Blackhawk #133
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeBlackhawk #133 (cover-dated February 1959) is the debut issue of Zinda Blake — Lady Blackhawk — the first woman ever to seek membership in the all-male Blackhawk Squadron, making her one of DC's earliest recurring female action leads in a war/aviation title. Her introductory story, 'The Lady Blackhawk!', put gender exclusion front and center as a plot engine at a moment when the medium rarely foregrounded such tensions: Zinda defeats the pirate villain the Scavenger and saves the entire team, yet is granted only honorary membership because the team's code bars women. That bittersweet resolution seeded decades of follow-on storytelling, including her brainwashing and transformation into the villainess Queen Killer Shark and, much later, her emergence as the core pilot and a fan-favorite member of Gail Simone's Birds of Prey. The issue therefore sits at the origin point of one of DC's most durable supporting characters, a Silver Age woman whose narrative arc — dismissed, persevering, ultimately indispensable — anticipated themes that would define superhero team books for generations.
In "The Human Dynamo," Zinda Blake pushes hard to prove herself as the first female Blackhawk, but her raw determination often clashes with the team's precision—forcing her to confront her own limits and seek deeper training. With dynamic art by Dick Dillin and Chuck Cuidera on both interior and cover, this 1959 DC classic captures a pivotal moment in Zinda’s journey, blending grit and growth in a story that’s as much about self-discovery as it is about aerial combat.
In "The Lady Blackhawk," Zinda Blake steps into the cockpit with the Blackhawk squadron, determined to prove she belongs among the ranks. Though her heart is in the right place, her inexperience puts the team at risk—forcing her to confront the gap between ambition and readiness.
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By the time issue #133 reached newsstands in December 1958 (cover date February 1959), DC had been publishing Blackhawk for roughly two years after acquiring it from Quality Comics in 1956, keeping the book's creative team intact: penciller Dick Dillin and inker Chuck Cuidera (the original Blackhawk co-creator) carried over from the Quality era, giving DC's Silver Age run a visual and tonal continuity. Editor Jack Schiff — identified across multiple sources as the writer or scripter of the Lady Blackhawk debut story — introduced Zinda Blake in the third and lead-billed story of the issue, a seven-and-a-half-page adventure against a pirate-themed antagonist called the Scavenger. The issue also contains a separate eight-page story 'The Human Dynamo' (featuring an electricity-powered villain) penciled by Dillin with inks by Cuidera, and 'The Feathered Sleuth,' a comedic strip spotlighting team mascot Blackie the hawk; Sheldon Moldoff also contributed inking work to the issue.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Zinda Blake, Lady Blackhawk (DC's first recurring female character in the Blackhawk title), in the story 'The Lady Blackhawk!' — pencils by Dick Dillin, inks by Chuck Cuidera, edited/scripted by Jack Schiff.
- Cover date: February 1959; newsstand on-sale date: approximately December 9, 1958.
- Zinda Blake's debut story pits her against the Scavenger, a pirate-themed villain; despite rescuing the entire Blackhawk Squadron, she is denied full membership because team codes forbid women, and is instead awarded honorary status.
- The issue is an anthology of three stories: 'The Human Dynamo' (first and only appearance of the electricity-powered Dynamo villain), 'The Feathered Sleuth' (featuring team mascot Blackie the hawk), and 'The Lady Blackhawk!'
- Cover and interior art by the Dillin/Cuidera team; Sheldon Moldoff also contributed inking on the issue.
- Lady Blackhawk returned in Blackhawk #140, #143, #147, and many subsequent issues; she was later brainwashed by Nazi operative Killer Shark and briefly became the villainess Queen Killer Shark.
- Zinda Blake was time-displaced during the 1994 Zero Hour crossover event and re-emerged in the modern DC era, eventually becoming the pilot and a core member of Oracle's Birds of Prey from 2004 to 2011.
- The Lady Blackhawk story from this issue was reprinted internationally in Top Comics Der Schwarze Falke (BSV-Williams, 1970 series) #116 and in the K. G. Murray Australian Blackhawk series #47 (circa 1969–1972).
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↩ Reprints Tomahawk #16 (1953), Hopalong Cassidy #102 (1955)
Reprinted in Blackhawk #47 (1972), Blackhawk #30, El Halcón de Oro #14, Serie-nytt [Serienytt] #44/1959, Top Comics Der Schwarze Falke #112, Top Comics Der Schwarze Falke #115, Top Comics Der Schwarze Falke #116
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