PHANTOM LADY & SPIDER WIDOW Conclusion

When Last We Left Our Heroines...

Feature Comics #71

The Spider Widow and Phantom Lady, brought together to battle a menace threatening PL's father, US Senator Knight, have also developed a rivalry for the affections of The Raven.

Note: the order is changed this month as the Spider Widow tale comes first in story continuity.

Also, even though most sources list this as a Frank Borth job, it's not signed, as most of his work is, and the art style is a bit...off.

So while Borth probably wrote and penciled the story, he probably didn't ink it.

Now for the Phantom Lady installment...

Police Comics #22

The art here seems to be a combination of Frank Borth and Phantom Lady creator Arthur Peddy.

Both Spider Widow and Phantom Lady would make one more appearance in their respective series before being canceled.

While Phantom Lady was revived and revised at Fox Publishing, the Spider Widow hasn't appeared in a new story since.
interestingly, when DC revived the Phantom Lady as part of the Freedom Fighters in the 1970s, they brought back this version in yellow and green, not the later, notorious Fox/Ajax blue and red version!

We hope you enjoyed this look at the first version of Phantom Lady!

PHANTOM LADY & SPIDER WIDOW Part 2

When Last We Left Our Heroines...

Police Comics #21

To that, we would add that the two heroines (and a hero) saved the life of Phantom Lady's father, Senator Knight!

Amazing, these crooks are yards away from the dueling damsels, yet they recognize Phantom Lady as Sandra Knight!

Her boyfriend in the Fox issues, Don, is even dumber than I thought!

Then the story continued in Spider Widow's home, Feature Comics...

Feature Comics #70

Scripter/artist Frank Borth was one of the under-appreciated craftsmen of the era.

He produced almost 100 stories, but never hit the "big time" with a major character or title.

Even his work on Phantom Lady is overshadowed by Matt Baker's more cheesecakey art on the later Fox version!

Be here next week for the final two chapters and a couple of surprises!

PHANTOM LADY & SPIDER-WIDOW Part 1

SuperHERO team-ups were rare in the Golden Age.

SuperHEROINE team-ups were rarer!

And multi-issue cross-over team-ups by anybody were practically non-existent!

Police Comics #20

You'll note a couple of differences from the Phantom Lady you're used to seeing on this blog including a differently-colored costume, a mask, no black-light ray, and no Matt Baker art!

That's because this is the earlier Quality Comics version of the character, before she began her run at Fox in All Top Comics and her own title!

Just go with the flow, and all will be made clear...

Feature Comics #69

Beginning in Phantom Lady's strip Police Comics #20 and carrying over to Spider Widow's series in  Feature Comics #69 (both cover-dated July, 1943), Frank Borth (who wrote and drew both strips at the time) tried something a little different, tying the two series together for three months with an ongoing plotline!
Personally, I enjoy the "breaking the 4th wall bits" including mentioning that they're actually in comic books and referencing other Quality Comics characters like Blackhawk!

Be here next week for Part 2 (of 3)

DAREDEVIL COMICS "Pat Patriot: America's Joan of Arc"

Here's the Introduction to One of the More Unique Patriotic Golden Age Heroines...

Read the story and see if you can guess what makes her different from the other Golden Age heroines!

Brave, patriotic, can handle herself in a fight!

"What's so different about her?"

Her name!

"Patricia Patrios", the name chosen by writers Charles Biro & Bob Wood to conveniently "lead" into the Pat Patriot nom-du-guerre, was not the typical WASPy name most comic characters used!

It's never mentioned in the stories, but she appears to be a 1st or 2nd generation American of Greek or Greek/insert ethnicity ancestry.

The art on this tale from Lev Gleason's DareDevil Comics #2 (1941) is confusing in that it has elements of both Frank Borth and Reed Crandall's styles.so it's impossible to say who did what!
Pat Patriot kicked Nazi and neo-Nazi asses from #2 to #11, after which almost all the features besides DareDevil himself were replaced!

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Divas, Dames & Daredevils

Lost Heroines of Golden Age Comics

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Halloween Heroines FANTOMAH "Mystery Woman of the Jungle"

Jungle Heroine or Spirit of Vengeance?

Can you tell which one she is, dear reader?

I certainly can't!

As rendered by the...unique...Fletcher Hanks, Fantomah was the first comic book superheroine (as in heroine with super-powers instead of a costumed "normal" woman), predating Wonder Woman by a year!

This particular story, from Fiction House's Jungle Comics #2 (1940), was her premiere appearance, and reads like a drug-induced nightmare!

Hanks handled the character from her premiere in #2 to #15, with the stories becoming even more surreal every issue!

When new creatives took over with #16, the character was immediately "toned-down", eliminating the skull-face look, and limiting her almost-limitless powers.

As of #27, she was rebooted as "Daughter of the Pharaohs", queen of a lost civilization made up of descendants of an ancient Egyptian expedition stranded in central Africa centuries earlier.

Her series ended in #51 (1944).

Trivia: Despite being popular enough to run for several years in Jungle Comics, Fantomah never made the cover!

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Turn Loose Our Death Rays and Kill Them All!

Complete Works of Fletcher Hanks
(which includes all his Fantomah tales and so much more!)
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Halloween Heroines ARROW COMICS "Headless Horseman Rides Again"

We've Witnessed the First Adventure of The Headless HorseMAN...

...now read the second (and final) tale of the transvestite crimefighter of the Plains!

Amazing how dense the Sheriff is, eh?

I'm really surprised no B-movie producer or early TV series executive thought of using this concept!
It's relatively low-budget and would've made for an attention-getting gimmick!
Ah, well...
Though this never-reprinted appearance in Centaur's The Arrow Comics #2 (1940) was her last appearance, it wasn't Headless Horseman creator Martin Filchock's last comics work.
In fact, he was just beginning!
When he died in 2012, at the age of 100, he was considered "America's oldest working cartoonist" with credits ranging from comic books to risque mens' magazine to The American Legion Magazine to the Journal of the American Medical Association!

Next Week:
There's Magic in the Air!
But Is It a SuperHeroine...or SuperVillainess?

Check Out the Other Countdown to Halloween 2024 Participants

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