Military Comics #3
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMilitary Comics #3 (October 1941) is a pivotal chapter in the early crystallization of one of the Golden Age's most durable war-adventure franchises. It delivers the first appearance of Chop-Chop, the Chinese cook and mascot who would become an enduring — if culturally fraught — fixture of the Blackhawk Squadron for decades, and it formally closes the roster at seven core members, the configuration that would define the team for nearly thirty years. The issue also stages the first on-page apparent death of a team member, André, whose sacrifice in triggering a mountain avalanche to bury a Nazi column planted a narrative seed that paid off six issues later in Military Comics #9 — an unusually sustained piece of serialized storytelling for a 1941 anthology comic. Taken together, these elements make issue #3 the number where the Blackhawk feature stopped feeling like a work in progress and began to resemble the property that would eventually outlast its publisher.
In "The Doomed Battalion!", the Blackhawks face their most dangerous mission yet when a plane crash on Blackhawk Island brings word of a ruthless food profiteer named Markov in the Drina River Valley. With Chop-Chop’s warning about Markov’s vendetta against a Red Cross nurse, the team sets out to intervene—only to stumble into a massive Nazi force. Written by Will Eisner and brought to life with gritty detail by Chuck Cuidera (art and inks) and Sam Rosen (letters), this 1941 wartime thriller captures the tension and urgency of the era, with cover art by Chuck Cuidera and Bill Smith.
In "The Doomed Battalion!" from Military Comics #3 (1941), Blackhawk and his team respond to a distress call after a plane crash-lands on Blackhawk Island, where survivor Chop-Chop warns them of a ruthless food profiteer named Markov in the Drina River Valley. With tensions flaring in war-torn Yugoslavia, the Blackhawks set out to stop Markov’s cruelty—only to find themselves ambushed by a massive Nazi force.
Stranded in Lisbon while awaiting passage, the blustering Colonel Shot and his wry companion Slim Shell stumble upon a Nazi plot—and accidentally become entangled with Gestapo agents who've come looking for secret bomb-sight plans. When the invention is whisked away to Berlin for inspection, the two Americans must improvise a daring escape from the very heart of enemy territory.
In "The Stratosphere Bombs," the Death Patrol investigates a mysterious bombing campaign over London—bombs falling from the sky with no visible aircraft. As the team scrambles to uncover the source, tragedy strikes when Slick, one of their original members, is lost in the line of duty.
ComicBooks.com Value
Show all 18 grades ▾
This exact issue on ebay
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
The Blackhawk feature had been shepherded from the start by Quality Comics publisher Everett M. Arnold, with Will Eisner serving as editor and a credited creative force; the Grand Comics Database confirms Eisner is credited as W. E. Eisner as editor on this issue, while the interior pencils and inks are signed by Chuck Cuidera (as 'Chas. Cuidera'), and the story script is attributed to Eisner and Bob Powell. The exact apportioning of writing duties among Eisner, Cuidera, and Powell across the first eleven issues remains genuinely disputed — Cuidera later claimed sole creative credit in an Alter Ego interview, a position other historians have found difficult to fully corroborate — but what is clear is that by issue #3, the working team had settled into the rhythms that would carry the strip through Cuidera's 1942 enlistment, when Reed Crandall stepped in as artist.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Chop-Chop (Weng Chan), the Chinese cook and mascot who crash-lands his plane on Blackhawk Island and joins the squadron; created by Will Eisner and Chuck Cuidera.
- The Blackhawk story is titled 'The Doomed Battalion'; cover date is October 1941, published by Quality Comics under the indicia publisher name Comic Magazines, Inc.
- The issue formally establishes the Blackhawk Squadron at seven members — the roster configuration that would remain largely intact through the end of the first run in 1968.
- André suffers the first on-page apparent death of a Blackhawk team member, sacrificing himself by triggering an avalanche that buries a Nazi force — a plot thread resolved in Military Comics #9 (April 1942), where he resurfaces as 'Iron Face,' horribly disfigured but alive.
- Cover art and interior pencils/inks by Chuck Cuidera (signed 'Chas. Cuidera'); story written by Will Eisner and Bob Powell, with Eisner also serving as editor.
- Boris, named in the catalog, appears here only as a possible unidentifiable background member per the GCD; the three clearly unidentified members are most likely Stanislaus, Zeg, and Chuck (or Boris).
- The final page of the Blackhawk story is an out-of-narrative meta-page featuring Blackhawk and Chop-Chop addressing readers directly, teasing a large fold-out map of Blackhawk Island to appear in issue #4.
- The Blackhawk story from this issue was later collected in The Blackhawk Archives, Volume 1 (DC, 2001) and in Gwandanaland Comics' Complete Military Comics: Volume 1 and related reprint volumes.
Cast · 9 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Golden-Age Men of Mystery #12 (1999), The Blackhawk Archives #1 (2001), Gwandanaland Comics #125 (2017), Gwandanaland Comics #126 (2017), Gwandanaland Comics #127 (2017), Gwandanaland Comics #79 (2017), Gwandanaland Comics #132 (2017), Gwandanaland Comics #815 (2017), Gwandanaland Comics #225 (2017), Gwandanaland Comics #3151 (2021), PS Artbooks Softee: Military Comics #1 (2023), Gwandanaland Comics #821
Key issues in Military Comics
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.