She only made a half-dozen appearances during the Silver Age...
...and two in the Bronze Age, but the Darling of Darkness made an indelible impression on comics fans...
Be here Next Week
continues...
Though Marvel and DC dominated the super-hero genre during the Silver Age, numerous companies jumped into the fray with their own lines of costumed characters.
One of the most successful (artistically, at least) was Charlton.
With a lineup of talent including old pros like Dick Giordano, Pete Morisi, and Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko as well as up-and-comers like Denny O'Neil, Roy Thomas, Pat Boyette, and Jim Aparo, Charlton offered a line of "Action Heroes" including two different Blue Beetles, ThunderBolt, Hercules, JudoMaster, The Sentinels, The Question, Son of Vulcan, Captain Atom, and one "Action Heroine"...NightShade.
She had already appeared in several issues of Captain Atom by writer David A Kaler and illustrator Steve Ditko as a super-powered CIA operative assigned by the government to assist the title hero.
No explanation was given for her powers, which were assumed to be technological or chemical in nature.
The Darling of Darkness proved popular enough to receive her own back-up strip in Captain Atom #87 (1967), where co-creator Kaler and new artist Jim Aparo told her origin, making it supernatural rather than scientific!
Next week, along with Part 2 of her origin, we'll include more info about this influental heroine.
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