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Blackhawks #1-8
Blackhawks, Vol. 1: The Great Leap Forward
As a part of DC Comics - The New 52 event of September 2011, welcome to a world waging a new kind of war that's faster and more brutal than ever before. It's fought by those who would make the innocent their targets, using computers, smart weapons and laser-guided missiles. The new enemy is hard to find - and closer to home than we think. Between us and them stand the Blackhawks, an elite force of military specialists equipped with the latest in cutting-edge hardware and vehicles. Their mission: Kill the bad guys before they kill us.But when the half the team ends up prisoners in the enemy's hands and the other half are incapacitated with injury, will DC's newest team of high-tech, black-ops military operatives be able to complete their mission?
192 pages, Paperback
First published November 27, 2012
7 people are currently reading
210 people want to read
About the author
Mike Costa
703 books31 followersMike Costa is an American comic book and television writer.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 49 reviews
July 31, 2014
Where to start....
Hmmm.
Who are the Blackhawks?
Ok, the Blackhawks are a super-duper secret agency made up of the best soldiers and computer geeks in the world.
Badass!
Except for the part where some kid with a cell phone and access to YouTube busts them in the first few panels.
Wait. So they're trained to do nothing but covert missions...and yet a pimply teenager manages to 'out' them?
Yep.
But you said they had the best hackers on the planet working for them, right?
Couldn't they somehow squash the video?
One would think so...but no.
Hmmm. Ok, well what exactly are they protecting the world from?
Too much technology from alien planets.
*???*
It would be really bad. They said so!
*???*
Moving on!
Beyond being the best, they also have the best. In fact, one of the benefits of snatching that deadly tech out of the general public's hands, is that they have access to it!
Which means that their Clubhouse is the coolest thing ever! And of course with all these advancements, plus all the badassery of the team members, this SECRET installation is impenetrable.
Really?!
No. Not really.
That place gets jacked so many times it's not funny.
In fact, after about the billionth time it gets penetrated, they end up having to just nuke it.
But wait, there's more!
Two words: Lady Blackhawk
Oh yeeeeah.
With name so original, you just know she's gonna be good!
Besides, she has an eye patch.
You mean...like a pirate or something?
No, silly! Like Nick Fury!
Well, if they have all this advanced technology, couldn't they...I don't know...stick some kind of cool spy-gadget eyeball in her empty socket?
No, silly! Like Nick Fury!
Yeah, but...nobody really wears eye patches anymore. And I would just think, if all the other people in the agency are getting limbs replaced 'n stuff, that she might want to take advantage of the superior medical facilities available to h...
No, silly! Like Nick Fury!
Alright, in all seriousness, this a readable story. It's just not very interesting or very believable. It wasn't the writing or the art, it was the concept. This was my first time reading about this team, so maybe there's a better incarnation of them out there somewhere?
I don't know.
This one was fairly forgettable and lame, in my opinion.
Hmmm.
Who are the Blackhawks?
Ok, the Blackhawks are a super-duper secret agency made up of the best soldiers and computer geeks in the world.
Badass!
Except for the part where some kid with a cell phone and access to YouTube busts them in the first few panels.
Wait. So they're trained to do nothing but covert missions...and yet a pimply teenager manages to 'out' them?
Yep.
But you said they had the best hackers on the planet working for them, right?
Couldn't they somehow squash the video?
One would think so...but no.
Hmmm. Ok, well what exactly are they protecting the world from?
Too much technology from alien planets.
*???*
It would be really bad. They said so!
*???*
Moving on!
Beyond being the best, they also have the best. In fact, one of the benefits of snatching that deadly tech out of the general public's hands, is that they have access to it!
Which means that their Clubhouse is the coolest thing ever! And of course with all these advancements, plus all the badassery of the team members, this SECRET installation is impenetrable.
Really?!
No. Not really.
That place gets jacked so many times it's not funny.
In fact, after about the billionth time it gets penetrated, they end up having to just nuke it.
But wait, there's more!
Two words: Lady Blackhawk
Oh yeeeeah.
With name so original, you just know she's gonna be good!
Besides, she has an eye patch.
You mean...like a pirate or something?
No, silly! Like Nick Fury!
Well, if they have all this advanced technology, couldn't they...I don't know...stick some kind of cool spy-gadget eyeball in her empty socket?
No, silly! Like Nick Fury!
Yeah, but...nobody really wears eye patches anymore. And I would just think, if all the other people in the agency are getting limbs replaced 'n stuff, that she might want to take advantage of the superior medical facilities available to h...
No, silly! Like Nick Fury!
Alright, in all seriousness, this a readable story. It's just not very interesting or very believable. It wasn't the writing or the art, it was the concept. This was my first time reading about this team, so maybe there's a better incarnation of them out there somewhere?
I don't know.
This one was fairly forgettable and lame, in my opinion.
January 29, 2013
I’ve read and reviewed so many “New 52” titles now, I’ve noticed that I’m making the same criticisms for the books that fail and feel that instead of going over them again there should be a label to describe them all in shorthand. “New 52-ed out”, “Fifty Poo”? The criticisms are thus: this is Volume 1 (of 1 - this series was rightfully cancelled) and yet there’s no intro for these characters or this series. New readers to Blackhawks (like me) will have no idea what this series is supposed to be about, who the characters are, what they stand for, what the story arc is - basically everything you would expect in an introductory book.
So instead it starts with lots of pointless explosions and shooting but instead of it being exciting I was taken out of the story by some of the stupidest action I’ve ever read in a comic book. Asian Girl (I can’t be bothered to look up any of these characters’ real names) jumps from a plane she sends crashing into a building, falling towards the sea. Someone in her earpiece helpfully tells her that at the speed she’s falling, the water’s surface tension will be like concrete, so she pulls out 2 handguns, fires at the water, and this somehow saves her!! Dumb dumb dumb.
The stories in the book involves their base being broken into over and over again by different people. On one occasion it’s a Guyver-like dude with lightsabers, another time it’s some kind of computer lady. I really can’t be bothered going into any more detail because Mike Costa, the writer, doesn’t really do anything worth mentioning, it’s all so bland and generic. This book reads like the comic book equivalent of a shrug. In one issue the Irish guy gets his arm cut off and in the next issue he’s magically grown it back. Nobody on the team has superpowers by the way so this is just narrative inconsistency and sheer laziness of storytelling. If the writer doesn’t care enough to keep the story straight, why should the reader care at all?
The characters suck, they all look like extras from better comics. In “Action Comics” when Superman’s evading the army, these dudes look like those soldiers in the background firing pointlessly at the Man of Steel. Who wants to read an entire book about these losers? Not I! Blackhawks is New Fifty-pooed out.
So instead it starts with lots of pointless explosions and shooting but instead of it being exciting I was taken out of the story by some of the stupidest action I’ve ever read in a comic book. Asian Girl (I can’t be bothered to look up any of these characters’ real names) jumps from a plane she sends crashing into a building, falling towards the sea. Someone in her earpiece helpfully tells her that at the speed she’s falling, the water’s surface tension will be like concrete, so she pulls out 2 handguns, fires at the water, and this somehow saves her!! Dumb dumb dumb.
The stories in the book involves their base being broken into over and over again by different people. On one occasion it’s a Guyver-like dude with lightsabers, another time it’s some kind of computer lady. I really can’t be bothered going into any more detail because Mike Costa, the writer, doesn’t really do anything worth mentioning, it’s all so bland and generic. This book reads like the comic book equivalent of a shrug. In one issue the Irish guy gets his arm cut off and in the next issue he’s magically grown it back. Nobody on the team has superpowers by the way so this is just narrative inconsistency and sheer laziness of storytelling. If the writer doesn’t care enough to keep the story straight, why should the reader care at all?
The characters suck, they all look like extras from better comics. In “Action Comics” when Superman’s evading the army, these dudes look like those soldiers in the background firing pointlessly at the Man of Steel. Who wants to read an entire book about these losers? Not I! Blackhawks is New Fifty-pooed out.
April 15, 2013
Weak story, unappealing art. Potential wasted.
April 10, 2015
Very interesting comic. Nanocites make me queasy. Nice to read about the Blackhawks.
March 18, 2017
Oprócz tego, że jako supertajna grupa onz walcząca z technoterroryzmem afiszuje się ze swoim logo a jej szef jest laikiem jeżeli chodzi o Internet, to są całkiem kompetentni.
Nanoboty, wszędzie nanoboty.
W serii wyróżnia się była japońska idolka, która w wojsku działa jak jednoosobowy szwadron kamikadze i wpina się do Sieci przez żyłę. No i rudy Irlandczyk, który jest Ukraińcem, do tego Kanada, który ciągle powtarza, że na to się nie pisał i jest tylko pilotem. Atylla i Wildman jakoś nie wystają poza swoje schematy brutalnego wschodnioeuropejskiego łotra i geeka od technologii w tej kolejności.
Nanoboty, wszędzie nanoboty.
W serii wyróżnia się była japońska idolka, która w wojsku działa jak jednoosobowy szwadron kamikadze i wpina się do Sieci przez żyłę. No i rudy Irlandczyk, który jest Ukraińcem, do tego Kanada, który ciągle powtarza, że na to się nie pisał i jest tylko pilotem. Atylla i Wildman jakoś nie wystają poza swoje schematy brutalnego wschodnioeuropejskiego łotra i geeka od technologii w tej kolejności.
December 11, 2018
Having recently completed a collection of all Mike Costa's G.I. Joe (Cobra) comics, I thought it would be interesting to finally read his DC New 52 Blackhawks series, which he was clearly brought in to write because of his Cobra comics. This is the first time I've read the whole eight issue run, and can now say it was better than I sometimes believed, and bittersweet that he didn't get to write more.
The best thing about Costa's Cobra comics was how he kept the tension rolling with the various moving pieces he'd set up, the lead characters and those who came and went along the way. He sets the character of Kunoichi up as his central character in The Great Leap Forward, a Blackhawks operative who ends up contaminated/enhanced by advanced nanotechnology, unsure of whether she's still in control of herself or been turned into an enemy agent.
Anyone who's read Costa's Cobra knows how familiar that sounds, and that's what I was always looking for, a link between the projects, because otherwise the storytelling is very different. Costa's Cobra was often about internal monologues and character studies, things that for the most part are absent from his Blackhawks. But it becomes easier to see what he was going for, because perhaps it's something he always wanted to do: write straight-out Joes comics. Being the "side project" Cobra guy at IDW, he rarely got to tell the story most fans were likely to be reading, no matter how much acclaim he won for his work (here at Goodreads you can tell how few actually read it by how few reviews they've garnered, and how few readers seem to have comprehended what Costa was doing).
So what would he've done with the keys to the main title? As it turns out, again, nothing hugely different, except spend most of his time writing the good guys rather than ambiguous good guys and the unambiguously bad. The bad guys in Blackhawks don't get a lot of focus. The good guys don't get a chance to be fully explored outside of a few.
Costa approaches his team very much as if readers are already familiar with them, as if he were writing G.I. Joe, the way he could just drop in familiar faces like Flint or Lady Jaye (as represented, perhaps, by Lincoln and Lady Blackhawk), so he can explore the big idea of the eponymous "great leap forward," the Blackhawks version of the machines turning on us. (Clearly someone at DC's New 52 era had a jones for this story; it also more or less cropped up in Swamp Thing and Superman comics.)
In terms of how this all reads, outside of my personal interests, I think one of the biggest problems readers will have is the instability in the art. Graham Nolan receives a different inker every issue he drew; CAFU looks best during a brief sequence where Kunoichi converses, inside her head, with her dead lover Wildman (one has the sense that had the series lasted longer we'd've seen more of this), but otherwise receives uninspired inking. Which is not to say that the art suffers terribly. The Irishman looks like a proper Wolverine-type with his mutton chops, so he's always a visual highlight, even if Wildman and Attila visually lack distinction and Canada looks like a regular joe (heh), too, even if he and Wildman have a nice arc in the collection.
I think it was a good call for Costa to be given this series, even if it meant DC didn't understand what made Costa special to begin with, and he didn't have the time to develop Blackhawks the way he had his Cobra comics. The potential evident in this collection strongly indicates that for all that, Costa still nailed it, in a familiar yet different way, which is fascinating to discover. There's no reason why Costa should have less of a reputation for the kind of storytelling he does so well than, say, Greg Rucka, whom he most closely resembles, not merely in depicting strong female characters but giving them compelling narratives to boot.
Because I imagine if a second collection had happened, Kunoichi would be the one front-and-center on the cover.
The best thing about Costa's Cobra comics was how he kept the tension rolling with the various moving pieces he'd set up, the lead characters and those who came and went along the way. He sets the character of Kunoichi up as his central character in The Great Leap Forward, a Blackhawks operative who ends up contaminated/enhanced by advanced nanotechnology, unsure of whether she's still in control of herself or been turned into an enemy agent.
Anyone who's read Costa's Cobra knows how familiar that sounds, and that's what I was always looking for, a link between the projects, because otherwise the storytelling is very different. Costa's Cobra was often about internal monologues and character studies, things that for the most part are absent from his Blackhawks. But it becomes easier to see what he was going for, because perhaps it's something he always wanted to do: write straight-out Joes comics. Being the "side project" Cobra guy at IDW, he rarely got to tell the story most fans were likely to be reading, no matter how much acclaim he won for his work (here at Goodreads you can tell how few actually read it by how few reviews they've garnered, and how few readers seem to have comprehended what Costa was doing).
So what would he've done with the keys to the main title? As it turns out, again, nothing hugely different, except spend most of his time writing the good guys rather than ambiguous good guys and the unambiguously bad. The bad guys in Blackhawks don't get a lot of focus. The good guys don't get a chance to be fully explored outside of a few.
Costa approaches his team very much as if readers are already familiar with them, as if he were writing G.I. Joe, the way he could just drop in familiar faces like Flint or Lady Jaye (as represented, perhaps, by Lincoln and Lady Blackhawk), so he can explore the big idea of the eponymous "great leap forward," the Blackhawks version of the machines turning on us. (Clearly someone at DC's New 52 era had a jones for this story; it also more or less cropped up in Swamp Thing and Superman comics.)
In terms of how this all reads, outside of my personal interests, I think one of the biggest problems readers will have is the instability in the art. Graham Nolan receives a different inker every issue he drew; CAFU looks best during a brief sequence where Kunoichi converses, inside her head, with her dead lover Wildman (one has the sense that had the series lasted longer we'd've seen more of this), but otherwise receives uninspired inking. Which is not to say that the art suffers terribly. The Irishman looks like a proper Wolverine-type with his mutton chops, so he's always a visual highlight, even if Wildman and Attila visually lack distinction and Canada looks like a regular joe (heh), too, even if he and Wildman have a nice arc in the collection.
I think it was a good call for Costa to be given this series, even if it meant DC didn't understand what made Costa special to begin with, and he didn't have the time to develop Blackhawks the way he had his Cobra comics. The potential evident in this collection strongly indicates that for all that, Costa still nailed it, in a familiar yet different way, which is fascinating to discover. There's no reason why Costa should have less of a reputation for the kind of storytelling he does so well than, say, Greg Rucka, whom he most closely resembles, not merely in depicting strong female characters but giving them compelling narratives to boot.
Because I imagine if a second collection had happened, Kunoichi would be the one front-and-center on the cover.
January 13, 2014
DC tries to revive the Blackhawk Squad as some sort of high-tech spec ops team for their New 52 reboot. The series was canceled after the initial 8 issue arc, which is a shame because even though these first 8 issues felt a little flat, the characters and group has potential in my eyes.
The 8 issue series is a little slow. The story is interesting enough, and is more of a military techno-thriller a la Tom Clancy, than a superhero comic. Don't worry though - there's enough superhero-ness to still fit with the epic nature of the DCU.
Decent art, eh story, short run of a D-level series that I have no prior attachment to; 2 stars.
The 8 issue series is a little slow. The story is interesting enough, and is more of a military techno-thriller a la Tom Clancy, than a superhero comic. Don't worry though - there's enough superhero-ness to still fit with the epic nature of the DCU.
Decent art, eh story, short run of a D-level series that I have no prior attachment to; 2 stars.
May 22, 2012
This book was generally pretty badly received which is a shame. The Blackhawks New 52 reboot sets them up as a secret government agency, along the lines of pre-New 52 Checkmate, which discreetly handles problems for the U.N. that the public JLI are too 'colorful' to take on. The characters were well developed and the plot rattled along, although a little too fast in the final issues but at least they had a chance to close off the ongoing Mother Machine story-arc. I hope we'll see the new Blackhawk's again at some point in the future.
April 25, 2013
This is one of the best of the New 52 books I've read. Which explains why this volume is all that was published. A strong action bent with lots of technology and nanocites makes for a rousing adventure. There was lots of room to grow with the story, although the eight issues included make a very complete story on their own. The main characters were fleshed out well, but a lot of the ancillary characters still had lots of room to grow. It's too bad the series wasn't given that chance.
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January 5, 2014Essentially Agents of SHIELD if it were a bit more Warren Ellis and had a limitless budget. Daring high-tech escapes as a team of elite human operatives face "threatening emergent technologies"! Severed limbs! Team members hooking up in defiance of workplace policy! Cameraphones! Plus, crucially, talking dogs. Like the Marvel TV show, alas, it is hampered by an indefinable absence of charisma in most of its leads.
May 7, 2019
This is basically Mike Costa bringing his G.I. Joe series over to DC for a self contained story with no impact on the overall DC universe. It would have been interesting to see how this integrated characters like Batman, Wonder Woman, or Superman down the road, but the series was unfortunately canceled with issue 8.
September 16, 2014
This book was awesome. Out of all the war based DC books in the New 52 this was far and beyond my favorite. Each character had a unique past and characteristics. It has a slight science fiction background with all the nano tech. I really wish this series did not get cancelled.
December 24, 2015
It's kind of remarkable that it only took 8 comics for me to go from pretty uninterested and having no idea what's going on to really enjoying and feeling invested in the characters and wishing the story continued. Well done. I hope some of these characters show up in some of the other DC comics.
June 14, 2023
wasn't that bad, but wasn't that great, either. i love this genre, so i would have liked for this book to have worked.
November 4, 2012
More like a giant and colossal leap backward! This completely destroyed any concept of the original comic book, and was pretty much completely pointless.
November 6, 2012
Disappointing, an OK story spoiled by totally changing who the blackhawks are. It could have been better, some of the characters were engaging.
June 22, 2014
Reads more like GI Joe than a DC property
November 7, 2019
Dzikus. Attyla. Kunoichi. Irlandczyk. Kanada.Lady Blackbird. I ich dowódca Andrew Lincoln. Razem tworzą tajną grupę do zadań specjalnych zwaną Blackhawks. Mimo, że nie są to jakoś znacznie rozpisane postacie to i tak ich przygody czytało mi się znośnie. Tym bardziej, że w świecie DC istniała jeszcze kiedyś jedna grupa. Team 7.
Rozpoczyna się dość niewinnie. Od odbicia zakładnik z rąk przestępców, którzy dysponują nadzwyczaj zaawansowaną technologią. Kunoichi zostaje wystawiona na działanie pewnej substancji w skład której wchodzą nanoboty, co będzie miało swoje konsekwencje potem. Mamy też okazję zobaczyć jak funkcjonuje Gniazdo, siedziba agencji. relacje pomiędzy bohaterami są jednak dość typowe. Dodatkowo zastajemy Agencję w czasie, gdy strona rządowa postanawia zwiększyć nadzór nad jednostką.
Wcześniejsza akcja była tylko wstępem. Grupa będzie musiała stawić czoła wysokozaawansowanej sztucznej inteligencji, tzw. Matce Maszynie, której celem jest... Skolonizowanie Ziemi. Przy tym fragmencie podobało mi się chyba najbardziej starcie z niejakim Tytusem, który także ma w swoim ciele nanoboty, które czynią go praktycznie niepokonanym przeciwnikiem. Dalej mamy zabawy w kosmosie, zagrożenie przetopieniem reaktora i nawet wystrzelenie z orbity pocisku ze specjalnej broni. O infiltracji i spaleniu kryjówki Blackhawks nie wspomnę, a to tylko ułamek atrakcji jakie nam tu przygotowano, przez co akcja gna na złamanie karku i nie nudzi. Przynajmniej na początku. Potem zaczyna być nieco gorzej.
Dobrze, że pierwszy i ostatni tom Blackhawks wygląda całkiem nieźle, choć miejscami kreska jest dość prosta, a historii zdarza się zahaczyć o takie fabularne klisze. Całość jednak jest na tyle sprawie zrobiona, że wypada mi tylko nieśmiało polecić omawianą pozycję. DC nie samymi Supermenami i Batmanami żyje.
Rozpoczyna się dość niewinnie. Od odbicia zakładnik z rąk przestępców, którzy dysponują nadzwyczaj zaawansowaną technologią. Kunoichi zostaje wystawiona na działanie pewnej substancji w skład której wchodzą nanoboty, co będzie miało swoje konsekwencje potem. Mamy też okazję zobaczyć jak funkcjonuje Gniazdo, siedziba agencji. relacje pomiędzy bohaterami są jednak dość typowe. Dodatkowo zastajemy Agencję w czasie, gdy strona rządowa postanawia zwiększyć nadzór nad jednostką.
Wcześniejsza akcja była tylko wstępem. Grupa będzie musiała stawić czoła wysokozaawansowanej sztucznej inteligencji, tzw. Matce Maszynie, której celem jest... Skolonizowanie Ziemi. Przy tym fragmencie podobało mi się chyba najbardziej starcie z niejakim Tytusem, który także ma w swoim ciele nanoboty, które czynią go praktycznie niepokonanym przeciwnikiem. Dalej mamy zabawy w kosmosie, zagrożenie przetopieniem reaktora i nawet wystrzelenie z orbity pocisku ze specjalnej broni. O infiltracji i spaleniu kryjówki Blackhawks nie wspomnę, a to tylko ułamek atrakcji jakie nam tu przygotowano, przez co akcja gna na złamanie karku i nie nudzi. Przynajmniej na początku. Potem zaczyna być nieco gorzej.
Dobrze, że pierwszy i ostatni tom Blackhawks wygląda całkiem nieźle, choć miejscami kreska jest dość prosta, a historii zdarza się zahaczyć o takie fabularne klisze. Całość jednak jest na tyle sprawie zrobiona, że wypada mi tylko nieśmiało polecić omawianą pozycję. DC nie samymi Supermenami i Batmanami żyje.
September 20, 2020
Se parece a la historia que escribí en su día de Euroforce para Marvel, allá por 1996.
En este caso —el de Blackhawks— creo que la idea general es buena. El fallo es que a pesar de ser ocho números, no hay una buena consolidación de personajes. Eso hace que la historia parezca errática y cueste seguir el hilo.
Al menos el primer o primer y segundo número deberían haber centrado la atención en la presentación del status quo de la serie: dónde están y quiénes son. Aquí esa acción se realiza de soslayo, por lo que hay una desubicación continua en el transcurso de la aventura global.
El dibujo es excelente. Muy adecuado para este tipo de historias.
Y respecto a referencias a los Blackhawks originales, están son la mínima expresión, guiños simpáticos para el lector veterano, pero ningún arco o subtrama sorprendente intrínsecamente ligado a números de años atrás.
No desaconsejo su lectura, pero requiere que demos bastante margen a la narrativa y seamos lectores benévolos para comprender la historia que se nos narra.
En este caso —el de Blackhawks— creo que la idea general es buena. El fallo es que a pesar de ser ocho números, no hay una buena consolidación de personajes. Eso hace que la historia parezca errática y cueste seguir el hilo.
Al menos el primer o primer y segundo número deberían haber centrado la atención en la presentación del status quo de la serie: dónde están y quiénes son. Aquí esa acción se realiza de soslayo, por lo que hay una desubicación continua en el transcurso de la aventura global.
El dibujo es excelente. Muy adecuado para este tipo de historias.
Y respecto a referencias a los Blackhawks originales, están son la mínima expresión, guiños simpáticos para el lector veterano, pero ningún arco o subtrama sorprendente intrínsecamente ligado a números de años atrás.
No desaconsejo su lectura, pero requiere que demos bastante margen a la narrativa y seamos lectores benévolos para comprender la historia que se nos narra.
July 15, 2020
Initially, I didn't have good impressions of this book based on all of the negative reviews I saw on this website. So it was a pleasant surprise to me to have actually enjoyed this book as much as I did. It was action-packed, filled with good artwork, (mostly) clever writing, and a neat premise. I thoroughly recommend reading it. No guarantees that others will find it as enjoyable as I did, but, like me, you could be pleasantly surprised as well.
I am not very familiar with the blue-coated, original version of the Blackhawks; but, I liked this modernised version. After reading this, I have a greater interest in exploring older Blackhawks comics as well as other New 52 comics of a similar vein.
I am not very familiar with the blue-coated, original version of the Blackhawks; but, I liked this modernised version. After reading this, I have a greater interest in exploring older Blackhawks comics as well as other New 52 comics of a similar vein.
February 16, 2025
This was like a meal of dry toast and water. Bland doesn't begin to describe the levels of boringness here. Author Mike Costa tells the story of a random military group who are ultra vague and wish they were GI Joe. Not a personality is to be found though. There is a lot of technobabble that isn't half as smart sounding as Costa envisioned. There was a couple of random, directionless antagonists that were terrible and won't be seen again. The craziest thing about this is it was part of DC's New 52. A brand new beginning designed to jump start the universe and bring in new readers and this was greenlit. Amazing. The art by a handful of pencillers was fine but they had nothing to work with. This was doomed from the jump. Overall, awful.
June 16, 2019
This isn't a bad comic, I guess, but I couldn't figure out why they called it Blackhawk or why they titled it as they did: I expected a "great leap forward" for the Blackhawks of the '40s or '60s or.... some kind of a leap for some kind of a Blackhawk (after all, Zinda Blake joined the Birds of Prey, right?), and felt rather misled when there was no leaping... or explaining... of any kind. It would have been okay as a G.I. Joe comic plot, and most of the art is quite enjoyable on the side of vibrant and colorful and action-packed, but it didn't work for me as a Blackhawks story.
October 11, 2021
The nanite infestation made for an interesting idea, but this version of the Blackhawks was so far removed from anything having to do with the others that it kept me from getting into the story past a certain point. Having one of the characters constantly say "I'm a pilot" did not help.
No secret agency puts it's logo on anything, it doesn't even have a logo! Ridiculous plot device to move the story in the direction the writer wanted.
Made for a nice, afternoon read though!
Find it. Buy it. Read it.
No secret agency puts it's logo on anything, it doesn't even have a logo! Ridiculous plot device to move the story in the direction the writer wanted.
Made for a nice, afternoon read though!
Find it. Buy it. Read it.
February 7, 2024
Starts off kind of rocky but then settles into a decent enough groove. It doesn't bear much resemblance to the Blackhawks of old which was mildly disappointing but Mike Costa does some okay world-building with this new team and concept and I genuinely would have liked to see it given an opportunity to grow and expand beyond its short eight-issue run but The New 52 was a strange animal and there was a lot of chaos and few of the smaller fringe books survived the first cull.
In summation, BLACKHAWKS is a not too shabby spy-fi adventure that was kind of fun while it lasted.
In summation, BLACKHAWKS is a not too shabby spy-fi adventure that was kind of fun while it lasted.
July 16, 2020
This is another sort of tired series that was part of the New 52 launch in 2011. The Blackhawks are a sort of independent military organization whose members have some limited powers. The general theme is that they're bad ass, but take on a powerful enemy who threatens to destroy their entire organization.
Meh.
Meh.
March 25, 2020
Takový divný příběh o megatajných agentech, kteří chrání svět před devastací z důvodu obdržení pokročilé technologie. Celkem hezká otázka z jednoho dílu. “Proč je nutné mít Blackhawks, když máme JLI.” A potažmo JL...
October 5, 2018
For a book about pilots, there wasn't that much flying. More like pre-New 52 Checkmate. Not bad, just not memorable.
February 16, 2020
Une série courte, correcte mais pas spécialement attachante.
April 7, 2020
I liked it, but Ididn't love it.
July 11, 2024
An alright mini-series. Wish there was more DC crossover.
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