Academy Awards 2017

https://www.abqjournal.com/934432/nm-made-hell-or-high-water-grabs-4-oscar-noms.html

It won't win anything, not touchy-feely enough for the AW voters but Bridges deserves best Supporting Actor, although I'm trying to think who would be the best Main Actor in it....

I think Chris Pine did well. Not sure who the other nominees will be so I don't know if I'd call his performance "Oscar-worthy" but he has made a real good start to his movie career.

I always think of him in relation to his Star Trek movies, and it looks like he's got some interesting productions coming up.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1517976/?ref_=fn_nm_nm_1

Not being up on current Wonder Woman mythology (inexcusable since it was one of my more favored comics back in the day (The Blackhawks were my favorite of course) I had to look up who Steve Trevor is/was. That seems a good role for Chris.

http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Steve_Trevor

Which reminds me....The Black Hawks would make a good movie now, if done right , although it would be hard to decide which era to base it on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackhawk_%28DC_Comics%29

I 'grew out' of comics (gasp !) by the time that they quit using the Grumman XF-5-F. They early on used aircraft that existed but never went into production. This blurb has it wrong in that only 1 XF-5-F  was ever built. Grumman abandoned the project.

Their description is wrong on all counts. But it did fulfill the requirement of having an obscure plane that the general, comic reading public was unaware of.

Later they used the Lockheed XF-90, again never going into production, it's performance was obsolete by the time it could have been bought by the AF.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_XF-90

Grumman XF5F Skyrocket

The Grumman XF5F Skyrocket is the twin-engine fighter most identified with the Blackhawks. The team is nearly always shown flying modified versions of the plane during their World War II adventures and for some time thereafter. As Will Eisner remembered:

   So we came up with the idea of using a certain model Grumman airplane, which had a very strange configuration. It had tailfins coming out from under a wing. It also apparently had the capacity to make a rapid takeoff from the deck of an aircraft carrier. It was never tested on a carrier.
. It was a Navy plane, as I remember, not an Army Air Force plane. Actually, in real life, it turned out not to be as good a plane as everybody thought it would be, but it sure looked sexy![3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grumman_XF5F_Skyrocket

Additionally, other planes made appearances during the course of strip:

   PZL.50A Jastrząb – This is the plane that Blackhawk flew in Poland during the Nazi invasion of 1939.

   Republic F-84 Thunderjet – By the early 1950s, the Blackhawks converted the squadron to jets. This was the Blackhawk Squadron's first jet aircraft. This was an operational fighter with the AF in the early 50's

   Lockheed XF-90 – This actual experimental fighter was adapted to become the fictional:

   F-90 "B" – The Blackhawks flew this plane from 1950 to 1955.
   F-90 "C" – The Blackhawks were flying this model by 1957.

   Republic F-105 Thunderchief – The Blackhawks modified this plane to have VTOL capability. This was used extensively in Viet Nam

   Lockheed F-94 Starfire – This is the plane that Lady Blackhawk flew. This was used by the AF in the 50's but was obsolete early on.

Original incarnation


"History has proven that whenever liberty is smothered and men lie crushed beneath oppression; there always rises a man to defend the helpless...liberate the enslaved and crush the tyrant...Such a man is Blackhawk...Out of the ruins of Europe and out of the hopeless mass of defeated people he comes, smashing the evil before him..."
—Introduction from Military Comics #1 (August 1941)[16]

With the overwhelming forces of Nazi Germany flooding into Poland in September, 1939, only the Polish Air Force remains as the last major line of resistance. Captain von Tepp and his Butcher Squadron swarm the skies in response, outnumbering the Polish four to one. The Germans decimate their foes until just one lone plane — painted jet black — remains. After gallantly shooting down six Nazi planes, the mysterious pilot is forced to crash land on the countryside. Running to a nearby farmhouse, he's tracked from the air by von Tepp, who drops a bomb and destroys the building. The pilot locates his dead sister and mortally wounded brother inside. He vows to kill von Tepp before disappearing into the darkness.

Months later, with most of Europe collapsing under the might of the Nazis, the pilot reemerges with his own private squadron and "like an angel of vengeance, Blackhawk and his men swoop down out of nowhere, their guns belching death, and on their lips the dreaded song of the Blackhawks."[16]

Excuse me for getting off track but that's hardly new......

I had never heard the Blackhawk story. Sounds good.