(Blue Ribbon Comics 008, 1941)
Technically, Natcha is just another costumed gang boss, but she has a lot more style than you usually get with those.
This being MLJ's Hercules, Natcha is thematically linked to one of his iconic Twelve Labours, in this case the theft of the Girdle of Hippolyta. Of course, this version of Hercules was ridding the ancient world of evil rather than atoning for his own crimes via arbitrarily hard tasks, so the girdle doesn't come into it and Hippolyta is implied to have been a villain of some sort whom Hercules reformed.
Natcha's victim here ends up as an ad hoc sidekick to Hercules for this adventure and gets saddled with the name "Little Zooey" for no apparent reason, despite his vigorous protests.
I really like Natcha! She's much more of a bruiser than most lady crooks of the Golden Age! Sure she's a crook but she's a crook with panache. Not that that helps her when a literal demigod shows up on her doorstep, even if he does have to take care of Little Zooey.
Both Natcha and Little Zooey are set to reappear in future Hercules adventures but are instead banished to comic book limbo thanks to the Hercules feature never appearing again, a sad end for about one and a half good characters. Natcha in particular should absolutely be BRUNG BACK the next time someone takes a pass at reviving the Archie super-heroes even if Hercules is left in the big pile of also-rans with Lancelot Strong and the Wizard.
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