They didn't, thank the God of Luck! But I'm sorry we lost sight of them so easily! 
Blackhawk #39 is an issue of the series Blackhawk (Volume 1) with a cover date of April, 1951.
Synopsis for "The Spores of Terror"
Appearing in "The Spores of Terror"
Featured Characters:
Antagonists:
- Lilith (First appearance)
- Igor (First appearance) (Dies)
- Igor's troops
Other Characters:
- Dr. Kornlee (Dies)
Locations:
- Pacific Ocean
- Eastern World
- Lilith's Secret Headquarters (cliffside fortress with airstrip)
- Western World
- Kornlee's Laboratory
- Makrun (one of the West's biggest industrial cities)
Items:
- Kornlee's Cyclotron
- Kornlee's Atomically-mutated Burdock Weed Spores
- X-1 Gas
- Kornlee's Notebooks
Vehicles:
- Blackhawk Lockheed F-90Bs
- Lilith's 2-engine propeller-powered cargo plane
- Igor's squadron of Russian MiGs (mostly destroyed)
Synopsis for "The Invasion of Blackhawk Island"
Ulric Vintrax invades Blackhawk Island but is defeated and captured alive.
Appearing in "The Invasion of Blackhawk Island"
Featured Characters:
Antagonists:
- Ulric Vintrax (Single appearance)
- his commandos
- Vulture captain and crew
Locations:
Vehicles:
- Blackhawk Lockheed F-90Bs
- S.S. Vulture, cargo steamship
Synopsis for "Blackhawk Battles the Reds"
An American base in the Pacific Ocean is attacked by Red bombers and fighters. The Blackhawk Squadron is called in, and routs the raiding warplanes, but they escape into a cloud bank. Blackhawk notes that the fighters among that strike force were too short-range to have flown there from the enemy-held mainland, and the Reds have no naval aircraft carriers in the region.
When they return to Blackhawk Island, the team finds that it has been air-raided in their absence. This base was supposed to be a secret location, therefore a spy is on the island. Also, its position is too far away from enemy territory and naval support to be reached by conventional Red forces, therefore an undetected flying airbase is somewhere in the region. Blackhawk sends Olaf and Stan to sneak close to Red HQ on the mainland, and assigns Andre and Hendrickson to comb Blackhawk Island for enemies in disguise.
In a town on the aggressor-held mainland, right out on the sidewalk, Stan and Olaf chance across two Red officers discussing and examining a set of plans for a new Sky Fortress. Meanwhile out in the jungle on Blackhawk Island, which is quite large, Hendrickson and Andre have found a Red construction project under way: a very large base for the new Skybase. And in the air above the island, Blackhawk, Chuck, and Chop Chop intercept and chase away another force of Red warplanes, which again escape.
To lure the Red Skybase back to their location, Blackhawk has Chuck send a fake radio message that should attract a new attack on Blackhawk Island. Once it's sent, they all get airborne. Soon a cloud bank drifts into the area, from which emerge a large number of Red warplanes. Much aerial dogfighting ensues, with the Reds getting by far the worst of it. While that goes on, Blackhawk himself flies deeply into the cloud bank, where he finds a vast, long-range aircraft, serving as a flying airfield! He shoots down a jet fighter then lands his F-90 on the flight deck. He deplanes and fights some Red soldiers in the hangar bay, but just as he starts winning he turns and parachutes out of the Skybase, leaving his own plane aboard it. As the Red soldiers find to their chagrin when inspecting the captured Blackhawk Jet, it is packed with explosives, and jet fuel, with a timer. The Skybase is blown out of the sky.
Back at Blackhawk Island, the team celebrates with a hearty chorus of their Blackhawk Anthem.
Appearing in "Blackhawk Battles the Reds"
Antagonists:
Locations:
- North-Western Pacific Ocean
- Fort J-X, an American-operated island fortress
- Tropical Pacific Ocean
- Red Mainland
Vehicles:
- Red 2-prop-engine bombers
- Red 1-jet-engine escort fighters (short range)
- Red "Skybase" (conceals itself in a fake cloud-bank) (Destroyed)
- Blackhawk Lockheed F-90Bs (one destroyed)
- USN interceptors and reconnaissance planes (Mentioned only)
Synopsis for Chop Chop: "25-cent Glamour Shot"
Chop Chop has some bad luck with a photograph, and mistakenly believes the police are hunting for him. He nervously makes some bad decisions, based on that misunderstanding, and soon the police ARE after him. But he's famous and they recognize him, and it all works out.
Appearing in Chop Chop: "25-cent Glamour Shot"
Featured Characters:
Other Characters:
- Lotus Blossom, in China (Behind the scenes)
- Police
Locations:
- large U.S. city
Synopsis for "The Lure of Troisa"
Appearing in "The Lure of Troisa"
Antagonists:
- Vlad's Commanding Officer
- Vlad
- Troisa, Eurasian Contralto
- Aggressor Armed Forces
Other Characters:
- U.S. Soldiers
- Native Troops
Locations:
- Asia Club, in a tropical city, 1000 miles away from the Aggresssor base.
- a Friendly Asiatic Land, w/ U.S. troops
Vehicles:
- Blackhawk Lockheed F-90Bs
- Vlad's 3-seat propeller plane
- Aggressor aircraft and tanks
Notes
- Spores of Terror
- Lilith had been monitoring the Blackhawk Squadron's radio frequency for some time prior to this story.
- Lilith double-crossed her Red sponsors, and never sent Kornlee's formula to Igor's bosses, along with killing Igor. Kornlee's notebook was in Lilith's fighter plane (which she landed safely in Makrun), and most likely was destroyed along with the plane when the Makrun police used flamethrowers against the Kornlee Burdock Weeds. But the art on that scene is very ambiguous.
- Invasion of Blackhawk Island
- Ulric Vintrax already knows the location of Blackhawk Island at the outset of the story. The reader is not told how he knows it, and the Blackhawks never ask about it either.
- The Blackhawks celebrate their victory by hoisting steins of beer. The Comics Code hadn't been invented yet.
- Blackhawk Battles the Reds
- This story might be Quality Comics's first promotion of the Communist Party as a major, ongoing, worldwide threat.
- The Reds definitely know the location of the current version of Blackhawk Island. It is "nearly half a world away" from their homeland, and it's in the Tropics.
- Also the Reds know how to build flying airbases.
- From their informative encounter with the two very careless Red officers, it seems likely that both Olaf and Stanislaus understand spoken Russian very well. Andre also overhears important information from some Russian speakers.
- The Reds' Headquarters, "at the main seat of war on the mainland," in 1951, should be in or near Korea, but the houses in the town have European-looking architecture and the uniformed Communist soldiers are White.
- Blackhawk plants a bomb in his own F-90B in order to blow up the Red Skybase. This is the 2nd Lockheed interceptor lost in action.[1]
- Chop Chop has a girl friend, in China, named Lotus Blossom.
- The Lure of Troisa
- The military villains in this story are even more generic than usual, being called only "aggressors." The only visible insignia are 5-pointed stars on the tanks, and the stars are the same color as the tanks. Troops seem to be all White men.
- Going by the conversation in panel 6 of page 5, some among these armed forces have had earlier clashes with the Blackhawks. In any case, they are "vast forces".
- Also featured in this issue of Blackhawk was: "The Vanishing Cars" (text story).
Trivia
- Blackhawk himself uses some of the most unusual fake swearwords of the Silver Age of Comics. In this story he thanks "the God of Luck"; in Blackhawk #9, he exclaims "Lucifer!" at the sight of a rampaging elephant.
- In the 3rd story, the Red bombers are all bright red.
- This issue's Chop Chop story is reprinted in Blackhawk #71.
See Also
Links and References
- ↑ Blackhawk #39, 3rd story, & Blackhawk #53, 4th story
Look at how sad this is making Batman. You did this.