Skagg's Raiders

 

cover art by Reed Crandall

Poor Skagg. With a name like that, he was probably destined to be a bad guy.

We meet him in Quality Comics' Blackhawk #26 (August 1949). He and the beautiful Dorna lead a group of ruthless outlaws. They have a hideout in thick jungle near the borders of three different countries. So they one of the borders, rob some place, then fade back across the border into the jungle to hide out. "Skagg's Raiders" has an credited writer and some excellent artwork by Wally Wood.

When Andre of the Blackhawks flies over, they decide it would be nice to have a plane--one of his men is a pilot. They lure the Frenchman down with a distress signal, where he's quickly captured. They initially plan to simply kill him, but the outlaw pilot realizes he'll need instruction on the advanced controls of a Blackhawk plane. Andre is locked up until he agrees to cooperate. The plane is hidden in the jungle. 

When he doesn't report in, the other Blackhawks start looking for him. They land in the same clearing, but at first find nothing. It's Chop Chop who discovers a footprint and starts trailing the outlaws into the jungle. 

Later on in the story, Chop Chop will act quickly to save Blackhawk's life. There's no getting around Chop Chop's stereotyped appearance and speech pattern--that's definitely a product of its time. But there's also no getting around that he's presented here as intelligent and brave. Go figure.

The Blackhawks silently capture a sentry and quietly approach the outlaw camp. Knowing that Andre is likely to be killed if a gunfight starts, Blackhawk casually walks into the camp and eggs Skagg into a fist fight. This distracts the other outlaws, allowing the Blackhawks to launch a surprise attack.

But Skagg and Dorna arn't done yet. They flee through an escape tunnel and seal off both ends when the Blackhawks pursue them. Then they and the outlaws proceed to have a party, knowing the Blackhawks are hopelessly trapped.

Not surprisingly, the Blackhawks are not hopelessly trapped. With some gunpowder salvaged from a few bullets, they blow open the tunnel door. Then they attack the outlaws once again.

This time, everything works out well for the good guys. Skagg is killed when Chop Chop saves Blackhawk with a well-thrown rock. Dorna tries to run for it and ends up as crocodile chow. Justice is rather brutally served on them both.

This is a fun tale--a straightforward adventure story that flows along quickly and logically, with Wally Wood's beautiful art bringing it all together. Read it yourself HERE. 

Next week, we'll observe an innovative method for fighting pirates.

Whose Side are the Elephants On?

 

cover art by Al Bryant

Blackhawk #9 (Winter 1944) has the Blackhawk operating in Burma, strafing Japanese soldiers who are trying to build a road through the jungle. The script is uncredited, with art tentatively credited to Max Elkan.

But war is dangerous work, even for the best Allied pilots in the business. Blackhawk's plane is hit by anti-aircraft fire and he's forced to bail out. Soon, he's captured by the Japanese.

He's not a prisoner long, though. An elephant charges out of the jungle, scares off the Japanese, then grabs Blackhawk in his trunk and makes a run for it.

So Blackhawk is rescued. Wait-a-minute. No, he's NOT rescued! The elephant is one of many trained and operated by a guy named Burma Jack, who explains to Blackhawk that the pilot is still a prisoner. Burma Jack rents his elephants out to the Japanese and he figures he can get at least ten grand from them for Blackhawk.

Two of the other Blackhawks, Andre and Olaf, have landed in a nearby clearing in hopes of finding their boss. But they are captured as well. Burma Jack--traitor and war profiteer--now has three prisoners he can sell to the enemy.

Except that's not the case. Burma Jack agrees to use his elephants to move some Japanese artillery, but once he's on site, he cuts the Blackhawks loose, gives them Tommy guns and starts using his elephants and a few grenades to wreck havoc on the enemy.

Burma Jack was a good guy all along, playing the role of war profiteer to put himself in a position to do a lot of damage to the enemy. He goes from being despicable to being pretty cool in the space of just a few panels. That's quite an accomplishment.

The story is a good one, with strong art, good pacing and a surprise plot twist that really is a nice surprise. It is a product of its times in how Asians are drawn and in the racist insults casually used by the good guys. As I've written before about stuff like that--if it bothers you enough to spoil your enjoyment of the story, then that's a perfectly legitimate reaction. If you can recognize it as wrong but still enjoy the story, then that's okay as well.

You can read the story online HERE. 

Next week, we'll visit with "Travelin' Toughy," who is tasked with doing at least one good deed a day.

Cover Cavalcade

From 1963. Frankly, I don't know why anyone living in a Comic Book Universe would express the least bit of surprise over this sort of thing.

Batman and Blackhawk

Cover art by Jim Aparo

I have the impression that The Brave and the Bold #167 (October 1980) was a fill-in issue. The art was done by Dave Cockrum rather than B&B's regular artist Jim Aparo and it was a "special story of the Golden Age Batman."  I think editor Paul Levitz saw he was going to be short a story one month, so recruited Cockrum and writer Marv Wolfman to come up with something.

What they came up with is pretty nifty. Set during World War II, it has Batman and the Blackhawks investigating what turns out to be the same case. In Gotham City, the Dark Knight is looking into the theft of scientific equipment by Nazi spies. In Europe, the Blackhawks are trying to find a missing Allied agent. The agent eventually turns up, frozen to death in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

The presumption is that the Nazis have built a freeze ray. But when the various heroes both track down a hidden Nazi base in the Arctic, they discover its a bit more convoluted than that.

Follow along closely. The ray gun in the secret base melts a part of the ice cap into vapor, then transports the vapor to a big submersible hovercraft hidden in Gotham Harbor. Here the vapor is converted back into water, which then smashes into Gotham City as a tidal wave. The

Nazis plan on repeating this on a much larger scale, flooding the East Coast.

Visually, it's a great story. Cockrum's art is excellent and the image of the Bat-plane joining the Blackhawks' Grumman XF5F Skyrockets in a fight against a Nazi super-weapon is alone worth the price of the book.

There are, though, several elements to the story that make me think its a rush job. The scenes in which both Batman and the Blackhawks are following their own lines of investigation are rushed and not really explained well enough to form a strong story. This element of the tale was practically screaming aloud "I need to be a two-parter!"

Also, the final action scene doesn't quite make sense even in a comic book universe. Follow along again: the good guys are bombing the Nazi base, but not doing enough damage. They realize they've got to get inside and simply beat the snot out of every German inside. Okay, in a comic book universe, that's acceptable.

So we see the Blackhawks landing atop the base via parachute. Batman joins in the fight, having presumably also parachuted down. That means they've abandoned their planes.

But when they learn the base is going to self-destruct, they are suddenly back in their planes flying away to safety in the nick of time. No matter how convoluted the comic book logic I employ to explain that away, I just can't get Batman and his allies back in their planes. How the heck did they DO that?

So the story is in many ways a missed opportunity. Had it been made a two-parter, a writer of Wolfman's skill and experience could have done wonderful things. Instead, the story is almost but not quite what it should be.

Even so, there are a few nice Easter eggs hidden in the issue. When the Gotham docks are flooded, take

note of the Hildago Trading Company--a shout-out to Doc Savage. There's also a line of dialogue referencing the Shadow.

We also see a panel in which Bruce Wayne is out with Linda Page, a Golden Age socialite character who appeared in a dozen or so issues during the 1940s. She was also used as a character in the 1943 Batman movie serial. Linda's appearance here is another nice shout-out to the Golden Age.

Besides, for all the faults this story has, it really is pretty sweet to see the Bat-Plane sharing the clouds with those Grumman Skyrockets.