Blackhawk: Blood & Iron

Blackhawk collected editions

by Howard Chaykin

The leader of the international squad of aviators called The Blackhawks -- Polish pilot Janos Prohaska, himself called Blackhawk -- is on American soil and in trouble. Accused of Communist leanings, he stumbles across a plot to overthrow the U.S. government and bomb New York City being concocted by former Nazis out for revenge. As he struggles to stop them and clear his name, he runs afoul of a beautiful Russian scientist and reunites in battle with his international comrades.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Comic Book, War, Dc Comics, Graphic Novels Comics, Aviation

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Howard Victor Chaykin is an American comic book artist and writer. Chaykin's influences include his one-time employer and mentor, Gil Kane, and the mid-20th century illustrators Robert Fawcett and Al Parker.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of this book is a collection of Blackhawks: Blood & Iron by Howard Chaykin from 1988. Chaykin's art from this period is superb. It's the reason to check it out. The story is obtuse and hard to follow, with too many subplots and characters. A lot of the period dialogue was hard to understand as well. Where the book really shines is the 8 page serialized Blackhawks strips from Action Comics by Martin Pasko, Mike Grell, and Rick Burchett that make up the second half of the collection. The stories take place shortly after World War II in southeast Asia. They very much have an Indiana Jones feel to them. Burchett's art is top notch. I really like how his art looked before he dipped into the animation style of Batman: The Animated Series. You can see where Eduardo Risso was heavily influenced by it.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting take on the Blackhawk team that is decidedly post-Crisis in its portrayal of not only Blackhawk but his team. That's not a bad thing, and I hope DC has plans to publish the ongoing series that spun out of these stories. But I also hope that DC will reprint the vastly underrated and deserving-of-publication BLACKHAWK series by Mark Evanier and Dan Spiegle that ran from 1982-1984.

[Joe Lunday · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classic Chaykin artwork in this '87-'88 revision of Blackhawk. Like a lot of late '80s 'prestige' works (this was published in what DC at the time called the Prestige Format - 48 pages, stiff covers, a spine, no ads, glossy paper with full color reproduction), Chaykin's Blackhawk adds sophisticated revisions to the preexisting mythology, bringing to bear his knowledge of 20th century geopolitics. The story itself is a bit confusing, as it involves fifth columnists in all three of the major WWII allied countries, and Chaykin relies on extended dialogue, often in a stylized fake-cyrillic, to show you what's happening. Note that the book edition listed here on Goodreads does not actually exist - DC never anthologized this mini series in trade form. An edition was on the schedule in 2009, but was cancelled and not published. It deserves to be reprinted.

[Nate]

The first half of this book is the Blood and Iron miniseries by Howard Chaykin from 1987. Great art aside, I didn’t really engage with the story. Chaykin’s writing doesn’t do it for me and I was bored. The second half collects the Action Comics Weekly Blackhawk stories that followed Blood and Iron, mostly illustrated by Rick Burchett. I liked these much better because the writing is stronger and the stories themselves are fun, Indiana Jones-style adventures. Mike Grell’s was my favorite but the one about LSD was also a hoot. Overall, this is a decent collection, but the weekly stories are much more fun and readable than the titular series. At least in my opinion, i.e. someone who has no nostalgia for these comics.

[Garrett · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh this comic is desperately trying to be The Dark Knight Returns as seen in the first few pages. Not really worth the read

[Greg D'Avis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great treatment for two of my all-time favorite artists, Chaykin and Burchett. The stories are a mixed bag; think the original series holds up, the subsequent serials are fairly disposable. I remember the Pasko/Burchett series that followed this being pretty good for a while; wouldn’t mind seeing that get a nice collection as well.

[Billy Hogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book collects Howard Chaykin's excellent Blood & Iron Blackhawk miniseries, as well as the Blackhawk stories from the Action Comics Weekly anthology series. The only thing that would have made it better would have been to include the short-lived but very underrated Blackhawk series that followed.

[Mark Schlatter · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this in preparation for a chapter of Brannon Costello's Neon Visions: The Comics of Howard Chaykin. While I liked the Chaykin art (in particular, some of the iconography), the story did very little for me. I've never been a reader of the Blackhawk comics, and Chaykin's dense dialogue and lack of scene introduction left me regularly confused.

[ComicNerdSam · Rating 2 out of 5]

I could barely get excited for this. It starts off promising, and there are a few exceptional sequences in here, but there was too much political espionage, talking, references to things I didn’t have context for. I was confused for most of this, which is always annoying as fuck because I dont know if it’s actually confusing or if I’m just dumb. But, towards the end it did start to converge on something that scratched the right itches, and the climactic page is so fucking satisfying to read. Unfortunately, I just don't like anything else.

[Jota Houses · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confesaré que solo me he leído la miniserie de Chaykin porque el resto del cómic me dio tremenda pereza por el dibujo tan DC años 90 (series regulares). En cuanto a la miniserie, pues tenemos todas las fortalezas y debilidades de Chaykin, un dibujo magnífico, una secuenciación confusa, un guión retorcido que cuesta desentrañar y personajes indistinguibles fisicamente.

[Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's 3 story arcs in here: the first seems to be taking place during WW2, and I didn't like the story, the writing, or the art. The other 2 were after the war, more espionage-related plots, and I liked those better.

[Deat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like that in every single scene Blackhawk has a cocked eyebrow.
Chudkino

[Aidan]

I liked Chaykin’s revamp of DC’s sci fi characters in Twilight a lot, but his writing on this reads like a confusing fever dream. Every scene seemingly starts halfway through and his pencils, while delivering fantastic layouts per usual, aren’t quite up to the task of keeping such a large cast of characters distinct from one another. And the lettering for the foreign characters, especially the Russians, was near illegible. Steve Oliff is the mvp here, his gorgeous colors making this still somewhat enjoyable.

And I don’t think there’s a single airborne dogfight in here! What gives? Blackhawk’s whole thing is he’s THE great fighter pilot, but he barely flies in this, so I think that has to count as a failure.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is basically a reboot after Crisis in Infinite Earths; that's similar to a Black Label. A handful of projects popped up, aspiring to be like The Dark Knight Returns for each character.

Chaykin's art is striking, but it can very hard to read sometimes (similar to American Flagg). But he was one of the more progressive and transgressive forces in the 80s.

I like him and his attitude more than his craft. He's more important for what he meant and attempted than what he actually ever drew and wrote.

[Timo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nice art, but the story was too much like "what the hell?".

[Reyel2107 · Rating 5 out of 5]

a perfect classic reborn !!!!!!!!