Phantom Lady Archives V1 (1941 - 1943)

Book excerpt: Phantom Lady is a fictional superheroine, one of the first female superhero characters to debut in the 1940s Golden Age of Comic Books. Originally published by Quality Comics, the character was subsequently published by a series of now-defunct comic book companies, and a new version of the character currently appears in books published by DC Comics. As published by Fox Feature Syndicate in the late 1940s, the busty and scantily-clad Phantom Lady is a notable and controversial example of "good girl art," a style of comic art depicting voluptuous female characters in provocative situations and pin-up poses that contributed to widespread criticism of the medium's effect on children. Phantom Lady was created by the Eisner & Iger studio, one of the first to produce comics on demand for publishers. The character's early adventures were drawn by Arthur Peddy. The character was ranked 49th in Comics Buyer's Guide's "100 Sexiest Women in Comics" list. Phantom Lady first appeared in Quality's Police Comics #1 (Aug, 1941), an anthology title the first issue of which also included the debut of characters such as Plastic Man and the Human Bomb. That issue established her alter ego as Sandra Knight, the beautiful Washington, D.C. debutante daughter of U.S. Senator Henry Knight. The issue established that it was not her first appearance as the Phantom Lady, but it did not go into her origin. Stories published decades later by DC Comics would give her a proper origin, which was altered several times to give Sandra a more active role. Her skimpy costume was eventually explained as a deliberate tactic to distract her usually male foes. Sandra Knight assumed the identity of Phantom Lady in a costume consisting of a green cape and the equivalent of a one-piece yellow swimsuit. She used a "black light projector," a device which allowed her to blind her enemies and make herself invisible. She drove a car whose headlights also projected black light when necessary. She was sometimes assisted by her fiance, Donald Borden, an agent of the U.S. State Department. Phantom Lady ran as one of the features in Police Comics through #23. Arthur Peddy continued as the artist through #13, with Joe Kubert drawing her feature in Police Comics #14-16; Frank Borth on #17-21; Arthur Peddy returned for #22,; and Rudy Palais on #23. Phantom Lady also appeared in Feature Comics #69-71 as part of a crossover with Spider Widow and the Raven