Born in Brooklyn to Communist Party members Benjamin and Lucille Gurdin, she was raised to believe in the same things as her parents without much choice. Her parents had her join the Miss Young Communist League in 1937 and this led to a short lived modelling career and even a role in a movie titled Gun Molls in Trouble. She then changed her name to Reed in honour of the American Communist John Reed and then migrated to Russia. While there she became aeronautical engineer and chief designer for the Valentine-Prendergast Airplane Factory. She was a skilled pilot. She became connected to the Blackhawks when she created the design for their modified Grumman XF5F-1 skyrocket plans. Later, while working for Soviet Intelligence, she helped to defeat Death Mayhew, who was plotting to destroy Manhattan and was then dubbed Lady Blackhawk by the press.

Little is known about her post-war life except that she did some more modelling and toured publicly. She was briefly employed at Blackhawk Airways in Singapore. Natalie reappeared shortly after leaving the Blackhawks when she started writing the Blackhawks' licensed comic book adventures, but was framed for putting Communist doctrine into the scripts. She was cleared of this charge.

It is unknown how she lost her eye or who the father of her baby boy is and the files of her current whereabouts have been classified.

New 52

She is a member of the New Blackhawks and is second to only the leader Lincoln. The Blackhawks were on a mission during Darkseid's siege on the planet. They were infiltrating one of the hovering Para-Demon pods for a search and rescue mission of an unnamed lieutenant. A Para-Demon snuck up behind her and plucked her left eye out before she killed him with a head shot. Then then went further into the hold and located the lieutenant and freed her. The lieutenant was then taken control by the Apokalypton technology that was keeping her alive. She quickly defeated the rescue team and called herself Mother Machine.