Blackhawks #1

This looks like a cross between GI Joe, Robotech, Star Blazers, and G-Force.

Blackhawks would probably have been on the bottom of my list of comics to pick up in the New 52 if I hadn't decided to read them all. I'm not a big fan of team comics when nobody in the team has any super powers. The team then consists of the jokey fat guy and the leader guy and the muscley guy and the strong woman and the nerdy technician or the incomprehensible kid. Yeah, yeah. I watched too many cartoons in the eighties.

Blackhaws begins by showing their logo, which I like, and a list of their field operators. There's Lady Blackhawk (strong woman), the Irishman (jokey fat guy?), Kunoichi (incomprehensible kid?), Attila (muscley guy?) and Support member Wildman (nerdy technician?). Hey! There's no leader type! Maybe Lady Blackhawk is also the leader type which is what would make her a strong woman as well!

Okay, I was pretty much wrong about everybody! So let's just clean the slate and I'll stop being so judgmental about my normal human team comics! Kunoichi is the crazy one! You can tell because she has maroon hair and she's throwing a hostage out of a jet and into a moving baggage cart without harming him! And the hostage has a bomb strapped to him to boot! Wildman might be one of those ironic nicknames. He's support and he's not on site and he looks pretty cool and calm and collected and crap. Attila might be the muscleman although he looks normal sized. But even with cracked ribs and a fractured arm, he still beats the crap out of some terrorists! He even headbutts one and the terrorist is wearing a metal helmet! Man, that guy is tough! That exclamation point didn't mean I was really amazed at how tough he is. That exclamation point is there to show how ridiculous it was.

The operation to save the hostages seems to go successfully. On the first page, the narration box states, "The operation was to remain covert." So it sounds like something happens that makes it not covert. Maybe like how over the top they all acted to rescue everyone. But even then, nobody has to know who did all the rescuing. But then the Blackhawks send in their evac helicopter with a big old Blackhawks logo on the side! And one of the panels shows a guy in the crowd taking a picture of the logo. Fucking idiots! They're as bad as Deadshot and Harley Quinn over in the Suicide Squad!

Later I learn that the UN initiated the Blackhawks program. So that will explain the diversity of the Blackhawks. And, of course, you have to call the white guy with red hair "Irishman" or else you'd never know him from any other Caucasian and everyone would think the whole team was made up of Americans! You don't see them calling Kunoichi "Japanwoman". Then there is "Canada" back at the Blackhawks base.

You can see why they call him Canada.

But of course this is all just to turn the whole nickname concept on its head and probably point out how racist GI Joe was or something. Because it turns out The Irishman was actually born in the Ukraine and Canada is from Atlanta. Which probably means Wildman isn't wild at all and is most likely tame! And Lady Blackhawk is a dude!

Kunoichi and Wildman are having some kind of intimate relationship. I mean, you know, they're at least fucking. And Kunoichi gained some kind of super strength in their last mission when she dove out of the plane and into industrial waste! I guess even the writer, Mike Costa, knew how boring it was to have no super heroes in the group!

The rest of the comic book makes sure the reader knows about Nanocites. Because Kunoichi seems to be infected with them from the bite she got from the pilot of the jet she somehow ended up in at the beginning of the comic. Yeah, I don't know how she got inside the jet's cockpit. They probably don't want readers asking that question. But she got in there and was bitten while wrestling the controls from the pilot. And then she landed in that industrial waste. At one point, she left a hand imprint on a metal or concrete wall. So she's definitely becoming super powered. But the Nanocites are something entirely different. They're probably weaponized and at the end, she's smoldering and hot. Perhaps she's turning into a bomb? Or is she just becoming Super Kunoichi? I'll have to wait until Issue #2 to find out.