaus takes a ride in a "human shell," fired from an artillery piece. The chute that is supposed to lower him to the ground fails and he improvises a chute from his coat lands safely in the water. After this string of "accidents," Blackhawk himself takes up the next invention, a flying magnent that is supposed to snatch the weapons from soldiers hands as it flies above the battlefield. The gang has fastened vials of nitro to the dummie weapons in the test, but Blackhawk fools them and "reversed the electrodes and sent waves of electrical energy down, to detonate the explosives." As usual, the writers demonstrate a lack of scientific knowledge and confuse electrical energy with magnetic force.
The Saboteur of Blackhawk Island - A remotely piloted plane brings a group of reporters to Blackhawk Island for a tour. One of them is Chick Evans, a former member of Killer Shark's gang but now reformed. He tells the Blackhawks about a reward for anyone who can destroy Blackhawk Island. After the reporters leave, mysterious explosions start destroying installations on the island. They suspect Chick but radio the plane and learn that he has fallen out in a freak accident, apparently to his death. Blackhawk gets paranoid and even suspects the members of the team. The sabotage always happens at exactly the same time of day. Eventually, they discover that a robot from their museum is being activated by the radiation from a nuclear sub that has been passing the island each day at 4:00 PM. And Chick was rescued from the sea by the Navy.
The Cellblock in the Sky - Mr. Gaol, following in his family's long tradition of penology, designs an escape-proof prison. When his life-work is rejected by the authorities, he goes loony and decides to prove his ability by designing cells even the Blackhawks can't escape. Now costumed as The Jailer, he builds cells designed for different environments. Andre is sunk in a cell beneath the sea. Olaf is placed in a cell that borrows beneath the ground (curiously, the drill is on the top of the cell but it sinks into the earth anyway). He makes a deal with Blackhawk to release them if Blackhawk will voluntarily enter a flying satellite cell, that is suspended in midair by a "repello" ray. The Jailer reneges on the deal and the remaining team members can't rescue Blackhawk because the repello ray will melt their jets. But Chuck flips Blackhawk a wire with which he shorts the repello ray to the lock on the cell, exploding it. He leaps free to land on Chuck's plane. They land and capture The Jailer, saving Andre and Olaf.
Thanks to David Chapman for submitting the cover for this issue.
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