464 PHANTOM LADY
appeal. He also had a fl are for fashion and paid loving attention to details of clothing
and hair styles, at a time when the average male comic artist was satisfi ed to clothe his
heroines in a featureless red dress. It should be noted that Phantom Lady’s costume of
blue shorts and a matching halter top, much-heralded by male critics and fans as eye-
poppingly sexy, contains more fabric than what the average woman wears today on the
beach. Th ere is not a navel to be seen.
Phantom Lady’s most famous—or infamous—cover, no, 17. from 1948, was
featured in Fredric Wertham’s famous condemnation of comic books, Seduction
of the Innocent. The superheroine stands on a dock, tied to a post, but not very
well tied, as she has already made headway in undoing her ropes. Looking directly
at the readers, she flashes her black ray at them. Her halter top is cut lower than
usual, and exposes a generous expanse of pointed breast. Wertham described the
cover as producing “sexual stimulation by combining ‘headlights’ with the sadist’s
dream of tying up a woman.” A perusal of Golden Age comic books will reveal
far stronger and more objectionable bondage scenes, including those in which the
woman’s clothing is ripped and she is being whipped. An equal perusal of “bad girl”
comics of the 1990s will reward the prurient reader with breasts twice the size of
Phantom Lady’s. Still, because of this inclusion in Wertham’s book, although all
issues of Phantom Lady are extremely valuable to collectors, the price on #17 is
now astronomical.
Phantom Lady was at her most interesting when she interacted with other women,
and this happened often in her stories. In “Th e Condemned Venus,” from Phantom Lady
#14, 1947, she actually gets herself arrested and put into prison so that she can free her
friend Kitty Manders, who, believing her husband is a killer, has taken the rap for him
and has been condemned to death for murder. Together, on the lam from the law, they
kidnap the governor and fi nd the real killers.
“A Shroud for the Bride,” in the same issue, is a kind of dark Cinderella story. Porky
Mead, an alcoholic millionaire, breaks three dates to attend a masquerade ball with a
pretty waitress he has picked up. (“Porky an’ me is gonna get married,” says the waitress.)
A shot rings out and his date falls to the ground, dead. Phantom Lady learns that the
victim was wearing a costume meant for someone else—one of the three jealous women
who had been stood up by Porky. Stealing the dead girl’s shoe, she tries it on each of the
woman, knowing the shoe will fi t the murderer.
Phantom Lady was revived by DC in the 1970s (in the Freedom Fighters, along
with other Quality characters) and still makes occasional appearances in her civilian
identity as the grandmother of Manhunter Kate Spencer. Also, two successor Phantom
Ladies, Dee Tyler and Stormy Knight, have since been published. Dee Tyler was written
by Len Strazewski and drawn by Chuck Austen with an even skimpier costume than
her predecessor. Stormy Knight was created by writer Justin Gray and artist Jimmy
Palmiotti, based on notes from Grant Morrison. Th e character is remembered today
by mostly male writers and fans as being outrageously over-the-top in blatant sexuality.
A fresh look at the comic, especially compared to the more recent treatment of women
