Page 22 - August 2018

Comic Flashback It was French, also an accomplished songwriter, who

infused the team with the quirky desire to sing
celebratory songs from their cockpits as they
swooped in and out of battle.

Quality Comics ceased operations with comics cover-
dated December 1956, with Blackhawk #107 being
the final issue published by Quality. The character
and title trademarks were initially leased on a royalty
basis to National Periodical Publications (now DC
Comics) before eventually being sold in their entirety.
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The Blackhawks debuted in August 1941 as the lead
feature in the first issue of Quality Comics' anthology
series Military Comics, billed as featuring "stories of the
Army and Navy." Viewed by Will Eisner as "a modern

version of the Robin Hood legend,"the team's first
appearance was co-written by Chuck Cuidera and Bob

Powell, with art by Cuidera. Although the exact nature of
Eisner, Cuidera, and Powell's individual contributions to
the creation of the Blackhawks will never be known, it is
confirmed that each performed some level of writing
duties at different times during the first eleven issues,
with Eisner working on early covers with Cuidera and
Cuidera providing interior artwork. When Cuidera joined
the armed services in 1942, Reed Crandall took over as
artist, beginning a long association with the characters
that would last until 1953. Jim Steranko has observed,
"Where Cuidera made Blackhawk a best-seller, Crandall
turned it into a classic, a work of major importance and (Click the poster to watch movie through YouTube)
lasting value." It was during Crandall's run that the series (1947)
hit its sales and popularity zenith. Seven struggle to survive aboard a raft after a U.S.
Army plane is forced down in the Pacific.
The Blackhawks' success earned them their own title in
Winter 1944. That issue, Blackhawk #9, picked up the
numbering of Quality's canceled Uncle Sam Quarterly.
They meanwhile continued to be featured prominently in
Military Comics, later renamed Modern Comics, until that
book's cancellation with #102 (October 1950).

During the Quality years, a whole host of well-respected
talent worked on the character, including writers Manly
Wade Wellman, Bill Woolfolk, Bill Finger, and Dick

French, as well as artists Al Bryant, Bill Ward, and Dick
Dillin.