Ah, Lady B., aka Zinda. There will never be another you, though some may try to pass of an earlier woman in uniform as LB, none equal you. Comic fans can keep their Black Widows, their Catwomen, their Batwomen, their Scarlet Witches...YOU were the one for me when I was a kid (well, you and the original Black Cat...but I'll take a blonde over a redhead any day). And do I really need to say you made the miniskirt look good years before those mad mods who made England swing like a pendulum do.
You debuted in 1959, three months before that other blonde, that Jenny-Come-Lately, Supergirl. And two years before Betty Kane, the teenage blonde Batgirl Oh, sure, they got all the attention, but they were just teenage copycats of the big guys. Not you. You were an adult copycat. And classy.
You had trained secretly to be as good as any of the Blackhawks but they had a rule: no girls in the club. Really. Blackhawk himself said, "...the Blackhawk code definitely bars women from the team!" And this was right after you had saved all their lives!
In your second appearance, we discovered you were a secretary, and when you heard the Blackhawks were in danger, off you went (uh huh, a secretary with her own private jet) and saved them again. This time, they made you an honorary member. Big whoop.
Sexy, sweet, sassy, and smart. And did I mention those legs?!
That third appearance had you gain superpowers temporarily...and this page that must have had given the Comics Code Authority apoplexy:
Let's see Supergirl do that!
Next up, well, let's just say it was an absolutely dreamy story.
And then you (and their mascot, Blackie) saved the team yet again! While SG and BG were always getting into trouble in their rescues, you were even better than the whole team of air jockeys:
Then it went all Hawk-Caa-Caa! Killer Shark drugged you and changed your personality into someone more evil than himself...Queen Killer Shark.
This dual-personality ran on and off for several other appearances until you mysteriously got better. Well, until you met up with Killer Shark again in recent years in Birds of Prey.
Wait!!!! How did you survive from the Sixties to become part of the present day Birds of Prey? And not age? Well, that's a story for another day.
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She's had more of a run than I realized. I only read her in BOP.
How did you survive from the Sixties to become part of the present day Birds of Prey? And not age? Well, that's a story for another day.
We've followed the adventures of Zinda on about a half-dozen worlds in that time. I seriously doubt the one meeting up with Killer Shark during her BOP run remembers having four Blackhawks holding onto her thighs. At least I hope not.
-- MSA
Mark S. Ogilvie said:
Same here. But I really liked her there. She was a woman out of time, but she never whined about it and angsted over it the way Captain America did.
Her intro issue in BOP really did show her as a woman that time had passed by, but the rest of the issues showed a strong adventurous woman who never let the past drag her down. I miss that BOP.
...BTW , IIRC it was the New Blackhawk Era storyline/format change in BLACKHAWK in the 60s that led to her becoming Zinda/non-Blackhawk(s)-wanting-to-kill again .
Me, too. I liked how she took just about everything in stride. Or with a right hook.
ClarkKent_DC said:
BOP also didn't make her over competent, she could make mistakes as she did with Deathstroke. I liked that she could make a mistake like that, but she was also willing to walk through Russia itself to get away from Spy Smasher.
Also, whenever anyone orders a zinfandel, I think of Zinda. I guess because they're the only words I know that start that way.
Just realized that a Zinda Zatanna team up story would be fun just to keep saying the names.
They should team up to fight Zzaxx!
Mark S. Ogilvie said: