Blackhawks #3

I'm pretty sure this cover should have Wildman on it and not Irishman!

In Deathstroke #4, Laszlo, the Blackhawk with whom Deathstroke has a meeting, mentions that the Blackhawks control illicit technology. I think what he really meant to say was that the Blackhawks plagiarize technology from across the popular cultural spectrum. In Issue #1, Mother Machine is made up of some Ghost in the Shell-like persona. In Issue #2, all of the Blackhawk armor looks like Halo gear. The ship that drops Titus on the battlefield looks like the Squid things that attack the Nebuchadnezzar from the Matrix Trilogy. And in this Issue, we get the talking dog collars from Up.

Dogs should always just be saying, "I love you!"

Mike Costa and Graham Nolan are just playing a giant game of see who can recognize everything we're pulling from the stories around us. I'm sure I'm missing a bunch, so anybody reading Blackhawks and recognizes anything I missed, let me know.

The UN Representative Schmidt has asked his superiors to be assigned full-time on-site in the Blackhawks base, the Eyrie. It'll probably happen because the comic really needs more characters to stuff into its twenty pages. Look at Legion of Super-heroes! This comic isn't even trying!

Back at the Eyrie, Lady Blackhawk and Colonel Lincoln try to figure out what to do to Titus. They're not sure they have the capability of restraining him for any serious length of time, so they're going to start experimenting on him and figure out what his Nanocites are capable of. And back aboard the Matrix Squid Ship (or the mysterious city in an unknown location it landed (Zion?)), Canada and Wildman are playing with the talking dogs and chit chatting with one of the aliens about their technology.

Let's get back to the cover for a second. How the fuck can they get that so wrong? Canada and Wildman have been taken by Mother Machine and her, um, Machinettes. Irishman is back at base missing a fucking arm! He's missing an arm! And the Irishman on the cover has both arms. Plus he's nowhere near Canada! The person, not the country. I actually have no idea where The Eyrie is located. Perhaps they mentioned it somewhere and I missed it. This cover mistake is far worse than the Captain Atom cover where the bad guy creature looks like Falcor and then, on the inside, it's just a big blobby mess. I really believe the only communication between the cover artists and the regular creative team is just a single post-it note. How much are the editors at DC getting paid? Because it's either too much or not enough!

This is Titus. He can regenerate everything except his teeth. Apparently.

Perhaps Titus can't heal his teeth because Lady Blackhawk keeps punching him in the face. But one of the times she decks him, his blood splatters across a vent and it looks like it begins migrating inside! Uh oh! Nanocite break out!

And not only a Nanocite break out! Titus breaks out only minutes later when the power goes out on the level they've got him incarcerated. Probably his escaped blood did that. The Blackhawks had better assemble all personnel to stop him!

Great team comic! By the 3rd issue, only one member is left standing!

Lady Blackhawk goes after Titus to try and stop him. Or to get the last member of the Blackhawks killed! Like it matters anyway since the comic is cancelled after Issue #8! While Lady Blackhawk runs after Titus, Kunoichi plugs the computer system into herself and begins turning the systems back on with her Nanocites.

No, you're nauseated.

Titus cuts his way down to Level 4 and into The Eyrie's nuclear reactor. But I don't know what he's going to do with it seeing as how the issue ends right there.

Yes. The issue ends there. So not only was the cover wrong about the Blackhawk members who are on their own. It was also wrong about them doing any sort of fighting at all! They merely talk to Mother Machine! I'm actually surprised at how much I'm enjoying the comic. It's just regular comic fare. But I like how the team just keeps getting decimated. But what's with all the messed up minor detail issues? Not that a cover is a minor detail! Most covers lie anyway. But to have the wrong character on it? Wow! And I may be the only one to even notice that Attila had the wrong arm broken across the last two issues. Maybe nobody noticed any of these things because nobody is reading this comic and that's why it got cancelled!

I would have considered moving Blackhawks up a rank on the rating scale but I just can't do it with such a horrid cover error. Stupid DC editors! If they can't even get a cover right, how are they going to maintain continuity? Losers!