PHANTOM LADY'S TWICE-TOLD TALES "World's Meanest Crook!" & "Meanest Men in the World!"

A startling story ripped from today's headlines...

...but it's from Fox's Phantom Lady #15, published in 1947!

Talk about "the more things change, the more they stay the same"!

Meet the menace of the man called...Foreclose!

According to the Grand Comics Database, while there's some Matt Baker work in the story, they believe the majority of it is by someone else, as yet unidentified.I think it's primarily Baker with someone else assisting, possibly Jack Kamen, but that's just me...  ;-)
Several years, and another publisher later...
With the newly-formed Comics Code Authority running roughshod over anything even slightly "naughty", Ajax/Farrell's hope to take existing art and reuse it (as they did HERE) to save money went out the window when the Code refused to let the story above be reprinted without so many art changes that it was easier to just redraw it from scratch...

The idea of crooked real estate agents ripping off returning veterans worked just as well in Ajax/Farrell's Phantom Lady #4 (1955), just changing the war (Korea instead of World War II) the vets were returning from!
You'll also note the Phantom Lady's risque ensemble now looks like a high school girl's baggy shirt and shorts gym outfit, and her poses are far less provocative than the cheesecake-style renderings in the first tale!

Script in both versions probably by Ruth Roche.

However, this time the art is not by Matt Baker, and though adequate, is no match for the original!
This situation occured several more times during the Phantom Lady's short-lived revival, and we'll bring you all of them over the next few weeks!

Visit our

"Naughty" 

Phantom Lady

Collectibles Shop

featuring goodies emblazoned with cover art that Fredric Wertham railed against in Seduction of the Innocent.

SPITFIRE SANDERS "Whip" & PHANTOM LADY "Satan's Seal!"

For our Summer Mini-Marathon, we're re-presenting twice-told tales...

...such as this one, starring a long-forgotten heroine from Spitfire Comics #132 (1944)!

Spitfire Sanders made only two appearances, in successive issues of Elliot Comics' Spitfire Comics, which despite the high numbering of this issue (#132), only had two issues!
The art on this story about an extremely competent female spy is by journeyman artist Paul Cooper, working for the Iger Studios, who also supplied art to Ajax/Farrell (where the re-worked version appeared several years later) and Fox Comics.

Now we jump a decade to 1954.

The Nazis have been defeated.

Communism is on the rise.

A comic book publisher needs a story about a superheroine to meet a deadline, so Nazi-fighter Spitfire Sanders becomes...Commie-crusher Phantom Lady!

Oh, and due to space limitations, the original story has to be cut by a couple of pages...

For this presentation in Ajax/Farrell's Phantom Lady #5 (actually #1) from 1954, the brand new (and extremely-restrictive Comics Code also required a reduction in gunplay and use of torture instruments like whips, so there are a number of panels reworked or deleted entirely!

Be Here Next Week
when we present another example of a 1940s tale re-done for the 1950s!

Visit our

"Naughty" 

Phantom Lady

Collectibles Shop

featuring goodies emblazoned with cover art that Fredric Wertham railed against in Seduction of the Innocent.

ACTION COMICS "Deadly Rampage of the Lady Fox" Conclusion

We Have Already Seen..

Superman encounters a super-powered woman who steals and dumps a truckload of expensive furs, then manages to elude him.

Informed by the government that the furs may be part of an illegally-imported shipment, the Man of Steel (as reporter Clark Kent) is, coincidentally, assigned by WGBS with Lana Lang to travel to New Delhi to investigate what may be the source of the poached furs.

Also on the hunt in India is fashionista Mari MaCabe, whom the Last Son of Krypton had met back in Metropolis...when she hijacked the fur-laden truck in her guise as Vixen!

Seeing the costumed woman pursuing someone, Clark intends to follow...

Written by Vixen's co-creator (along with artist Bob Oksner) Gerry Conway, penciled by iconic Superman artist Curt Swan, and inked by Frank Chiaramonte, this never-reprinted premiere appearance in DC's Action Comics #521 (1981) gives us only the smallest hints of who Mari is and why she's doing what she does!

We'd have to wait another three years, when she would team-up again with Superman in DC Presents #68 (1984), (which has also never been reprinted) to learn any more details about her.

But, if you continue reading this blog, you won't have to wait that long...

ACTION COMICS "Deadly Rampage of the Lady Fox" Part 1

Vixen makes her live-action debut tonite on Arrow...

...embodied by the actress who's been doing her voice on the animated series, Megalyn Echikunwoke.

To celebrate, here's Part 1 of her never-reprinted debut from DC's Action Comics #521 (1981).

Note: we already presented her never-published origin HERE!

Tomorrow:

Mild-Mannered Reporter Meets Firey Fashion Model...

Written by Vixen's co-creator (along with artist Bob Oksner) Gerry Conway, penciled by iconic Superman artist Curt Swan, and inked by Frank Chiaramonte, this premiere appearance gives us only the smallest hints of who Mari is and why she's doing what she does.