Fox Features

(Roy Thomas, foreword/Joe Kubert, Matt Baker and others; 301 pages; PS ARTBOOKS/PS PUBLISHING, 2013)

Most of us who grew up in the ’60s and ’70s may remember Phantom Lady from the DC comic series JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA (DC acquired the Lady and many such properties from Fawcett, Quality and many other minor publishing houses- including the Captain Marvel Family from Fawcett, and Plastic Man and Phantom Lady from Quality). In a story featuring the Justice Society of America, the two teams travel to Earth X, where the Nazis won World War II and several Quality heroes have banded together, calling themselves the Freedom Fighters. Now, thanks to comics legend and historian Roy Thomas, what we have here is the first stories to feature Phantom Lady, including her entire run in Quality’s POLICE COMICS, starting with the August 1941 debut issue and ending with #23, dated October, 1943. There are also three cross-over stories (quite rare for the time) from FEATURE COMICS and starring the Spider Widow and the Raven. After POLICE COMICS #23, Phantom Lady just disappeared. She was revived by Fox Features in her own title, cover dated August, 1947, with numbering starting at #13 (taking over numbering from WOTALIFE COMICS). The first five issues of the revival are here, as well. That, my friends, may seem like a WHOLE lot of comics. And it is… just not a particularly large page count. Most of the Quality stories are only six pages long (a few are five), which is certainly problematic from a story-telling standpoint. But, more of that later.

Spoiled society debutante Sandra Knight, as Phantom Lady, works the spy and military espionage cases in Washington, DC, where her father, Senator Henry Knight, seems to be very much involved in whatever particular Senate Sub-Committee that has anything – no matter how remote – to do with the Lady’s current case. Phantom Lady’s mysterious work is, amazingly, accomplished in a skimpy swimsuit (that would have gotten her arrested in most towns and cities back then), a bright green cape, and… with very few exceptions, no mask! The latter had to be a real pain because a majority of her early stories involved her saving either her father or her boyfriend, Don Borden (of the State Department, no less), or – more often than not – both of them, from some unusually inept fifth column threat or scheme. I mean, even Superman’s alter ego wears glasses and a different hair style. Sandra’s answers to the usual coming and going questions (“Where are you going at a time like this?” and “Where were you? Phantom Lady saved us all!”), likewise, would have made even Clark Kent cringe (“Oh… I forgot I was out of lipstick and had to buy some before someone saw me without any.” or “I thought I heard the cat meowing for a saucer of milk, so I went to berate the staff for not taking care of such problems before they came up.” Okay, so those two are mine, but the excuses actually used in the stories are equally lame.). Sandra’s feigned self-absorption certainly did take the art form to new levels of narcissism… much like the very real spoiled pop tarts and tabloid princesses of today.

With only six pages of story, the writers (whose names are lost to the pages of time, by the way) were really hampered. As the strip was action-oriented, the basic premise of the plot had to be delivered in the first several panels; someone had to be kidnapped or threatened in the first two pages; the Phantom Lady had to find the bad guys’ hideout and come close to being permanently eliminated before bringing out her weapon of choice (a black light which caused her enemies to be blinded if they fell within its range) to wrap up the crooks before the bottom of page five; the cops had to be notified and Sandra Knight had to make her reappearance – usually uttering some snarky remark – before the end of the story. Formulaic? Sure, but – as they say – those were simpler times and the writers were basically writing these things for kids. They did try to imbue the scripts with a touch of humor… usually unsuccessfully. In fact, the only time that the humor really worked well was during the cross-over stories featuring the Raven and Spider Widow. These stories also worked because there was a common plot device running through the five stories (two in POLICE COMICS, three in FEATURE COMICS): Competition. The two heroines were chagrined that the other claimed to be the most popular female hero in comics, fighting each other as much as the villain of the piece. Of course, stuck in the middle was Spider Widow’s partner, the Raven.

Things were allowed to progress at a slower – if not more natural – pace with the Fox Features stories. The Lady was featured in stories that ran from seven pages (I know… not much of an improvement, but… ) to eleven or 12 pages, with two (and, in issue #14, three) stories per issue. Though these stories were no less formulaic, they were better fleshed out than the Quality stories. They also featured a more common class of criminals, as well, as Phantom Lady became more involved in diamond robberies and the like. She even confronted zombies in “An Army of Walking Dead” in issue #15 and a werewolf in a story called “The Monster In the Pool,” from issue #16.

The real story here is the artwork. That pun, by the way, was fully intended. The first 13 stories were drawn by Arthur F Peddy. Peddy’s style, at first, reminded me of Charles Moulton’s early Wonder Woman stories. As the series progressed, he became more comfortable with the female form and Phantom Lady’s appearance and movements took on a more natural look. The real find from the Quality era begins with “The West Point Incident,” from POLICE COMICS #14. That story and the next two were illustrated by a very young Joe Kubert. Looking at these 18 formative pages, we see only a slight glimmer of the style that Kubert would perfect in the ’50s and ’60s at DC. Instead, we have a very Eisner-esque style that works very well with the super-hero strip. Two of the Kubert stories feature an odd, though somehow appealing veil-like mask on our heroine. Starting with POLICE COMICS #17, Frank Borth takes over and it seems that the Lady finally has the perfect artist. There is some conjecture that Borth may have also written these tales, as they are credited as “A Frank M Borth Feature.” The three Spider Widow stories are credited the same and he is also listed in the contents pages of this collection as being the writer of those scripts. Borth, like Kubert, tries a mask – a simple black mask that covers the eyes (think Robin or Zorro) – for the Lady. It lasts for one story and is retired. The art on the final two POLICE COMICS stories are credited to Rudy Palais (the contents has a question mark beside his name for issue 22, the story from issue 23 is signed). Again, Palais seems to be a step up (although only slightly) from the previous artist.

The first Fox Features stories brought more changes than just the page count. Gone were the yellow swimsuit and green cape, replaced by a more appealing blue suit (and blue shorts) and a red cape. Sandra Knight/Phantom Lady was also now more voluptuous than her Quality artists drew her. Fox was cashing in on what has come to be known as “Good Girl” art, a style that many critics of the day considered borderline pornographic. These artistic changes were provided by Matt Baker, a young man who obviously knew his way around the female of the species. His was a style that would be very much in demand at the major comics houses today, very clean and detailed. These five issues alone would be worth the price of this collection. The Fox Features stories were credited to “Gregory Page,” a pseudonym used throughout the Fox line. Mister Thomas, comics scholar that he is, believes that these scripts were actually written by Ruth Roche. Me… I just read ’em, so I bow to his superior knowledge. Roy promises more Baker and Roche in Volume 2 of this collection. I can’t wait!