Blackhawk is confusing

Blackhawk is a Quality Comics character that has a long and eventful publication history, with several different versions which aren't exactly the same.

History

Introduction

Blackhawk and his Squadron were pilots from several Allied and conquered nations during World War II, fighting a plethora of pirates and petty dictators. The main team is, in name and appearance, more or less the same in all versions. Members of his team have changed names and nationality several times. Characters have one gimmick but for the rest are stereotypes and catch phrases. The Blackhawk Squadron was active after the war as Blackhawk Airways, Blackhawk Express or Blackhawk Industries, or a combination thereof. Two villains named Killer Shark were mixed up. Timelines were altered in Zero Hour.

The core team

• Blackhawk (nameless, Bart Hawk or Janos Prohaska): an American, a Pole, an American of Polish extraction and a Pole again.
• Chuck (Chuck Wilson or Chuck Sirianni): an American, either from Texas or Hoboken, NJ.
• André (André Blanc-Dumont): French of the most stereotypical kind. Mustachioed ladies' man.
• Stanislaus (Stanislaus Drozdowski): a Pole. Instantly distinguishable from the other blonde, Olaf, in that he's a head taller.
• Hendrickson (Hans Hendrickson or Ritter Hendricken): a Dutchman with a German accent or a West German or a Dutchman again.
• Olaf (Olaf Bjornson or Olaf Friedriksen): a Norwegian, a Swede, or a Dane. It's hard to remember which flavor of Scandinavian says "by Jiminy" a lot.
• Chop-Chop (Liu Huang or Wu Cheng or Weng Chan): a Chinese fry cook.
  • Comic book stories from the 1940s may depict some ethnic and racial prejudices that were once commonplace in American society. Such depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. While not representing the DC Comics view of today's society, these stories are being indexed and summarized as they were originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.

Timeline

• 1941: Blackhawk of the Quality Universe is created by Will Eisner.^[1]
• 1953: Blackhawk's origin is re-told, in Blackhawk #71. His siblings, Jack and Connie, are now called Charlie and Sis. Hendrickson, formerly Dutch, is now German.
• 1955: Per Blackhawk #93, Blackhawk is American; Olaf is Swedish.
• 1957: As DC takes over Quality's stock, it continues publishing Blackhawk stories with Blackhawk #108. This version isn't firmly established as Earth-One until 1967.^[2]
• 1957: One story, "The Doomed Dogfight", presents a new continuity contradiction: somehow the Blackhawk team was not formed until 1944.^[3] This is consistent with the origin tale told later,^[4] which has the team first coming together for the D-Day invasion, but it is not consistent with the first origin.^[5]
• 1959: Introduction of Lady Blackhawk.^[6]
• 1967: The Blackhawks, after being reminded they're outdated as a concept, adopt ridiculous superhero names. That's everyone including Blackhawk, who got the code-name "Big Eye".^[2]
• 1973: Along with several other Quality Comics characters, Blackhawk is introduced on Earth-X.^[7] Later appearances establish he is originally from Earth-Two.^[8] This version of Blackhawk is Polish,^[9] as opposed to earlier versions, who were American.
• 1976: After being cancelled at #243 in 1968, the series is picked up again with the "New Blackhawk",^[10] only to be canceled again at #250. The Crisis on Infinite Earths: The Compendium states it took place on Earth-Thirty-Two, a repository for non-canon "Earth-One" stories.
• 1983: Mark Evanier picks up the series at #251, setting it in World War II and rewriting most history. This version of the team is now established as the Earth-One Blackhawks by an editorial comment on the letters page of #256. Chop-Chop's old origin^[11] is changed, and Lady Blackhawk is absent. The stories are mostly told via flashbacks, do not appear to be in chronological order, and give conflicting information regarding when they happened.^[12][13][14]
• 1988: Following the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Howard Chaykin takes the reins and starts with a fresh series. He gives many members new origins and names, and considerably more characterization. They are a World War II era team, with their last recorded adventure in 1951^[15]
• 1989: Blackhawk, the old Earth-Two version rather than the Chaykin version, is established as a Freedom Fighters member.^[16]
• 1991: Modern day Blackhawks - and an unnamed blonde female who's a dead ringer for Zinda Blake - make a couple appearances ferrying the Suicide Squad.^[17][18]
• 1994: Zero Hour reshuffles all of the above, seemingly at random.
  • The Chaykin team is largely written out of continuity when Zinda Blake, the original Lady Blackhawk, is plucked out of the timeline. Her subsequent appearances muddle things up even further.
  • With the exception of Blackhawk himself, who is a combination of Earth-One's Bart Hawk and Chaykin's Janos Prohaska, the team is the Evanier-era group, plus Zinda Blake. Unlike earlier versions, this Zinda was active with the Blackhawks during World War II^[19] up until at least 1950.^[20]
  • Legacy cameos muddle the post-war timeline, though the team seems to have been active until the formation of the Justice League,^[21] and Blackhawk himself was a member of the Silver Age Seven Soldiers of Victory.^[22]
• 2000: Despite not being around since before Zero Hour, Chuck Sirianni gets a mention.^[23]
• 2001: President Luthor forms his own, new Blackhawk Air Corps.^[24]
• 2011: As part of the New 52, the updated Blackhawks, the Blackhawk Program, is introduced.^[25]
• 2017: The Blackhawks are reintroduced, this time led by Kendra Saunders as Lady Blackhawk.

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