Fly Like an Eagle

 
 
The Eagle is another Blackhawk villain from issue #132, January 1959, and one who manifests the same feeling in me about why someone with the resources he has available to him is committing crimes in the first place. In the beginning of the issue the Eagle and his gang are heisting some large golden models of familiar buildings from Washington, DC, like the Capital, White House and Lincoln Memorial. The Eagle's gang is loading the models into their planes, which are about the size of B-52/Stratofortresses with eagles heads on the front - now who could afford planes like that?? In 1959 they probably weren't even surplus B-52's. Anyway, the Blackhawks arrive and Blackhawk orders the team to take up a blocking position with their jets, but Chuck instead manages to scatter the models with the backwash from his jet so the Eagle gets away empty handed. Blackhawk chews Chuck out for disobeying his orders and there seems to be some real tension between the pair. In the next operation against the Eagle Chuck once again saves the day but not the way Blackhawk had ordered him to. As a result Blackhawk grounds Chuck and the rest of the team departs for patrol. Blackhawk decides to check out an island, leaving the team to continue their patrol, which is when we find out that this particular Blackhawk is not the real deal - he's a ringer who the Eagle discovered and had a plastic surgeon finish the job. Blackhawk himself is caged on the island and just as the Eagle and fake Blackhawk are having a good laugh about it Chuck parachutes into their midst followed quickly by the rest of the team. Turns out Chuck had figured out the substitution because of a rip in his jacket Blackhawk had sustained shortly before he was switched. When doing the Eagle I realized I needed to have some henchmen so I think at first I did two. Then later I added a few more and also a substitute Blackhawk just for good measure. The bodies were made from Star Wars AT-AT drivers and the heads were assembled from my extra heads box. I also did four of the Eagle jets - see the bottom panel where the four of them are streaking off. You might also notice one of the things that keep us customizers heads in a whirl. If you look at the top two panels with the jets you'll notice in the one at left the front of the eagle plane is brown all the way up to the beak and then the beak is white, while in the panel on right there is clearly a white area in the forward part of the plane ending in a yellow beak. When I was trying to decide which to use I picked the more traditional look of an eagle to be my guide. There was also a difference in shading in different sections of the story with the Eagle uniforms. Some places they are more red while in another they are closer to a Burgundy. I ended up choosing the latter simply because I liked the look more and several other Blackhawk enemy teams have had red uniforms.