War Wheel

The War Wheel was a weapon created during WWII. It was developed by a professor named Merson for the Nazis under the cover of being held prisoner by the Nazis, when in truth, Merson had joined them willingly. The wheel was massive, sometimes depicted as several stories tall, and covered in spikes. Inside the Wheel was a gyroscope, allowing it to keep its balance without relying on sheer gravity alone. In addition to the spikes, the Wheel is equipped with several stationary canons on its sides.

The wheel first saw deployment against a Belgium town, which was found by Blackhawk and the Blackhawks. The team helped save six survivors of the attack, one of whom recounted what had happened to the team. Later, the team encountered and killed several Gestapo agents that had been put in charge of protecting Merson, finding out about Merson's duplicity as well as an attack on the Belgian city of Adrian, where the Belgian aircraft factory was located.

The team proved unable to damage the colossal weapon. Blackhawk himself was able to locate Merson and intimidated him into telling him any weakness to the War Wheel. As it turns out, there wasn't- only the men inside could turn the Wheel off. Blackhawk noticed some high voltage lines nearby and was able to trick the Wheel into colliding with them, electrocuting the Wheel's crew, rendering it useless.

Another Wheel was later dispatched to destroy a small Spanish village on orders from Hitler to make an example of the town. Stanislaus was able to devise a strategy to beat the Wheel by trapping it in quicksand. This model was carried to and from its locations by dirigible.

The Blackhawks later encountered the War Wheel again, in the small country of Malkaria, where the Soviet bloc was testing out a new War Wheel. Stan was once again able to destroy the War Wheel by luring it into quicksand, however. Following this, the War Wheel was apparently taken to Blackhawk Island as a trophy. When Killer Shark changed Lady Blackhawk into Queen Killer Shark through the use of a serum, the War Wheel was one of the trophies she sicked on the Blackhawks.

Killer Shark would later use a modified aquatic War Wheel. This was destroyed when Chuck Wilson dive bombs into the War Wheel. Rick Flag Sr. was killed destroying the War Wheel with Task Force X for the last known time the original model was used.

A new wheel was recently seen, this time as a part of a rapidly deployable force for S.H.A.D.E. (alongside a squadron of G.I. Robots) It was used to aid the Creature Commandos during their assault on Monster Planet. It remains to be seen what connection, if any, there is of this wheel to the original.

Alternate Versions

In Amalgam Comics continuity, the War Wheel was created by Major Zemo and used against Sgt. Rock and the Howling Commandos. The War Wheel was only stopped when Super Soldier was called into the fray. The plans for the War Wheel were given to the Allies by an undercover Mademoiselle Peggy.

Creators

The War Wheel was a concept that first appeared in the 1920s shortly after World War I, meant to be an even more powerful version of the tank which had first appeared during that conflict, a huge armed single wheel however proved too impractical.

Not being able to work however has never been a problem in the comics, the only important factor being “does it look cool.”

The War Wheel did and has been in the comics since first showing up in Blackhawk Comics in the 40s as deprecated by Reed Crandall an aircraft and obscure war machine buff who was known during his run on the series for drawing all of the Blackhawk's planes based on designs of aircraft that had been designed, but never used.

He branched out with the War Wheel bring a land based unused design to bring against the Blackhawks.