If you’ve been following my articles over the last few months, you know I’ve been busy with the sizeable collection of the late Andy Yanchus, who was a Marvel colorist for almost two decades. Handling a collection such as this is an intimate process; you really get to know someone by the treasures they kept and left behind. It is an honor that provides true insight into the major influences in someone’s life – whether they be personal or global. In preparation for our upcoming auction featuring Andy’s comic book collection, I see many titles and characters he was a fan of, but one stands out in particular: Blackhawk.
Andy was born in 1944 before the end of WWII, so obviously memories of the war and the reality of the post-war era dominated his early childhood. That’s where the Blackhawks, which originated from Quality Comics in 1941 with Military Comics issue #1 begins to tie in with Andy’s life. The story focuses on a group of flying aces hellbent on destroying Nazis (a popular theme of the time) led by a vaguely Polish-American pilot named Blackhawk. Similar to modern day Robin Hoods, the Blackhawks were a mix of stereotypical (an unfortunate theme of the time) characters from different nations who teamed up to fight evil for the benefit of all mankind. While the original Blackhawks did not have the superpowers we see in big-name superheroes of today, war heroes were the heroes of the era. By the time Andy was born, the Blackhawks rivaled Captain America, The Flash and Batman in newsstand sales. As the 40s progressed into the 50s, the influence of the war was fading and in 1945, the books were renamed Modern Comics from Military Comics until the original run was cancelled in 1950.
In the 1950s Blackhawk took a fresher direction with a nod towards the ever-growing popularity of science fiction and future technologies. Nazis and Communists were replaced with mad scientists and alien invaders. Andy was a huge fan of sci-fi themes growing up (as was evident from his huge scale model collection), so naturally he gravitated to these newer ideas in the comic books, as well. His collection spans from 1946 to 2000, and if you’re a Blackhawk fan and grew up in the same era as Andy, you probably have the same appreciation for these books that he did!
