Primarily created by Chuck Cuidera with input from both Bob Powell and Will Eisner,[1] the Blackhawk characters first appeared in Military Comics #1 (August 1941).

Clad in matching blue and black uniforms (with Blackhawk himself boasting a hawk insignia on his chest), early stories pitted the team against the Axis powers, but they would also come to battle recurring foes such as King Condor and Killer Shark, as well as encounter an array of gorgeous and deadly femmes fatale.

A grounded version of Blackhawk named Ted Gaynor appeared on television in the first season of the Arrowverse series Arrow, played by Ben Browder.

The character and title trademarks were initially leased on a royalty basis to National Periodical Publications (now DC Comics) before eventually being sold in their entirety.

In an effort to update the characters, DC gave the team its first ever major wardrobe overhaul in Blackhawk #197 (June 1964), replacing their longtime uniforms with red and black shirts and green pants.

Just over seven years later, DC Comics resurrected the series with Blackhawk #244 (January 1976) as part of an ongoing mid-1970s expansion of the line dubbed "Conway's Corner" in house ads.

Initially conceived as being published quarterly, editor Len Wein convinced DC to make the book monthly and eventually assembled a team that included writer Mark Evanier and artist Dan Spiegle.

[12] Blackhawk #251 (October 1982) returned the team to a World War II setting and restored many of the familiar trappings that had been shed over the years during the various attempts to modernize the characters.

Numerous new supporting characters were introduced during the run, most notably Domino, a buxom Nazi assassin and love interest to Blackhawk who was reminiscent of the femmes fatales so common during the Quality Comics era.

[12] But faced with stagnant sales that Evanier attributed largely to DC's lack of interest in publicizing the series,[12] the book was canceled with Blackhawk #273 (November 1984).

[13] In 1988, a three-issue mini-series by Howard Chaykin re-imagined the team during World War II yet again, this time with a notably more adult and gritty take on the characters.

In September 2011 as part of its New 52 publishing revamp, DC Comics launched a monthly series titled Blackhawks with no direct ties to the previous incarnations.

[17] "History has proven that whenever liberty is smothered and men lie crushed beneath oppression; there always rises a man to defend the helpless...liberate the enslaved and crush the tyrant...Such a man is Blackhawk...Out of the ruins of Europe and out of the hopeless mass of defeated people he comes, smashing the evil before him..." With the overwhelming forces of Nazi Germany flooding into Poland in September, 1939, only the Polish Air Force remains as the last major line of resistance.

At dawn, the man and two others, including a cool-headed English Red Cross nurse (identified as "Ann" in Military Comics #3), are lined against a wall and mocked by von Tepp.

Military Comics #2 (September 1941) expands the role of the team in the featured adventure and introduces five members: Stanislaus, André, Olaf, Hendrick (Hendrickson within a few issues), and Zeg.

The most familiar version of the team is finally locked down in Military Comics #11 (August 1942) shown as consisting of Blackhawk, Olaf, Chuck, André (his face now reconstructed), Stanislaus, Hendrickson, and Chop-Chop.

It's in London where he and Stanislaus reunite and then meet the four others who will ultimately join them in their crusade: Chuck, another American volunteer; Hendrickson, a recent escapee from a Nazi concentration camp; Olaf, a Swede who had fought for Finland against the Russians; and André, a "valiant Frenchman".

Having joined the Polish Air Force at a young age, he had already become a national hero by 1936 alongside his trusted friends Stanislaus Drozdowski and Kazimierc "Zeg" Zegota-Januszajtis.

A significant ally to the team throughout the 1940s is Miss Fear, who never formally joins the group but appears frequently during their Asian missions, developing a romantic interest in Blackhawk himself.

After a failed attempt to become the team's first female member,[27] she is eventually awarded honorary status and makes numerous appears from 1959 to 1968, even becoming the villainess Queen Killer Shark for a time.

Possessing remarkable intelligence he can type notes in plain English, among other skills and fitted with his own miniature belt radio, he's often shown perched on Blackhawk's shoulder.

[33] With Hendrickson left ailing in the final issue of the run, and Chuck seemingly killed in battle, it's possible that big changes were in store for the team's line-up had the series continued past Blackhawk #250.

With the team's return to a World War II setting, many basic aspects of the original incarnation are restored, complemented by what writer Mark Evanier called "a more contemporary attitude towards characterization".

[34] The core members are: Also introduced during the run is Lieutenant Theodore Gaynor of the United States Marine Corps, who joins the team when Chop-Chop takes a leave of absence to fight the Japanese in China.

Fat, buck-toothed, and orange-skinned, he speaks in broken English, wears a queue hairstyle complete with a bow, and dresses in colorful coolie garb.

[25] When the 1980s World War II-set revival of the series begins, Chop-Chop is again shown in a variation of his original outfit (and even clutches a cleaver on the cover of the first issue).

Evanier wrote of the piece: He (let's assume it's a He) complains: "No longer does the Oriental Blackhawk bang no-goodniks on the head with manhole covers, exclaiming: 'Chop-Chop fixee so face look difflunt!'"

Referring to the fact that Chop-Chop no longer sports the ponytail: "Dequeueing him demonstrates not 'tolerance' but cultural imperialism...to the extent that a working class Chinese spoke English, it would be pidgin, not the queen's..." Translation: The fat, stupid version was historically accurate".

[42]An admittedly stunned Evanier readily denounced the column, challenging the editorial writer's assertion that Steven Spielberg, at the time rumored to be interested in making a Blackhawk film, should be faithful to the original depiction of Chop-Chop.

Evanier wrote that it's amazing to him that "anyone could believe that Chinese folks were really obese and stupid in the forties" or that Spielberg would ignore the box office and "commit professional suicide by so depicting them".