Number 2559: Phantom Lady and the Ace of Spades see through the disguises

                                       

I have commented (more than once) that Sandra, who is Senator Knight’s daughter, does not wear a disguise as Phantom Lady. She wears an abbreviated costume, but no mask on her face. In this tale Phantom Lady and the villainous Ace of Spades, wearing a sexy cowgirl outfit, meet up, and there is a showdown.

The enemy Ace of Spades is more observant than the friends and loved ones of those who hang out with Phantom Lady. In her first look at Phantom Lady the Ace of Spades thinks, “She looks enough like Senator Knight to be his daughter!” And Phantom Lady is no slouch, either...she sees through the Ace of Spade’s costume, and knows who she really is.

If only the myopic men and other characters in Phantom Lady had the power to see the obvious truth, that Sandra, sans costume, and Phantom Lady look exactly alike.

From Phantom Lady #20 (1948). Artwork attributed by the Grand Comics Database to Matt Baker.                                                                                

Number 2451: The lady was a robot

The Phantom Lady had quite a career during the 1940s, and into the '50s and beyond. She began as a character for Quality Comics, then Fox, then Farrell. She got around.

In “The Beauty and the Brain,” from Phantom Lady #13 (actual #1, 1947, published by Fox), Phantom Lady, who is Sandra Knight, daughter of a U.S. senator, is replaced by a robot who is her double. The robot is recognized as Sandra, but then Sandra also masquerades as the robot. This kind of story doesn’t have to make sense.

I have mentioned before (more than is necessary, really) that no one recognizes Sandra when she is Phantom Lady, despite not changing her appearance, just her clothes. However, I haven’t forgotten this is a comic book, where costumed heroes and heroines manage to keep secret identities that would be instantly seen through in real life.

The artwork is by Matt Baker. The stories were produced by the Jerry Iger shop, which piled on pulchritude to make the female characters stand out. The author is credited as Gregory Page, a pseudonym for usual Iger scripter, Ruth Roche.

Two Phantom Ladies! Just click on the thumbnail. 

Number 2107: Phantom Lady is introduced

Phantom Lady, who went on to infamy, had a modest beginning at Quality Comics in 1941. Arthur Peddy signed the first Phantom Lady appearance in Police Comics #1, which I am presenting today.

Peddy co-created the character (writer unknown) for the Eisner-Iger studios, which supplied the contents of early Quality Comics. Her gimmick, besides being a United States senator’s daughter, was the “flashdark,” a portable black light, putting crooks literally in the dark.

Peddy went in the Army, and Phantom Lady was turned over to Frank Borth, before disappearing from Quality. She reappeared for Fox, when Jerry Iger revived the character. Along with Rulah, Phantom Lady was one of the mainstays of Fox’s late forties’ sexy comic book heroines.

Number 1956: Phantom Lady amongst the face blind

We have mentioned this comic book phenomenon before: a superhero (or, in this case Phantom Lady, a costumed crime fighter) can fool everyone into believing she is a different person (in this case, Sandra Knight) without wearing a mask or substantially changing in any way except for changing clothes. I have considered that Phantom Lady’s body is distracting everyone from looking at her face, but that doesn’t work. After all, from birth our brains are wired toward recognizing faces. My conclusion is that Sandra must be amongst a group of people, including her boyfriend and her dad, who have prosopagnosia, a neurological disorder that is characterized by the inability to recognize faces. It is also called face blindness. Even that is unsatisfactory, since the face blindness of those in Sandra’s circle only happens when they encounter Phantom Lady. Sandra’s beau, Don, can only recognize (in the last two panels of the story) that Sandra wears the same lipstick as Phantom Lady.

In this story, from Phantom Lady #21 (1948), Sandra/Phantom Lady’s talent for evading detection may also be explained by a different artist taking over the art after about page two or so.

I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t mention that Phantom Lady must enjoy being tied up. Based on what I see on pages 6 and 7 of the rope that is binding her wrists, a child could easily slip out. No knots!

Number 1797: Phantom Lady, In the wrong place at the right time

Sandra Knight, secret identity of the Phantom Lady, finds herself on a subway platform with a maniac called the Subway Killer. How lucky is that? What an amazing coincidence. (Heavy sarcasm.) Unfortunately, such coincidences are part and parcel of comics. The writers had to get to the action in as short a time as possible. Anyway, as happens to males in these types of stories, Sandra’s boyfriend takes the maniac’s cane upside his head. To chase the villain of course Sandra takes off her everyday clothes to expose herself as the exhibitionist Phantom Lady.

We never find out anything about the maniac, except he pushes girls off subway platforms, and dies in a sort of justice administered by our heroine.

It is from Fox’s All Top Comics #12 (1948). The young guys who bought this comic book also got Rulah, Jo-Jo the Congo King, and Blue Beetle, and assorted females in various states of undress.