Daredevil Villains #45: Blackwing
DAREDEVIL #122-123 (June & July 1975)
“HYDRA-and-Seek” / “Holocaust in the Halls of HYDRA”
Writer: Tony Isabella
Artist: Bob Brown
Inker: Vince Colletta
Letterer: Karen Mantlo
Colourists: Janice Cohen (#122) and George Roussos (#123)
Editor: Len Wein
Blackwing is a bat-themed villain. That might seem like a bold move in the world of superhero comics, where the bat motif is very much taken. Of course, you can always do “what if Batman, but a villain”. But for the Marvel Universe, that character is Nighthawk, and he exists already.
Yet Blackwing genuinely is distinct from Batman. For all that Batman loves his bat motif, you see, he draws the line at actual bats. Even in the days when Bat-Hound and Bat-Mite seemed like a good idea, DC drew the line at Bat-Bat. This is the gap in the market which Blackwing seeks to fill: a bat-themed villain with actual bats.
For our purposes, I’m treating these two issues as Blackwing’s spotlight story. But his debut was in issue #118 – a fill-in story by Gerry Conway and Don Heck entitled “Circus Spelled Sideways Is Death”. This magnificent title is all the better for its irrelevance: the story features neither death nor sideways orientation. It does, however, feature a circus.
Because Blackwing is first introduced to us as the newest member of the Circus of Crime. He’s not a natural fit. The Circus of Crime’s schtick is that they’re genuine circus performers who do a bit of robbery on the side – gymnasts, a human cannonball, a strongman, a clown, a python charmer, and so forth. Now, maybe it’s an American thing, but I don’t recall “bat trainer” being a classic circus act. Yet there he is, complete with a masked costume that makes him look far more like a conventional supervillain than any other member of the group.
Somehow, the Circus of Crime have been allowed to do a televised charity show in Shea Stadium, despite making no attempt whatsoever to conceal their identities. At this point, it seems, the Marvel Universe authorities still have remarkable faith in the power of rehabilitation. The Circus’ plan is for the Ringmaster to use his hat to hypnotise all the New Yorkers watching at home on TV. Blackwing’s trained bats will then head out across the city to visit the TV viewers, collect their valuables, and bring them back to the stadium… on live TV. It’s tremendously silly. The narrator says there are “droves” of bats. Don Heck looks at the size of his paycheck and the proximity of his deadline, and decides that about nine should do it.
Other than that, Blackwing contributes very little to the story. Daredevil defeats the Circus. Blackwing escapes off panel, with a bit of dialogue about how maybe he’ll return as a bigger threat. Perhaps they were setting him up for the next writer. Perhaps it was just a way of covering for his disappearing act in the art. Either way, Tony Isabella does indeed bring Blackwing back in his HYDRA storyline, as one of the group’s new section commanders. His remit is “air action”.
By the time he shows up, in issue #122, the story is already in full swing: HYDRA have kidnapped Foggy Nelson, and Daredevil and the Black Widow are searching for him. A lead points them to Blackwing’s warehouse, and Daredevil promptly decides that the Black Widow can’t possibly be allowed to fight Blackwing, who’s just “too dangerous”. Quite how Daredevil comes to that view is hard to fathom: all that we know about Blackwing thus far is that he’s got some glorified carrier pigeons and he’s good at running away. However, Isabella wanted to build up the new villain – plus, he had a clumsy subplot about Daredevil being an overprotective chauvinist – and so Blackwing is suddenly a terrifying danger.
Blackwing’s warehouse HQ is in fact near Shea Stadium, where the Circus were appearing in issue #118 – the token explanation is that he joined the Cirus in order to keep them away from HYDRA’s operations. He’s presented as the main lieutenant of the new Supreme Hydra, a role that largely involves listening to exposition. It turns out that Foggy is just bait; the real plan is to lure Nick Fury and SHIELD to the warehouse and then blow it up, killing the lot of them.
But Daredevil and the Black Widow show up first. While she heads off to deal with El Jaguar, Daredevil squares off with Blackwing. At first, Isabella makes a reasonable case for Blackwing as a Daredevil villain. His bats are upgraded to a mutant breed, strong enough to lift Daredevil off the ground. I mean, it takes several of them, but they come in a flock, so that’s hardly a problem. More subtly, the sheer number of bats means that they function as chaff and screw up Daredevil’s radar. And Blackwing himself can now fly. This all looks like a well-pitched challenge for Daredevil.
Then Isabella overplays his hand. Blackwing wheels out a giant vampire bat the size of a helicopter. Bob Brown draws a nice bat, to give him his due. But it’s still a giant bat. What’s more, since they’re still in a normal-size warehouse, there’s no space for the bat to do anything impressive. And then Daredevil just punches the thing in the heart and it drops dead. Blackwing is quite upset about that. “Cretin! You shall pay for that! He was the product of years of research and breeding and you destroyed him!” Well, make him more resilient next time.
Despite the megabat proving a dud, our heroes do get captured. The new Supreme Hydra turns out to be Silvermane, a crimelord from Amazing Spider-Man. In his previous appearance, he’d been de-aged to infancy. But, we’re told, it just wore off. And once he was back to normal, a couple of passing HYDRA agents recruited him to be the new Supreme Hydra. As for Blackwing, he’s Silvermane’s son.
And then we abruptly race to a conclusion, because Tony Isabella has been fired and he has to get the arc wrapped up before he leaves. HYDRA are defeated, Blackwing and Silvermane escape, and that’s pretty much it.
Blackwing never returns to Daredevil, and makes only a scattered few appearances in other books. He didn’t appear again until 1991-92, when Mark Gruenwald used him as a regular in Captain America, mainly hanging around with the Red Skull’s Skeleton Crew. In 1999, he showed up in Thunderbolts as a member of the Masters of Evil, but that was the massive version of the team that included bozos like Icemaster. Later that year, he made a couple of appearances as Joey Silvermane in New Warriors. His only appearance in the 21st century is as one of a bunch of random Z-list villains in Ziggy Pig & Silly Seal Infinity Comic #8.
For a brief moment, Blackwing seems like he might have a viable gimmick. The flock of powered-up bats kind of works, until Isabella pushes his luck too far. But neither Don Heck nor Bob Brown seems to be up for actually depicting a large number of bats, and maybe they’re just prohibitively difficult to draw, at least as a standard feature of a villain’s arsenal.
But Blackwing has a more fundamental problem than that: he has a gimmick, but no personality. He’s just a standard big talk villain, and he’s loyal to his dad. That’s all he has to offer.
The biggest problem with Isabella’s version of HYDRA is that they don’t stand for anything; they’re just an organisation that wants to take over the world for no particular reason. Isabella inadvertently hammers that fact home by having HYDRA headhunt a random mobster as their new leader, for no apparent reason beyond the fact that he had some relevant managerial experience and he wasn’t doing anything else. The problem is compounded by throwing in characters like Man-Killer who did stand for something before, but are now just blended into the mulch.
Blackwing is part of that mess – a bat gimmick that doesn’t quite land, without much else to underpin it.
Blackwing is one of the most menacing super-villains in the Marvel Universe because bats are a main carrier of rabies in the United States (also why bat training probably did not catch on as a circus act).
So, if the HYDRA goons hadn’t run into someone like Silvermane, they might have just recruited a hobo as their new leader?
Yes, Man-Killer once stood for something, but what she stood for was ridiculous, so I can see her just giving up that shtick and throwing in with this HYDRA-wannabe.
It should be noted that Silvermane makes a number of appearances between this story and Blackwing’s return in Captain America- Amazing Spider-Man 177-180, Spectacular Spider-Man Annual 2, Spectacular Spider-Man 69-70 and 93-96, Amazing Spider-Man 284 and Web of Spider-Man 79-80. And he’s in danger in several of these stories. And Blackwing doesn’t appear in any of them. It’s like all the other writers considered Blackwing too lame to be used in conjunction with Silvermane. His absence from his father’s stories cemented readers’ view of him as a Z-lister.
In fact, the only interaction Blackwing has with Silvermane after this story is a scene in New Warriors where Silvermane threatens to kill him if he keeps screwing up with the New Warriors.
The weird thing about Blackwing’s appearances in Captain America is that he mentions that Skull House used to be his father’s house until the Skull tricked his father out of it. We never got a clear explanation of how that happened.
This story is notable because it’s the first appearance of Silvermane, Fixer and Mentallo since their introductory stories.
No later writers wanted to use Isabella’s HYDRA. First, in Spider-Woman’s origin in Marvel Spotlight 32, we see that she reports to a loser named Vermis, then we see Fixer and Mentallo are operating on their own in Marvel Two-In-One and finally Silvermane is back to being a mobster in Amazing Spider-Man 177-180.
Note that Silvermane appears to be middle-aged, not elderly, in this story. This eventually results in a lot of confusion regarding his age. In his next appearance, Amazing Spider-Man 177-180, Silvermane suffers a fall. In Spectacular Spider-Man Annual 2, he gets zapped by the Rapier, but the paramedics at the end of the issue say he’s okay. But then in Spectacular Spider-Man 69, by Bill Mantlo, he’s not only said to be on life-support as a result of the fall but he’s said to be elderly. Somehow Mantlo not only missed Silvermane’s appearance in Spectacular Spider-Man Annual 2 but also didn’t realize that Silvermane was supposed to be middle-aged now. The Official Handbook tries to explain it way by claiming the wounds from the Rapier aggravated the injuries from the fall but also triggered a biochemical reaction that caused him to revert to his former age.
“then Daredevil just punches the thing in the heart and it drops dead. ”
It looked to me like he turned his billy club into a stake and stabbed it in the heart.
“This is the gap in the market which Blackwing seeks to fill: a bat-themed villain with actual bats.”
I feel like Dracula already has this role sewed up.
Honestly, I’d kind of like to see that story, where Blackwing accidentally attracts the attention of Dracula. Bonus points to the writer if they come up with a plausible scenario where Blackwing doesn’t end up dead.
“Don Heck looks at the size of his paycheck and the proximity of his deadline, and decides that about nine should do it.”
It’s observations like this that have kept me reading you for decades,Paul.
Given that the Circus of Crime was impressed by a lady with a giant snake, they must have figured “eh what the hell, bat trainer sounds good.” Not exactly A-list material, is Blackwing. Not even when he was hired as a Red Skull flunky.
@The Other Michael- That giant snake defeated the Hulk once. Remember, kids, the Hulk once lost to a snake and Namor once lost to leeches.
@Michael: I suspect part of why Blackwing was dropped had to do with Silvermane. The original gimmick with Silvermane is that he’s an aging, a dying mob boss trying to hang on or be rejuvenated because he has no successor.
But Blackwing is introduced as his adult son here. So what was Silvermane so worried about back in his original appearances?
Hilariously, when Blackwing does show up with the Masters of Evil, he is played as, essentially, evil Batman. The mutant bats are nowhere in sight, and he’s able to sneak up behind Hawkeye and KO him. It helps that Nighthawk was well past being “Batmna” phase by then.
Getting back to the entry, there was a parodic Bat-Bat character in the short-lived 1987 revival of Mighty Mouse as a TV cartoon. Marvel even did the licensed comics series, including some Bat-Bat backup stories.
I suppose the famous bit in “Batman: Year One” with Batman summoning all the chiropterans with a sonic signal is an example of how Blackwing could have worked. That bit was even adapted in Batman Begins.
I read a thing once that the reason Invincible used an off-brand Justice League was that you’d recognise them and fill in the blanks yourself, so they didn’t have to use up precious page space explaining who they were. I guess that works for evil Batman too. It’s not so much a pastiche or parody, it’s shorthand.
@Omar: Maybe Silvermane didn’t think his son was a fit successor? Too soft, too weak, not like his old man. I can definitely see Silvermane being the sort who would constantly tell his kid they’d never be as good as him.
Also, I tend to assume with most of these boss/ruler types that they don’t really want a successor to carry on their policies. They want a way to stay in charge forever. Because it’s about them, personally, having power. Which would jibe with Silvermane pursuing immortality and/or stuffing his head into a cyborg body.
Whew. Nowhere to go but up now that Isabella’s gone.
Is Copperhead next? I liked him. He was a one-off, but it was a fun, pulp-homage story.
I am slightly ahead of you (I’m finishing up the Wolfman run), and this most recent reading makes it clear to me that issue #119 is a fill-in issue that got retrofitted with art patches by Heck to introduce Blackwing.
Luckily, you’re starting the Marv Wolfman run, and Marv has something to say about super-hero violence in his best issue…and something to say about, ummm, psychic grifters in his worst issue.
I can’t recall if either of the Blackwing stories takes advantage of the parallel between bats’ sonar and Matt’s radar sense.
Though, if taken too far, I suppose that’d turn Blackwing into an ersatz version of the Man-Bat.
This story works best as an excuse to get Batman* to ride Man-Bat* on the cover. Pretty great visual.
Odd how Frank Miller’s run seems to be both nearby and distant at this point.
Matt deciding that Blackwing is “too powerful” for Natasha to fight does come across as sudden and arbitrary. So much so that it may, just may, have been intentional.
@Luis Dantas: Perhaps it’s the same logic that was used to explain why the Scorpion is more powerful than Spider-Man.
Matt was just concerned because he knows that some bats prey on spiders and insects.
I wondered how deep in the comments it would be before someone mentioned Kirk Langstrom. I don’t know if he ever had trained bats, but it feels like he used them as a distraction or unintentional ally.
If Castlevania has taught me anything, it’s that a giant bat is ALWAYS the easiest boss. Don’t bring that weak sh** in here, Blackwing. Come back when you’ve got some mummies or Frankenstein’s monster or something.
@Drew: Now I’m trying to find analogues to all the classic Castlevania bosses among the Daredevil villains Paul has covered as of this entry.
Giant/Phantom Bat = Blackwing
Medusa = Masked Marauder and his opti-blasts
Mummy = ?????
The Creature/Frankenstein’s Monster = The Ox? Ramrod? The Crusher? Someone else?
Death = Death-Stalker or Death’s Head
Dracula = Damon Dran? Dark Messiah? Kerwin Broderick as Terrex? Probably not Stilt-Man
It does occur to me that the Ani-Men are Daredevil’s equivalent of Slogra and Gaibon.
“In his previous appearance, he’d been de-aged to infancy. But, we’re told, it just wore off.”
That can’t have been comfortable for anybody.
Oddly enough, Blackwing *did* appear in the MCU. He’s a supporting villain in Agent Carter who has been stripped of all his gimmicks and is just a random mobster turned sidekick for Madame Masque.
@Omar
For a mummy stand-in, what about Man-Thing? He met DD (and Gladiator and Death-Stalker) not too long before these stories.
Death’s Head could probably be the Mummy, considering he was swathed in bandages. Mummies don’t tend to ride horses, but then there was Rice’s Ramses the Damned, who I could imagine playing polo…
That would leave Death-Stalker as a suitable Death analogue. His touch does bring death.
Silvermane also appears to be Granny Goodness on page 14, panel 1.