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Lady Blackhawk is an alias used by three fictional comic book characters appearing in American comic books. The first, Zinda Blake, was introduced in a DC Comics publication in 1959 ( Blackhawk #133); (2025). 9781465453570, DK Publishing. ISBN 9781465453570 the second, Natalie Reed, appeared in a DC Comics title in 1988. The third, as-yet-unnamed, Lady Blackhawk debuted in a DC Comics title in 2011. All three characters were and soldiers.
Reed has not appeared since the 1992 one-shot special; Blake was more recently a regular character in the Birds of Prey comic book from 2004 to 2009, and from 2010 to 2011. The third Lady Blackhawk appears in the Blackhawks comic.
Military Comics #20 (July 1943) featured a story about a woman who attempts to become the first woman member of the Blackhawks, who looks, sounds and behaves much like Zinda Blake, although she does not divulge her name, and never calls herself Lady Blackhawk. In the story, she flies to Blackhawk Island, declares herself part of the team, and helps the Blackhawks on a mission behind German lines. Ultimately, she rescues Blackhawk himself.
Her first attempt to join the group came when she helped rescue a member from a modern-day pirate called the Scavenger. Despite her able assistance, Zinda was told that the Blackhawk codes forbade a woman from joining the team.
Zinda followed this exploit by rescuing the entire Blackhawk team from the Scavenger, and in return was told, by Blackhawk himself, that she could become an honorary member of the team.
After a number of adventures with the Blackhawks, Zinda became the victim of the villainous Nazi operative Killer Shark, who used a chemical potion to brainwash her, forcing her to take up the identity of the costumed Queen Killer Shark. Zinda battled her former comrades a number of times as Killer Shark's accomplice before she was freed of the effects of the potion.
Blake resigns from the Birds of Prey in the issue #107 rather than see Barbara Gordon forced to dismiss her under orders from the group's new leader, Spy Smasher. She later comes to Barbara's aid in Birds of Prey #108, and rejoins the team, which is restored to Barbara's command.
Brooklyn-born Natalie Gurdin was the child of Benjamin and Lucille Gurdin, card-carrying members of the Communist Party USA. They raised their daughter to believe as they did. At her parents' urging, Natalie entered and won the "Miss Young Communist League" beauty contest in 1937. The title sparked a short-lived modeling career and a role in the low-budget 1938 film Gun Molls in Trouble. Miss Gurdin changed her name to Reed at this time, in honor of John Reed, the American Communist journalist who lived for long periods (and died) in the Soviet Union. Natalie emigrated to Russia in 1940 to live and study.
Natalie became an expert in aeronautical engineering, and chief designer at the Valentine-Prendergast Airplane Factory. Due to the state of competition between the Soviets and the West, it is possible that her adopted country may have provided exaggerated accounts of Reed's skills as a pilot and expertise in aircraft design.
Reed's connection with the Blackhawks came with her contribution to the design and production of the team's modified Grumman XF5F-1 Skyrocket planes. Later, while working with Soviet intelligence, she helped defeat Death Mayhew in his plot to destroy Manhattan. During this period Natalie Reed was dubbed "Lady Blackhawk" by the U.S. press.
Aside from several publicity tours and a brief resumption of her modeling career, little is known of Miss Reed's post-war life. She briefly was employed by Blackhawk Airways in Singapore in 1947, but dropped out of sight shortly thereafter. In 1948 Natalie Reed resurfaced in New York, employed as the writer of licensed comic book adventures about the Blackhawks. She was accused of working Communist doctrines into her scripts, but she was cleared of this charge.
Little is known about the accident that cost her the use of one eye. All files containing information about Natalie Gurdin Reed remain classified, and her current whereabouts are unknown.
Reed had a son with a fellow Blackhawk, Ritter Hendricksen. Hendricksen was lost in a helicopter explosion in the spring of 1948 shortly after discovering he was the father of Natalie's child, Jimmy (born in 1945 ( Blackhawk Annual #1)). Jimmy joined the Blackhawk Squadron as a young adult, serving first with the ground crew (circa 1963), and eventually as a pilot.
As a result of internal strife in the 1950s within the ranks of what became the CIA, which the Blackhawk Squadron was informally allied with, Reed was surgically altered and forced to assume the identity of Constance Darabont, a former paramour of Blackhawk and owner of Darabont Industries, a major defense contractor. She remained in that identity at least until 1968, according to Blackhawk Special #1 (1992).
It is later revealed that Kendra was the Blackhawk that saved Batman during All-Star Batman issue #9 and she and the Blackhawks were watching him since then.
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