While both Earths One and Two had prominent heroines in spandex such as the Wonder Women, the Black Canaries, the Hawkgirls, and the like... each had other less famous fighting female. Such was the case regarding Zinda Blake and Eva Rice - the Ladies Blackhawk.
Zinda Blake was a fan of the Blackhawk Squadron, and using her own aviation skills and courage, she attempted to join their all-male ranks. To that end, Zinda as Lady Blackhawk aided them twice versus the evil Scavenger and subsequently proved to be a valuable ally of the Blackhawks, although she was not fully inducted as a member of the Squadron. She would become an aspired actress before returning to her first love of aviation. Despite having romantic feelings toward the team's leader, Zinda fell prey to his arch-enemy Killer Shark, who brainwashed Blake into becoming his Queen Killer Shark.
Edda Heimat was a secret Gestapo agent who in November 1941 led an attack against the Blackhawk Squadron of Earth-Two as the Black Tigress. Heimat previously led a criminal career as the villain known as Tigress, and had repeatedly crossed paths with Zatara during the early 1940s. Each time they clashed, Zatara always outwitted Edda, up until that same month when she decided to abandon her illegal schemes, and allied herself with the German government. Soon after, Tigress seemingly perished while in Egypt, after leading an attack against the Blackhawks.
Instead, she survived and resurfaced three years later under that alias of Eva Rice, where she once more encountered the Blackhawks in November 1944. This was only months after the sensational seven's teamup with the golden age Batman in September 1944. She portrayed herself as a skilled photographer, and ascertained the location of the Blackhawks Island. After publishing this picture, she lured several Japanese pilots to the island, luring them into a trap wherein the Blackhawks defeated them. Eva orchestrated this in an attempt to join the group, due to her long-held romantic feelings toward their leader.
However, Blackhawk was indignent due to Rice's willfull disregard as to the lives of his team, and so rather than help her to replace her demolished plane... Blackhawk simply dropped her off somewhere safe. Although it was hinted that Eva may one day return to the lives of the seven Blackhawks, this never ended up occuring.
After several confrontations with her former teammates, Blackhawk and his Squadron were finally able to free Zinda from Killer Shark's influence. However, Blake was pulled from her native Earth-One and into Hypertime from which she would return to a new Earth decades later, as young as when she had left her home world. No longer linked to the team she had fought alongside and against, she would chart a new course as a critcial component in the female staffed Birds of Prey.
Two other women known as the Tigress plagued the Blackhawks. On Earth-Two, she was also known as Tiger Lady, and on Earth-One her real name was Joan Sanders. Both women perished the first time they met their foes.
No comments:
Post a Comment