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ACW #634 – Blackhawk



Action Comics Weekly #634 (Blackhawk)
“Coming Down”
Writer – Martin Pasko
Art – Rick Burchett
Letters – Steve Haynie
Colors – Tom Ziuko
Editor – Mike Gold

Here’s one I’ve both been looking forward to… and dreading!  Folks, friends, fellow comic fans… today is the final chapter… of the final ACW arc of Blackhawk.


Hopefully we’ll still find that T.G.I.- day on the other side of The Crash!






Picking up where we left off, Jan’s still trippin’… and now has his hands wrapped around Olaf’s throat.  The big man is able to swat the Major away, and thankfully knocks him back to his senses.  As Jan shakes out the acid-y cobwebs, he manages to level out their altitude.  At this point, Weng starts to come around… just in time to see all of their in-flight instruments begin to go haywire!




Turns out they’re flying in the vicinity of a strange little island of sorts… one from which a “magnetic field disturbance” is originating.  Olaf grabs the binocs, and sees a fella in an ominous uniform looking back at them.  The Nazi rushes into a cavern… 




The Blackhawks land, and come barreling out of the back end of their plane in a Jeep!  Needless to say… we got guns a’blazing!




The good guys pick off a bunch of Nazis… however, have their tires shot out by the faux Ms. Darabont.  Janos gets thrown from the Jeep, but is able to collect himself and give chase into the cavernous base.




As Frau Whatsherface pontificates about how the “Reich Will Rise Again”, Janos shows us he ain’t screwin’ around by… shooting her, right between the eyes!




We wrap up with the Blackhawks deducing that the real Darabont is likely dead somewhere back in Berlin… and they lament the fact that, so long as they got what they were sent for (the L.S.D.), nobody’s really going to care.  Annnnnnd, that’s the end!






Gang… I am going to miss this feature.


When I began our Action Comics Daily endeavor way back on February 1… I really thought all I was in for a fun revisit to the Green Lantern stories… and a very “muddling” rest of the time.  I kinda saw it as a self-fulfilling prophecy, where I’d maybe get about six week in… and call it a day.  What I wasn’t expecting, was that I’d absolutely fall for a feature that I’d previously not had an iota of interest in… and I certainly didn’t think that feature would be… Blackhawk!


I’ve said it before… especially early on, I’m not all that big on war comics.  For as “well read” I am with comics, my tastes and interests are… relatively narrow.  So… even if going through this Action Comics Weekly experiment hasn’t been the most fun or exciting experience, it has a place in my heart for the simple fact that it got me to finally buckle down and read a Blackhawk story.  Even if this were the only bright spot (and I’m not saying it was), it all would have been worth it.


So, whatta we got here today?  Well, an ending… a sorta abrupt ending (like all the rest), however, Martin Pasko has the ability to use that to his benefit.  Sometimes things just end… loose ends don’t always get tied up… and sometimes, you just gotta move onto the next “thing”.


Janos neutralizes the threat of the next Reich… by shooting everybody!  They deduce that Ms. Darabont is likely dead… but, at this point, there’s nothing they can do about it… so, it’s treated in an “it is what it is” sort of fashion.  It’s not “neat” or “tidy”… but, it works… and it speaks to the talents and understanding of the realities of the comics medium that Mr. Pasko doesn’t bend his story to necessarily give us a “neat” ending.  To do so would be to undermine much of what got us here.


If we look at some other concluding features this week, they tried giving us finality and closure… and it, unfortunately, didn’t do the overall story any service.  They felt rushed, truncated… and worst of all, convenient.  We manage to sidestep most of that with this final chapter of Janos and the Gang.


Overall… man… I’m going to miss this.  There is a follow-up series by the same creative team that I have started to grab whenever I come across it… but, I can’t promise I’ll be able to get around to covering it here anytime soon.  Granted, that’s probably more of a bummer for me than anyone reading this…


Anyhoo, that’s a wrap on our pre-Crash coverage of Action Comics Weekly… our next “daily” will cover The Crash of ’88!


But first… Tomorrow: The big compilation post, and your last opportunity to vote for Blackhawk!

4 thoughts on “ACW #634 – Blackhawk

  • Grant Kitchen

    What is this "crash" you keep referring to? I assume it's something that affects this title but it still goes on for 8 more issues. Is there something different about the last 8? Other than 635 and 642 being full length stories that is. Oh and fyi I always vote for the Titans related stories in these polls.

    Reply
    • Hey Grant! The Crash of '88! is the "crossover" special that we'll be looking at on Saturday. It involves Black Canary, Superman, Green Lantern, and present-day Blackhawks. ACW #635 also features a Superman strip and the final Green Lantern chapter. From #636-#641 we'll have a pretty radically different line-up of features, including Etrigan the Demon, Hero Hotline, Phantom Lady, and Human Target… it's going to be pretty weird stuff!

      Reply

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