Kent Blake

First Appearance: Kent Blake of the Secret Service #1 (May 1951).
Appearances: Kent Blake of the Secret Service #1-14, Amazing Spider-Man Annual #13.
Years Active: 1951-present.

A brown-haired, square-jawed agent who works for the Secret Service, Kent Blake also is on loan to the "Special Investigation Department." (Or perhaps he works for them; the tales are somewhat confused and contradictory on this point.) Blake is tough and good with his fists, and has a good set of espionage skills, which he pits against Them Damn Commies, both at home and abroad, ala DC's King Faraday. His stories were a cut above mere propagandist flag-waving, however; while he did take on The Red Menace (including a man who was drugging a friend so he'd give false testimony and allow four Soviet spies to go free), he also took on amoral war profiteers ("merchants of death") and counterfeiters who were operating from within "the federal penitentiary." Blake was hard-boiled; he was willing to seduce a crooked nightclub owner to do the job and willing to throw her off a rooftop in a death-struggle.

His stories were very specifically located in the 1950s, with one being dated January 15, 1951. When the Korean War started he joined up and was active both on the front lines and behind them, carrying out guerrilla missions.

During the modern era it was revealed, in Amazing Spider-Man Annual #13, that Kent had married his long-time girlfriend Sue and had continued to serve the Secret Service up through the modern day, when he'd been killed by a petty criminal; Blake's ghost enlisted Spider-Man's help to catch Ryan. (A pretty petty way for such a character to die, but what do I know?)

Note: These two images represent both versions of Blake that the reader saw: the wartime Blake, unshaven, in casual togs (those or Army uniforms), and very war-weary; and the spy fighter Blake, snappy, two-fisted, and energetic.