Geek Syndicate
COMIC REVIEW - Black Hawk The Intergalactic Gladiator
Written by 2000 AD stalwarts Gerry Finley-Day (Rogue Trooper) and Alan Grant (Mazeworld), and featuring the unforgettable art of Alfonso Azpiri (Lorna) and Massimo Belardinelli (Ace Trucking Co.), be prepared for a epic tale of sword and sorcery which spans space and time! board. Showing the iron will and strength that will become his trademarks characteristics Blackhawk breaks his chains and helps defeat the Arabs, As a reward he is given his freedom and given the rank of Centurion. However due to the inevitable prejudice a Nubian faces in Rome he is left to find a hundred men to lead on his own. And that’s the first 5 pages. Blackhawk is forced to build his squad from ex-gladiators, criminals, and diseased outcasts. Despite these humble beginnings his squad are soon acknowledged to be actually quite good and get sent on all the dirtiest missions. They find themselves in German forests, Judea, Britain (fighting Boadicea) and back to Rome to face treacherous enemies in the senate. All the while, our noble centurion is wondering if he can trust his own men and facing racial prejudice at every turn. Yep poor Blackhawk is facing it on all sides. However Blackhawk’s aforementioned determination wins through every time. What stops the stories becoming run of the mill efforts is that Blackhawk’s sense of Justice allows him to see through the situation as it first appears and mo re than once he has to play a double bluff in order to outwit Rome as well as achieve his goals. Throughout all his adventures his Hawk has been his constant companion, guiding him true and casting good omens. This was all to change though.
The Review:
It was 1979, I was eleven years old, a black kid growing up in a London that was still trying to work out how to deal with its first generation West Indian citizens. An era in which the black guy never made it to the end of the movie and a year away from race riots caused by the “Sus laws” ( a law which allowed the police to act on suspicion, but which at that time was perverted by racial profiling) Into this arena, the English weekly comic Tornado landed and launched a series called Blackhawk. The eponymous hero, Blackhawk was an African warrior of Nubian descent who was enslaved by the Romans. His warrior’s pride was reinstated when he saw a desert hawk (the symbol of his people woudn’t ya know?). The Hawk seems to adopt him and so our hero adopts the name Black Hawk. Presumably because he is Black and has a Hawk. (See what they did there?) Blackhawk and his fellow slaves are taken to a ship where the Arab auxiliaries turn on their Roman masters and attempt to kill everyone on
Writers: Gerry Finley-Day, Alan Grant, Kelvin Gosnell Artists: Alfonso Azpiri, Massimo Belardinelli, Ramon, Sola, Joe Staton Publisher: 2000AD
The Blurb:
BY SEBEK’S BLOOD! NOTHING CAN DEFEAT THE GALAXY’S GREATEST GLADIATOR! In 50 BC, an African warrior enslaved by the mighty Roman army defies fate to become an officer of Auxiliaries for the Empire. With his faithful desert hawk in tow, ‘Black Hawk’ is instructed to enlist a hundred men willing to serve under him. The exploits of ‘Black Hawk’ and his rag-tag army of misfits become legendary. But just as he starts to gain the respect he richly deserves, the warrior is suddenly plucked from the Earth and transported across the galaxy to battle in an alien arena!
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