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[The Australian Panther]

I put this over here as it was getting a bit long.
I can't see it being a co- incidence that (born in or migrated to, the US.) all the Blackhawks, in their most well-known incarnation, were representative of occupied countries. The whole idea of an isolated air-force fighting in WW 2 has to have come from the fact that both the Polish and the Czech air forces (what was left of them) relocated to Britain and fought as independent groups under British Command.
Their stories need to be better known.
https://ww2gravestone.com/the-polish-air-force-in-wwii/
https://fcafa.com/2014/09/18/a-short-history-of-the-czechoslovak-air-force-in-ww2-and-the-post-war-period/
The fact that the book was created and published during the War is significant. As is the fact that the creators of comics were often first and second generation American's of European origin, some of whom were from occupied counties and likely had relatives there. In other words, it seems to me to be logical to think that the ethnicity was deliberate  and not co-incidental. 
At that time, these guys were not just telling fictional stories for the sake of it, the US was at War. That perspective is often ignored when considering the book.
Yes, it's correct that interest in aviation waned after the 'dawn of the space age'. I am of the opinion that the only way to properly revive the Blackhawks now would be to fast-forward them to the future and put them in space. Not going to happen though, after Steven Spielberg gets through with them.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/blackhawk-who-is-steven-spielbergs-dc-comics-team-1103610
The guy has a history with WWII era stories ( Indiana Jones, 1941, Schlinders List, Tin Tin) so lets see what he does.

Oh, and the names weren't zenophobic. [Re the Hollywood reporter] They may seem  zenophobic now but they weren't then. Can we stop post-dating political correctness?  They were of their time. When Kirby and Lee did the Howling Commandos, having a team of Americans of varied ethnic origins was seen as progressive. By today's 'standards',depicting a hillbilly, a trumpet-playing negro, an umbrella-carrying Englishman etc. would be seen as unacceptable stereotyping.  Blackhawk also shares the unique distinction of being just one of four comic book characters to be published continuously in his own title from the 1940s through the 1960s (the others being Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman). All of the changes DC has since made have not led to a new viable series.
In Australian Tradition, nicknames have ironic implications (influenced by cockney slang for one thing) I have  had  this scene in my head for years now:- 
Chop- chop  (depicted as a fit Chinese in his 20's) has a fight with a NAZI, uses Kung-Fu to beat the crap out of him, and them smiles and says, 'Chop-Chop!' 
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/chop-chop.html
Oh, and Blackhawk has never been for an audience of only American Readers.[Did somebody say Xenophobia? Unintended, I'm quite sure.No offense intended,-just sayin'. ] Like many American iconic comic characters (The Phantom, Flash Gordon, Mickey Mouse) the character was highly successful in foreign language versions. The Mexican version was 'El Halcon Negro' [Not noted on Wikipedia]
I think we have some on CB+ but I can't locate them right now.
http://www.ourworlds.net/blackhawk/international/int_mex.html
In the UK  Boardman Books licensed them and art director Denis McLoughlin created at least one story.
They were also highly popular in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.I would imagine that the spanish language books were also distributed outside Mexico.
This is probably the most thorough source on the Blackhawks.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Comicbook/Blackhawk

" "Hawkaaa! We are the Blackhawks!
Hawkaaa! We're on the wing!
Over land and over sea,
We will fight to make men free
And to ev'ry nation liberty we'll bring!

Hawkaaa! Follow the Blackhawks!
Hawkaaa! Shatter your chains!
Seven fearless men are we,
Give us death or liberty,
We are the Blackhawks,
Remember our name...."
-The Song of the Blackhawks

I'l go away and have a lie down now. 
   

[positronic1]

Blackhawks in space?  Seems like that particular window of opportunity closed long ago, and would be viewed as pure cheese by today's comic book readers. Besides which, it's already been done -- Arnold Drake created "Blackhawks in space" for Marvel in 1968, but he called it Guardians of the Galaxy, only instead of the Nazis it was the alien Badoon, and the "occupied nations" included Jupiter (Charlie 27), Pluto (Martinex), and Alpha Centauri (Yondu). Naturally the leader of the group was an American Earthman (Vance Astro), though.

You seem to have missed my point that "all the Blackhawks, in their most well-known incarnation, were representative of occupied countries" was spoiled very early on, with the introduction of (overtly) American Chuck. Eisner seemed to be a little more involved in the story from MILITARY #1, and may have had certain ideas along certain lines which never crystallized in the actual evolution of the feature's development under diverse hands -- the early feature took quite some time to nail down some basic ideas about the team that hadn't been well thought-out from the very beginning. It does seem like the original idea was that Blackhawk was intended to be Polish, but they were strangely non-committal on that point in any definite way; the fact that the fairly early inclusion of Chuck seemed to be rectifying some great oversight (an American comic book feature with NO Americans in it?) lends credence to that theory, but despite welcoming Chuck on board, there was no further definite confirmation of Blackhawk's presumed Polish-ness. The text feature origin from BLACKHAWK #50 managed to address a lot of questions about the Blackhawks' background details to which the answers had previously seemed sketchy at best, while never actually contradicting anything from the original origin story in MILITARY #1. In fact, it sidesteps that origin story nearly altogether, only obliquely referencing it in the first paragraph.

Sure Blackhawk was successfully exported to an international audience -- as were dozens of other American comic features... that's pretty much what we do, because we're the ultimate capitalists. Nothing I'm particularly proud of, BTW, but it is what it is, whether what we're selling is comic book features or cruise missiles. We'd sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, if we thought there was a way we could convince you we could ship it to your home country. Besides, it seems implied in the strip that Grumman Aviation had no qualms about selling its military aircraft to a potentially dubious paramilitary squadron whose leader's true identity was unknown. And just perhaps (maybe) Blackhawk was more accessible to readers outside the U.S. by nature of the fact that the team was multi-national in origin. That doesn't change the fact that the primary audience, the audience that the that the stories were being written and drawn for, was Americans -- whether at home, or on overseas duty in the armed services. Clearly, the strip wasn't being coldly calculated in its design by an overt consciousness regarding the feature's marketability internationally (unless they just decided to rule out any potential Chinese readers from the start). Maybe EISNER had some thoughts along those lines, but it's a moot point since he barely had time to launch the feature before he was drafted to create a new comic-book insert section for newspapers that became THE SPIRIT. GIANT-SIZE X-MEN of the 1970s was a deliberate U.S. publisher's attempt at marketing comics internationally, but not Blackhawk, the product of an American comic book industry that was still in its infancy. It's probably unknowable after all this time how a French, Dutch, Polish or Swedish reader contemporary to that time would have reacted to Andre, Hendrickson, Stanislaus, or Olaf -- but we can be pretty sure that the number of those readers was minimal, circumstances being what they were during the war. Those characters certainly were not included in the line-up in an attempt at reader identification for people of those same nationalities. BUT there were certainly plenty of American readers of French, Dutch/German, Polish or Swedish ancestry -- the writers and artists contributing to Blackhawk numbered among them.

I never wrote anything about the Blackhawks' names being xenophobic; I'm not sure where you got that idea. Although strictly on observation of Chop Chop alone, it would seem the creators of Blackhawk gave nary a passing thought to the reaction of Chinese-American readers, of which there would seem to have been a significant potential percentage. Yes, we all understand the context of the times, but that shouldn't mean we all have to turn our heads, roll our eyeballs, whistle a little tune and say "Nice weather we're having, isn't it?" out of some sense of embarrassment regarding pointing to it and calling it what it is. In other words, "the context of the times" may explain it, but it doesn't excuse it. The other Blackhawks are relatively subdued stereotypes by comparison, their names seemingly chosen only to clearly announce their nationality by means of a kind of shorthand -- they seem if anything, less "character types" than the soldiers of Easy Company or the Howling Commandos.

[bowers]

Good points made by both of you. Blackhawk was one of my earliest and most consistent favorites. The only issue I ever had with this comic was the bad joke Chaykin played on us in his reboot. He gave Blackhawk a name, Janos Prohaska. Did he really think nobody would recognize that name? For the unenlightened, Janos Prohaska was a famous movie and TV stuntman, specializing in wearing animal and monster suits. If you saw a gorilla on screen or TV in the '60s, it was most probably Prohaska! Howie, how could you? Cheers, Bowers

[positronic1]

Good points made by both of you. Blackhawk was one of my earliest and most consistent favorites. The only issue I ever had with this comic was the bad joke Chaykin played on us in his reboot. He gave Blackhawk a name, Janos Prohaska. Did he really think nobody would recognize that name? For the unenlightened, Janos Prohaska was a famous movie and TV stuntman, specializing in wearing animal and monster suits. If you saw a gorilla on screen or TV in the '60s, it was most probably Prohaska! Howie, how could you? Cheers, Bowers

Prohaska was the suitmation guy used in most of the Outer Limits episodes. He also played the alien Horta in the classic Trek episode "Devil in the Dark".

[Edge]

I put this over here as it was getting a bit long.
I can't see it being a co- incidence that (born in or migrated to, the US.) all the Blackhawks, in their most well-known incarnation, were representative of occupied countries. The whole idea of an isolated air-force fighting in WW 2 has to have come from the fact that both the Polish and the Czech air forces (what was left of them) relocated to Britain and fought as independent groups under British Command.
Their stories need to be better known.
https://ww2gravestone.com/the-polish-air-force-in-wwii/
https://fcafa.com/2014/09/18/a-short-history-of-the-czechoslovak-air-force-in-ww2-and-the-post-war-period/
The fact that the book was created and published during the War is significant. As is the fact that the creators of comics were often first and second generation American's of European origin, some of whom were from occupied counties and likely had relatives there. In other words, it seems to me to be logical to think that the ethnicity was deliberate  and not co-incidental. 
At that time, these guys were not just telling fictional stories for the sake of it, the US was at War. That perspective is often ignored when considering the book.
Yes, it's correct that interest in aviation waned after the 'dawn of the space age'. I am of the opinion that the only way to properly revive the Blackhawks now would be to fast-forward them to the future and put them in space. Not going to happen though, after Steven Spielberg gets through with them.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/blackhawk-who-is-steven-spielbergs-dc-comics-team-1103610
The guy has a history with WWII era stories ( Indiana Jones, 1941, Schlinders List, Tin Tin) so lets see what he does.

Oh, and the names weren't zenophobic. [Re the Hollywood reporter] They may seem  zenophobic now but they weren't then. Can we stop post-dating political correctness?  They were of their time. When Kirby and Lee did the Howling Commandos, having a team of Americans of varied ethnic origins was seen as progressive. By today's 'standards',depicting a hillbilly, a trumpet-playing negro, an umbrella-carrying Englishman etc. would be seen as unacceptable stereotyping.  Blackhawk also shares the unique distinction of being just one of four comic book characters to be published continuously in his own title from the 1940s through the 1960s (the others being Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman). All of the changes DC has since made have not led to a new viable series.
In Australian Tradition, nicknames have ironic implications (influenced by cockney slang for one thing) I have  had  this scene in my head for years now:- 
Chop- chop  (depicted as a fit Chinese in his 20's) has a fight with a NAZI, uses Kung-Fu to beat the crap out of him, and them smiles and says, 'Chop-Chop!' 
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/chop-chop.html
Oh, and Blackhawk has never been for an audience of only American Readers.[Did somebody say Xenophobia? Unintended, I'm quite sure.No offense intended,-just sayin'. ] Like many American iconic comic characters (The Phantom, Flash Gordon, Mickey Mouse) the character was highly successful in foreign language versions. The Mexican version was 'El Halcon Negro' [Not noted on Wikipedia]
I think we have some on CB+ but I can't locate them right now.
http://www.ourworlds.net/blackhawk/international/int_mex.html
In the UK  Boardman Books licensed them and art director Denis McLoughlin created at least one story.
They were also highly popular in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.I would imagine that the spanish language books were also distributed outside Mexico.
This is probably the most thorough source on the Blackhawks.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Comicbook/Blackhawk

" "Hawkaaa! We are the Blackhawks!
Hawkaaa! We're on the wing!
Over land and over sea,
We will fight to make men free
And to ev'ry nation liberty we'll bring!

Hawkaaa! Follow the Blackhawks!
Hawkaaa! Shatter your chains!
Seven fearless men are we,
Give us death or liberty,
We are the Blackhawks,
Remember our name...."
-The Song of the Blackhawks

I'l go away and have a lie down now. 

[Edge]

If interested in possible inspirations for Blackhawk; you might want to check out the Koscusko Squadron circa 1i919-1921. Now heres an international squadron [so the story goes. founded by an American that piloted bombers in WW1] . I'd put down some names; but dont type fast enough to handle those longish Russian
monickers. The Turkish ones are really tough. By the way, the Poles won that one [Soviet Polish War]. Gave Stalins plans for Europe quite a setback.                                   

[The Australian Panther]

Edge, well researched.
Little know fact outside of Australia.

Mount Kosciuszko (KOZ-ee-OS-koh / ˌ k ɒ z i ˈ ɒ s k oʊ /;  previously spelled Mount Kosciusko, is mainland Australia's highest mountain, at 2,228 metres (7,310 ft) above sea level.It is located on the Main Range of the Snowy Mountains in Kosciuszko National Park, part of the Australian Alps National Parks and Reserves, in New South Wales, Australia.
On 12 March 1840, scientist and explorer Paul Strzelecki climbed the peak we now know as Kosciuszko. A native of Poland, he named it after a Polish general and military hero, Tadeusz Kosciuszko.

Who was Kosciuszka?

the name of the highest peak, the creek and one of the largest of Australia?s National Parks is associated with the natural features rather than with the person of an outstanding man ? the world-famous man who was placed beside Washington and Garibaldi as one of the greatest men of his epoch. Later, we would compare him with Gandhi. 

More here.
http://mtkosciuszko.org.au/english/who-was-kosciuszko.htm
Story of the Koscusko Squadron? Sounds like an idea for a comic.Or a Movie.
Some surprises with that one too.
From Wikipedia

The Kościuszko Squadron was a Polish Air Force fighter squadron established in late 1919 by Merian C. Cooper, an American aviator who would go on to direct the film King Kong in 1933. The unit was named after Tadeusz Kościuszko. Its insignia was designed by Elliot William Chess (1899?1962), an American pilot serving with the Polish Army during the Polish?Soviet War. To encourage the recruitment of Americans of Polish descent, the Polish military set up a unit called the Polish?American Air Group.
First formed after Poland regained independence following World War I, it consisted of a small group of American volunteers independent of the United States State Department or the American Expeditionary Forces[2] The fliers came from a number of militaries. Members included Ludomił Rayski (commander and of the Turkish Air Force), Jerzy Weber (of the Imperial Russian Air Service), Wladyslaw Konopka, Aleksander Seńkowski (of the Austrian Air Service), and Ludwik Idzikowski (of the Imperial Russian Air Service).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ko%C5%9Bciuszko%27s_Squadron
Whoda thunk it?
So even that had a mulit-ethnic origin. Clearly had to be an inspiration for the Blackhawks. 
Thank you Edge! Well spotted!
Another Air war group made for a film, or comic would be the Lafayette Escadrille,
squadron of American pilots serving with the French Air force in WW1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_Escadrille
   
Cheers!

[profh0011]

In Ernst Lubitsch's "TO BE OR NOT TO BE" (1942), Robert Stack played a Polish bomber pilot, Stanislav Sobinski, whose entire squadron was operating out of England.

The movie came out maybe half a year after the debut of BLACKHAWK in the comics.

Personally, MY favorite version of BLACKHAWK was the "Earth-1" series in the early 1980s by Mark Evanier & (mostly) Dan Spiegle.

Nothing done "Post-Crisis" ever impressed me as much.

[The Australian Panther]

To be or not to be was remade by Mel Brooks. He loves making monkeys out of NAZIs. One of his best, in my opinion. Then again, the original had Jack Benny. In a very untypical role.   
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086450/
Then again, Mel Brooks could have written this scene.
To Be or Not To Be ? "Heil Myself"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9rQMheu2Tg    
I have seen this, but not the original.
In Mels version, 'Lt. Andre Sobinski' is played by Tim Matheson. 

MY favourite version of BLACKHAWK was the "Earth-1" series in the early 1980s by Mark Evanier & (mostly) Dan Spiegle.
Agreed. 

There have been a number of movies about the Polish Air force operating out of Britain in WWII. This is one of the best. Whole Movie is on YouTube.
Movie Hurricane 2018 Movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYXFNR-YWO4

Enjoy!



We agree.

[The Australian Panther]

I seem to have the bad habit of launching threads off into unintended directions.
Here's Tim Matheson on voicing Jonny Quest for the TV show.
[[2009, on Jonny Quest (1964)] That was one of the most fun things I ever did, and I gotta tell you, I worked with some of the best actors I've ever worked with: Mel Blanc and Don Messick. They could play a scene against themselves. Think of the characters that Mel created, and they're as good or better than any performance anyone has ever given. I mean: Daffy Duck! Think of the specific voice Mel gave Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny or Porky Pig... It's just astonishing. When I did Jonny Quest, I was in that gawky stage between kid and adult. I wasn't working much. So I focused on studying, and I really learned what it means to be an actor. And here I was on Jonny Quest,working with all these great people from back in the golden age of Hollywood, who came up doing radio. These were journeymen, working actors. It made me proud, and gave me some insight into what acting was really about if you weren't a star. Though you know, they used to send a car for Mel and Don every day. Don lived up here in Santa Barbara. They would drive him down and he would go from studio to studio and job to job all day long. Then the limo would drive him home at night, because he was such a valuable commodity. Mel was equally as talented or even better. It was a great education.]
Never did watch that back in the day, I was just a bit to old to watch afternoon kids cartoons. Or probably I was working by that time. 
Looks like I'm going to have to go look for and at it.
Cheers! 

[profh0011]

JONNY QUEST was done for PRIME TIME. It originally ran Fridays at 7:30.  To this day, I consider it the single best thing Hanna-Barbera ever did.

Infuriatingly, it was cancelled after one season despite HIGH RATINGS.  Someone at ABC decided it was 'too expensive".  (This was the exact same thing ABC did with "BATTLESTAR GALACTICA").  So they ran the same episodes 2 years in a row (that would be 4 times).  Over the years that followed, all 3 networks re-ran the show.

In the 70s, whoever was re-running it BUTCHERED it terribly.  The entire first half of the opening credits was missing every week.  Any scenes of obvious violence were cut.  In "The Curse Of Anubis", insanely, every single shot of The Mummy was MISSING.  (When I saw that, I wondered, was this a sequel or something?)  Sereral entire episodes ("The Invisible Monster", "Terror Island") were simply NOT run at all. 

It was such a relief when the show turned up on USA Network in the 80s, UNCUT.  Even more so when Cartoon Network ran it as part of a block of "Boomerang" late late on Saturday nights (I mean 3 IN THE MORNING), as they not only had only ONE commercial break in the middle, making it easier to record off the air, but, they ran NOTICABLY-cleaner prints.



The Jack Benny film is INFINITELY better than the Mel Brooks film.  Among other things, it MOVES.  You have to pay attention.  More than once, they jump from one scene to another, and you have to be quick to pick up what went on in between.  Mel's film adds multiple linking sequences that weren't in the original, apparently trying to spell everything out for audiences with no attention span.

Also, the acting is far better across the board in the original.  The last time I watched the Brooks film, I was surprised that EVEN Charles Durning did not measure up to Sig Rumman.

Something I always thought was interesting (and to me, could not have been a coincidence), Tim Matheson played Robert Stack's assistant in "1941", and then a couple years later, played Robert Stack's part in the "TO BE OR NOT TO BE" remake.  When I ran the film for my Dad, I had a fairly BAD print off of PBS.  During our food break in the middle, I had to tell Dad who played the pilot. He DIDN'T RECOGNIZE one of his favorite actors!

[Edge]

www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/the-french-russian-connection-8043795/                               How about these guys? Even could have a romantic connection with the "Night Witches"........Hmm. that sounds  a little like my favorite Backhawk. Read it in the original copy in from 1943.

[Edge]

About U.S. comic exports....Did'ya ever run across this one?  "Terry and the Pirates"[the newspaper strip] was published in Japan before The Pacific War got under way. As Milton Caniff wrote it; the Japanese Army was identified as "The Invaders" to keep everything cool. Needless to say, the strip wasn't published in Japan during the war.