DCU Comic Book Reviews

BIRDS OF PREY #112

The Warrior Wake Of Zinda Blake

January 2008

Written by Tony Bedard

Pencils by David Cole

Inks by Doug Hazelwood

Cover by Stephane Roux

Synopsis

Zinda Blake (aka Blackhawk) is in a bar having a good time, which is her way of remembering the memory of Big Barda.  Meanwhile, White Star and Falseface are watching her, waiting until they can get her alone.  Later, Zinda leaves the bar and hops into a cab, telling the driver to take her to a bar near Edwards Air Force Base, in California, across the country.  She gets him to go by offering to buy his cab for him.  Somewhere in Pennsylvania, White Star and Falseface attempt to run the cab off the road, but Zinda is able to save herself and the cabbie, but not before Falsface gets close enough to physically duplicate her look.  Zinda and the Cabbie then board a train.  Later, White Star and Falseface use a helicopter to board the train to kill Zinda, but she is able to stop them.  Zinda then takes the helicopter to Edwards Air Force Base, where she puts a picture of Barda on the wall, and then drinks a toast to her fallen friend.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

I have to commend Bedard for pulling off a neat trick, focusing on a little used character to memorialize another character that had died in a different book.  One of the weird aspects of Barda’s death is that it kinda went unnoticed, happening in a mini-series, but getting little mention elsewhere, so it was nice to see this memorial issue show up.  Granted, there was very little of Barda in terms of remembering who she was or what she had done, and the issue was devoted to Zinda and not Barda, but at least the concept of the story was that Zinda remembered her.  Both were members of the Birds of Prey, even for a short period of time, so it makes sense.  While I can’t imagine that Zinda would have developed that close of a bond to Bard in the short time they were in the Birds of Prey together to act the way she does, I can accept her actions given the number of people close in her life that she must have lost. 

It was also nice to see a full issue devoted to Zinda, a character who spends a lot of time in the background, sometimes literally as she stands near the plane or helicopter while the main characters talk.  Bedard manages to write Zinda as a throwback to the time period in which she was born without making it seem like she is a character out of time, such as having characters talk about how they remind her of someone old (grandma!) or how women don’t act like that or whatever.  She is who she is with no apologies given and I like that.  In my opinion, Zinda is underused and I hope this helps to show she can be a vital character to spotlight in this book.