Blackhawk #229

DC's "New Blackhawk Era" kicks off in earnest with this February 1967 issue, which puts the team's relevance directly on the line — the cover boldly challenges readers to decide for themselves whether the Blackhawks are truly washed up. Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera's cover art delivers the stakes vividly: a wide-eyed Blackhawk reaches out urgently toward the reader while a menacing armored villain in gold, bearing a skull emblem, looms behind him and declares himself the team's Executioner. Bob Haney's script, with art by Dillin and inks by Cuidera, promises a story that wrestles with the squad's place in a changing world — and that direct, almost pleading appeal to the reader makes this one genuinely hard to set back on the shelf.