History

 

Phantom Lady has an interesting history. Like the Blue Beetle, she was bounced between several publishers before finally, as with most golden age characters, being absorbed into DC during the silver age.  Throughout her tumultuous career, her origin story has remained the same. Just as foppish Don Diego Vega was a cover for Zorro and spoiled playboy Bruce Wayne was a cover for Batman, pampered debutante Sandra Knight was the cover for Phantom Lady. As far as the world knows, Sandra is the daughter of senator Henry Knight and the fiancé of Diplomatic Security Service agent Don Borden. But Sandra was much more. Sandra was the Phantom Lady. She protected those who protected her.

 

Armed with a black light projector capable of blinding opponents, Phantom Lady protected her father and fiancé from 5th columnist spies and assassins. Her superheroine career started as a very personal affair. Criminals threatened her loved ones and she intervened to protect them from the shadows. But in time, she grew beyond defending her loved ones to defending the entire nation from weird crimes and weird criminals.

 

Phantom Lady is best known today as a sex symbol. While her original look in Quality Comics’ Police Comics wasn’t risqué at all by the standards of superhero outfits being a tasteful one-piece, boots, and cape, when Fox Features started publishing Phantom Lady they had Matt Baker, legendary god of comic book sexiness, draw her, Phantom Lady was catapulted to the ranks of Sheena, Queen of the Jungle (who was also drawn by Matt Baker). But for me, the most interesting thing about Phantom Lady was how her superheroics were based in her love for her father and boyfriend. She was a female power fantasy. She was the fantasy of being able to return the protection she received.

 

If Phantom Lady was remade nowadays, senator Knight would probably be a corrupt blowhard and Don would probably be a self-important, bumbling chauvinist. Phantom lady would probably roll her eyes and go “Ugh, men!” as she pulls their fat from the fire. But that’s not how she was at all. In light of our current culture, its refreshing to see a female character who is motivated to action by the desire to protect the men in her life, men that she loves and respects.

 

How Phantom Lady came to be an expert in jiu jitsu armed with a black light projector in the first place was never explained. The version in my Power of Stardust series got her black light projector from another superhero who experimented with black light who felt she needed something to protect herself from kidnappers. He had no idea that Sandra was a martial arts enthusiast. He had no idea she was going to use the black light projector to become a superheroine.

 

She also faked her death to surprise 5th columnists–that’s why she’s mentioned as having “died” in the comic without even a body to bury. She didn’t actually die. Though the idea of Phantom Lady becoming an actual phantom was amusing, I thought it would be better to lean into the Washington DC spy fiction elements of her early stories and make her a “But we thought she was dead!” superspy.

 

Phantom Lady began in 1941 as a Quality Comics. She debuted in Police Comics 1, the same issue Plastic Man debuted in. Quality Comics was the home of Plastic Man, Uncle Sam, the Human Bomb, and all the other characters that would come to populate the Freedom Fighters/Earth-Four corner of the DC cosmos. But in the 1940’s, Phantom Lady was as much a DC character as Captain America.

 

In 1947, Fox Features acquired Phantom Lady (though whether or not this was legal is a matter of controversy) and gave her her own book. In 1954, Ajax-Farrell would get ahold of Phantom Lady and give her another book with some new stories, some reprints from the Fox era. In the 1960’s, Ajax-Farrell would be absorbed by Charlton, the company that would have all the Watchmen inspirations like the Question and Captain Atom, and they got ahold of Phantom Lady, though they wouldn’t make any Phantom Lady books, they would just sit on the property.

 

Phantom Lady may be the most “traded” character of the golden age.

 

When DC absorbed Quality and Charlton, they placed Phantom Lady with the Quality characters instead of the Charlton characters to return her to her roots. She’s been firmly in the background of the DC universe with OCs Dee Tyler, Stormy Knight, and Jennifer Knight taking her place. None of them have been able to eclipse the original.

 

Phantom Lady, as the quintessential sexy superheroine, has had several homages throughout the years. Though she wasn’t (though she kind of was, in the end) a Charlton character, Alan Moore used her and Black Canary as inspiration for Silk Specter. Moore clearly has a soft spot for the character as he would make another homage with America’s Best Comics‘ Cobweb. Big Bang Comics doesn’t normally homage characters outside the traditional Marvel and DC stables, but they do have Shadow Lady. My Hero Academia is no stranger to homage, and Midnight is a Phantom Lady homage with the dominatrix undertones cranked up to overtones.

 

And of course, since she’s public domain, people have cut out the homage middle-man. AC Comics, known for its public domain superheroes, cheesecake, and public domain superhero cheesecake, put Phantom Lady in their comic Fem Force, but they ran into legal problems (the rights were in a gray area at the time) and had to quickly change her to the Blue Bulleteer by slightly modifying her outfit…what little of an outfit she had. Erik Lawson, back before the liberal brainworms turned his brain into cottage cheese, was big into the public domain corner of the golden age and wrote Savage Dragon 141 in which an army of public domain greats, including Phantom Lady, gets in a misunderstanding fight with the Image set.

 

Phantom Lady got to drop kick Witchblade, which was cool. Sex symbol of the 40’s vs sex symbol of the 90’s.

 

And like I’ve stated, Phantom Lady is part of the Power of Stardust universe, though only through a mention.

 

What does the future hold for Phantom Lady?

 

Well, I have an idea for a story where the Quality, Ajax-Farrell, and Fox versions are all versions of Sandra Knight from different universes and they have to work together to stop a supervillain trying to steal their original black light projectors. Ajax-Farrell would be old and retired, Quality would be a ghost, and the Fox keeps herself young through super-science. The idea is that they’ll have to confront aspects about themselves that they don’t like in the others. Ajax-Farrell sees Fox as a younger version of herself that never grew up and Quality as a version of herself that’s lost all the things that made her Sandra Knight–her father, Don, everything that made her something more than Phantom Lady.

 

I think it’ll be interesting to see how I handle a girl with a fancy flashlight after adapting the mindscrew that is Stardust the Super-Wizard…but what do you think? Let me know in the comments.

 

Now, to get back on track, lets look a little closer at each era of Phantom Lady…

 

 

Quality

 

 

It’s funny looking back to note that Phantom Lady, who would come to have two solo books by two different comic companies, never graced the cover of Police Comics as more than an “also in this issue” face next to the Mouthpiece and the Human Bomb. Firebrand managed to get four covers, including the first issue (someone at Quality made a big mistake banking on Firebrand of all characters) but Phantom lady got none.

 

Phantom Lady didn’t start out popular, and if Fox didn’t pick her up after Quality she mind have ended up as obscure as Firebrand. Phantom Lady was a back-up feature in Police Comics, a real second banana strip, and no, that’s not a joke about her costume. Police Comics was always Plastic Man and the Spirit’s comic. They were the ones who got the book off the shelves. Police Comics didn’t need Phantom Lady, and after 23 issues Phantom Lady was let go in 1943.

 

Phantom Lady’s Police Comics stories are not for the casual reader. They aren’t what people read Police Comics for. They aren’t anywhere near the level of Jack Cole’s Plastic Man or Will Eisner’s The Spirit. 

 

(For the completionists out there in the audience, Phantom Lady also appeared in Quality’s Feature Comics issues 69, 70, and 71. None of the stories are very remarkable.)

 

Frankly, Phantom Lady’s Police Comics stories are kind of dull. Issue 1 has Phantom Lady rescue a kidnapped scientist before gangsters can sell his bomb formula to the Nazis. That set the tone and then some. In issue 2,  Japanese agents try to kidnap her during a diplomatic trip to “Herma,” in other words, Burma, to use as leverage against senator Knight. In issue 3, she rescues Don from 5th columnists. In issue 6, she rescues Don and her father from 5th columnists. In issue 8, she saves Don from South American Nazis.

 

Notice any patterns?

 

The Quality Phantom Lady didn’t have supervillains. She spent her time fighting the goombahs of the golden age–suited gangsters and 5th columnists. The closest she got to a supervillain was an assassin that targeted her father on Easter, dressed as the Easter Bunny and armed with explosive golden eggs.

 

 

I wouldn’t call him a supervillain though. You got to commit to your theme to be a supervillain, and this was just an assassin taking advantage of a holiday. 47 from Hitman can dress up as a sushi chef to kill people, it doesn’t make him the Sushi Shogun.

 

So, beyond beating up the Easter Bunny, what’s notable about Quality Phantom Lady? Not much, but here are a few things.

 

Her black light projector looked like a flashlight, and she even called it her flashlight on several occasions. Future Phantom Ladies would use a square black light projector. She drove a sleek black car just like the Green Hornet fitted with two black light projectors (where did she find them all?), which again, was different from the later Phantom Ladies who drove this abomination:

 

 

Listen, I’m all for retro-futurist cars. I love the Lincoln Futura and its bubble dome. But there’s a line between retro-futurist cars and the cars that go up and down in from of supermarkets for a quarter, and Phantom Lady’s atomic car crossed that line.

 

Quality’s Phantom Lady went through several costume changes. She started out with a pretty conservative costume, all things considered, but that would change in issue 10 where Phantom Lady shortened her cape and apparently cut a chunk out of her costume.

 

 

Boo, hiss. I love large capes. Capes just aren’t right unless they can dramatically flutter around you. When a cape is too short, its just a bib for your back.

 

With a costume like that its easy to see how Phantom Lady became a sex symbol. She falls into that category of strange characters who actually wear more clothes to go swimming.

 

Don’t believe me? Police Comics 19.

 

 

That’s just weird.

 

Speaking of Phantom Lady’s bizarre dress sense, here’s something you might not have noticed because of accepted genre conceits, but isn’t it strange how all Phantom Lady has to do to get her dad and boyfriend not to recognize her is put on a yellow swimsuit? She doesn’t wear a mask. She doesn’t change her hair. She doesn’t even take off a pair of glasses. She just strips down and suddenly no one can tell that she’s Sandra Knight.

Well, someone at Quality thought it was strange, because there are a few issues where she tried to wearing a mask.

 

In issue 15, she wore this mask:

 

 

It didn’t last, likely because someone realized how goofy it looked, and it only lasted for issue 15. But someone was bothered by Phantom Lady’s lack of facial covering because they tried again in issue 20 with a classic domino mask.

 

 

This to didn’t last. Someone probably figured out that it wasn’t worth drawing attention to the problem. Sometimes problems are best left unaddressed.

 

Oh, are you ready for some elder god level comic trivia? Sandra had a friend named Maisie who worked in a tank factory in issue 12. You know, Rosie the Riveter and all that. She was set up as a comedic foil to Sandra. While Sandra only appeared to be a pampered blue blood brat, Maisie actually was. While Maisie complained of her job sucking because she kept getting dirty, Sandra reminded her that her job was more than worth the trouble.

 

Keep em’ flying, ladies!

 

Or in this case, rolling, because they’re making tanks.

 

Anyway, you’d think Maisie would be a one-shot character…but she wasn’t. She actually showed up in the following issue, and then never again. Strange, huh? I think Maisie could have breathed some life into the comic.

 

Congratulations, you are now one of the most knowledgeable people on the planet when it comes to Phantom Lady lore. How does it feel?

 

Okay, now to close this section out on something that’s actually pretty interesting–Phantom Lady had a crossover.

 

Crossovers used to be very rare in comic books.  The whole “shared universe” thing hadn’t really crystalized as a concept. Outside the JSA, hardly anyone interacted with anyone. It was a big deal when Captain Marvel rescued Spy Smasher from Axis mind control or Human Torch fought Sub-Mariner because it wasn’t normal to see different superheroes share the same page. And yet, toward end of Phantom Lady’s Quality comics run, she had a handful of crossovers with two characters from Quality’s Feature Comics–Spider Widow and the Raven.

 

 

The trio’s dynamic was that Spider Widow was the Raven’s established partner. But then along comes Phantom Lady and uh oh, she’s making moves on the Raven! So these two highly capable superheroines forget all sense of decorum and catfight over the dorkiest bird themed superhero ever.

 

Seriously. Look at him. He can somehow fly and that’s way more believable than two 10/10 stunners willing to fight over him.

 

And I guess Sandra broke up with Don Borden off page…or, if you want to put a note of tragedy, he died off page and Sandra is looking for frivolous excitement in a superheroine love triangle so she won’t have to confront her feelings about a man she rescued countless times dying anyway.

 

See? You can wring interesting ideas out of these old stories.

 

In defense of Spider Widow, wouldn’t you feel a little mogged if your superheroine persona consisted of dressing up as a creepy hag and along came Bettie Page in the grandmother of all slutty superheroine Halloween outfits?

 

Spider Widow and Phantom Lady’s quarrel would go so far that in Police Comics 21 they actually fought a sword duel over the Raven–not to the death, of course, but to the touch.

 

 

If you’re wondering who won, it ended in a draw and they both bonded over beating up gangsters.

 

But really, no one wins when its a catfight over Korean bootleg Hawkman.

 

Shortly after her misadventures with Spider Widow and the Raven, Phantom Lady would be done with Police Comics–and Quality Comics.

 

But she wouldn’t be done with comics, far from it.

 

Fox

 

 

Ah, the cover that launched a thousand angry parent letters!

 

If you a little about comic history, you probably know about the above cover and its place in comic book history. But for those who don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, let me give you some context.

 

In 1954, there was this guy named, Dr. Frederick Wertham, a child psychologist who came to believe comics books were contributing to juvenile delinquency. God only knows what he would say about manga today. He made a big splash in the public sphere when he published Seduction of the Innocent and caused such an uproar Congress began having congressional hearings about the negative impact of comic books on the youth of America where they not-so-subtly implied that comics better sanitize themselves of get ready to have something like the FCC but for magazines rule over them. In response, comics created the Comics Code Authority, which watchdoged comic book content for decades. If you’ve ever dug through a longbox, odds are you’ve seen covers with this on them:

 

 

The idea behind the CCA was that by regulating on their own, comics could avoid the government doing it themselves and potentially going too far. It was similar to the earlier Hays code established by Hollywood also for the purpose of self-regulating to stave off government control.

 

The big take away here is that the fed boy glowies hate, have hated, and will always hate the 1st amendment and work with corporations to limit free speech whenever they can. The only difference between now and then was that then they used threats to get corporations to censor and now they use bribes and subsidies.

 

Oh yeah, we were talking about Phantom Lady…

 

That cover up there is from Fox’s Phantom Lady 17, the 5th Phantom Lady comic published by Fox (Phantom Lady starts with issue 12, carrying the numbering of earlier Fox comic Wotalife. It was a common tactic during the golden age to have new titles carry the numbering of old titles with the idea being that newsstands were more likely to trust a “proven” product on its tenth or twelfth issue) and it was one of several covers cited by Wertham as an encapsulation of everything wrong with comics. The sex! The violence! Disgusting and puerile!

 

As you may be able to guess by Wertham’s opinion, Fox’s Phantom Lady was considerably more fun than Quality’s. We start out strong with issue 13th featuring Sandra replaced by a robot duplicate. That’s easily more colorful than the entirety of Phantom Lady’s Police Comics stories and it just gets better from there. Issue 15 has a mad scientist and his purple zombie slave kidnap senator Knight. He plots world domination through zombie army and injects Phantom Lady with hallucinogens’ so she can hallucinate his monologue.

Crazy, fun stuff!

 

Look at the zombie dude in Sandra’s hallucinations. He’s so happy! I love it!

 

 

Yeah! We took over America my zombie brothers, we did it!

 

16 starts out as your typical Scooby-Doo plot with a bad guy pretending to be a monster, but get this, there’s a second monster and they’re real! And bonus points–it’s a female werewolf! You don’t see a lot of those. I was so disappointed when ghost pirates showed up in 18…and they’re actually fake. Like come on, you can’t make werewolves real two issues ago and then have the ghost pirates not be real. That’s cheating. That should be illegal. Nothing makes me happier than ghost pirates and nothing makes me grumpier than fake ghost pirates. It’s like getting your salt and sugar mixed up.

 

20 gave Phantom Lady her first real supervillain in the Ace of Spades, a crime boss patterning herself off old west gunfighters.

 

 

Gunfighters are usually superheroes, like Vigilant and Two-Gun Kid. It’s rare to see one that’s evil and a girl to boot.

 

In issue 22, Sandra even fights a robot.

 

 

Maybe he’s the Fox universe’s version of Quality comics’ Bozo the Iron Man?

 

Even the less weird stories that hold fast to the standard crime fiction formula of golden age superheroes had their moments. Take for instance issue 14 where all Phantom Lady has to track down a killer is a glass slipper, so she ends up in a reverse Cinderella plot tracking down suspects and forcing them to try on a slipper. My favorite story comes from 17 and its fairly mundane. It’s not about zombies or werewolves or robots, its about Phantom Lady trying to protect her waitress friend from a protection racket. There’s even a cute moment where Sandra puts on an apron and helps out at the diner. I’m not going to pretend Phantom Lady has a complex character, but it was a nice moment and true to her characterization. She’s a blue blood but doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty to help a friend. Then the racketeers show up to lean on her friend and she runs into the back room to change–a mistake that would cost her friend her life, because they weren’t here to intimidate her, they were here to kill her.

 

 

Fun fact, this story would later be reprinted by Ajax-Farrell with a few alterations. One alteration being that Phantom Lady’s friend dies of a heart attack from the stress. In the original comic, she’s strangled to death. Ajax-Farrell likely changed the death because they found it too graphic, especially in the wake of Seduction of the Innocent’s publication.

 

Now, see, if this was a bronze age comic or even a silver age comic, Phantom Lady’s friend dying because she ran out to change her clothes would have been played for drama. “I was so obsessed with protecting my identity that my friend died!” But because this was a golden age comic it just spurs Sandra on to wage a one-woman war against the gang, and when I say war I mean war, the gangsters are incredibly well-armed for guys that hit up local diners for cash. They bring grenades and bazookas against Phantom Lady.

 

I did say it was fairly mundane story.

 

If you want to read some golden age Phantom Lady, read the Fox stuff, it’s entertaining. And if you don’t like Phantom Lady, there’s still a chance you’ll like Phantom Lady, because the book actually put Phantom Lady in the role of crime fiction host for back-up stories.

 

 

They actually had her narrate grisly little EC comics styled stories of criminals doing horrible things and getting their just and ironic desserts.

 

Yeah. The Crypt Keeper, the Old Witch, and now the Phantom Lady!

 

Maybe DC should revive her as the host of a crime fiction anthology, the twist being all the stories are set in the DC universe. Like you’d have stories about low lives trying to duck Batman in Gotham and aliens trying to smuggle baby Starros past Green Lantern customs.

Ajax-Farrell

 

 

There’s not much to say about the Ajax-Farrell version of Phantom Lady. Ajax-Farrell was never big into superheroes. They got in on the game late, in the 1950’s when superheroes outside Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and Captain Marvel were virtually an extinct genre. Genre comics were where it was at and most of the Ajax-Farrell library consisted of horror comics–Midnight, Strange, Strange Journey, Strange Fantasy, Voodoo, Haunted Thrills, etc. They acquired Phantom Lady as an afterthought and published her as an afterthought. Most of her stories were simply reprints of the Fox stories. Sometimes they would change a few panels around and alter a few word balloons to make a “new” story, but Ajax-Farrell’s Phantom lay was truly “more of the same.”

Well, there was one consistent difference. They altered Phantom Lady’s costume to be more tasteful. Seduction of the Innocent had already been published and with Phantom Lady as one of Wertham’s leading examples of entartete kunst, Ajax-Farrell decided that it would be wise to use some blue ink to cover up their leading lady.

 

And to be honest, I think I like their version better. It’s sexy but practical. It’s the costume of a Phantom Lady that knows she doesn’t have to try so hard to get attention.

 

And so, after a brief stay at Ajax-Farrell (very brief, only 4 issues!), Phantom Lady’s golden age career came to an end. She would rest until DC came along and put her on Earth-Five to beat up Nazis with her Quality pals…Uncle Sam and Human Bomb?

 

Yeah. Kind of funny how she never got to run into Raven and Spider Widow again. She got to meet with pretty much every single Quality comics character on the Freedom Fighters except the two Quality comics characters she actually interacted with while she was published by Quality comics.

 

It just goes to show you. Some golden age characters become phantoms…and some just get forgotten forever.

 

Powers and Abilities

 

Black Light Projector

 

Phantom Lady’s bread-and-butter is a sci-fi version of a UV light. You know, the light people use for Halloween and crime scene investigations. Amusingly, Phantom Lady has never, in any version retro or modern, used her black light as a black light to find clues.

 

Phantom Lady uses her black light projector to blind her opponents with conical beams. Think of her projector as a beam version of Dr. Mid-Nite’s blackout bombs. The Quality version’s projector was shaped like a flashlight while the Fox and AF versions had projectors in the shape of hand-held boxes.

 

One can safely look at the black light cone without it effecting them (because otherwise Phantom lady would blind herself with her own weapon every time she uses it). The cone has to hit the eyes to work (PC 2, FPL 13).

 

 

 

The beam primarily blinds foes, but in some cases it also seems to induce headaches (AFPL 1).

 

 

Note that targets don’t instantly recover their sight when the beam is turned off. It takes an unknown, but likely brief, amount of time for the black light beam to wear off (PC 3, AFPL 3).

 

 

 

 

The black light projector once caused a robot to turn on its creator by short-circuiting its internal workings (FPL 22). This coupled with the lingering blindness and headaches seems to suggest that the black light blinds people based off disrupting neuroelectric signals from the eyes to the brain.

 

 

 

The Quality version of Phantom Lady had an all-black car armed with two black light projectors in the rear (PC 1) though the later dorky atomic car used by the Fox and AF versions didn’t demonstrate this feature.

 

 

It’s a neat ability, but for a superheroine its kind of irresponsible. I can see why it didn’t last long. Say she blinds a goombah and he starts driving into people like a Democrat at a Christmas parade. She’d totally be responsible for ushering in superhero registration in the Quality/Fox/AF verse.

 

The projector is also very durable (it would have to be, as I doubt its easily replaceable) and can be used as a bludgeoning instrument in a pinch (FPL 14).

 

 

The biggest weakness of the black light projector is that it’s easy to drop. It’s not wrist mounted. It doesn’t even come with a lanyard. Sandra has been disarmed several times either by bad guys hitting her or just by dropping the projector.

 

Strength and Jiu Jitsu Skill

 

Sandra is a strong and skilled enough to defeat men even without her black light helping her. And credit to her writer for having her master jiu jitsu instead of the more common judo because, lets face it, jiu jitsu is to judo what paintball is to laser tag. It wasn’t Brazillian judo that provided a massive fraud check to the martial arts community in the early days of UFC.

 

Check out this cool scene from Police Comics 5. It’s definitely one of the best scenes out of the entire Phantom Girl catalog. She calls out the big boss and destroys him one-on-one without her gadget. Pure cool.

 

 

And check out this scene from Police Comics 6. Phantom Lady grabs a dude around the middle, lifts him up, and drop him head first on the concrete. That’s like something Mike Haggar would do, not a little 100 pounds soaking wet debutante!

 

 

There is brawn to this beauty!

 

And check this out from Police Comics 9–she’s completely helpless, then in a flash she breaks the guy’s grip and slaps on a submission hold.

 

 

After the Quality era, Phantom Lady’s jiu jitsu was gradually phased in in exchange for more standardized comic book two-fisted hero moves, but she still occasionally dipped into jiu jitsu as seen in Fox’s Phantom Lady 4.

 

 

Here’s Phantom Lady doing the classic “two coconuts” move (AFPL 1).

 

 

And here she is doing the classic “swing into scene, kick bad guys” move (AJPL 2).

 

 

Durability

 

For a golden age heroine, Sandra took quite a lot of lumps. She wasn’t roughed up as much as a male character, but her foes were hardly gentle with her. Like most golden age characters, her greatest nemesis wasn’t a supervillain but getting knocked out by a blow to the back of the head. This simple maneuver has placed Sandra in countless death traps and bondage scenes and its amazing her brain didn’t turn to mush.

 

I’d hate to imply that her head is thick, but evidence supports that it is thick like an armored car.

 

In Fox’s Phantom Lady 22, Sandra once took a tree branch to her head while engaged in what Sam and Max refer to as highway surfing.

 

 

She was not only alright, but she was able to use her blacklight to defeat the bad guys.

 

But that’s not the craziest thing Sandra’s survived.

 

In Police Comics 6, Sandra was lassoed around the neck and hung from a plane. That’s how Batman killed those giants in those early detective comics issues. But Sandra didn’t die.

 

 

In fact, she pulled herself up, supporting her own weight while she was hanging, and knocked the pilot out.

 

That’s crazy by the standards of male golden age characters let alone female characters. That’s something Jason would do.

 

 

Speed and Agility

 

Of course the slink and sensual superheroine would be lithe and agile. But how agile is she?

 

Let’s talk about her reflexes first. She’s able to beat gunmen to the trigger (PC 9).

 

 

Even when someone is actively shooting at her, she’s able to juke the gunfire and return accurate fire with her black light projector (AFPL 2).

 

 

 

But more impressively, she’s able to catch a grenade in mid-air and throw it right back (FPL 17).

 

 

Though she doesn’t carry a gun, Phantom Lady sometimes comes across handguns on her adventures, and she’s demonstrated she’s quite a crack shot (FPL 15). We can safely transfer her skill with firearms to her skill with her black light projector.

 

 

So she’s dexterous, but is she agile with more than just her hands? Of course she is! She’s quite agile with her legs. She’s got great legs–why else do you think she shows them off?

 

In Fox’s Phantom Lady 22, Phantom Lady stops a sabotage attempt at the Olympic games and in the process shows that she can pole vault at an Olympic level.

 

 

 

You know, I don’t think this is what most people think of when they read “Phantom Lady pole skills.”

 

She’s very acrobatic, appropriately for a girl who constantly dresses like an acrobat, and has pulled off some crazy stunts. Check out this time when she used a rickety waterin’ hole swing to reach a fleeing boat and blast the bad guys with black light (FPL 14).

 

 

And check out this time when she used a rubber tire to swingline down powerlines and kick bad guys in a speeding car (AFPL 3).

 

 

Cool move, but she left the tire up there. Some poor electrician is going to have to climb up there and remove it at taxpayer expense.

 

But her best agility feat comes from AFPL 10 (which was a redo of FPL 17). She goes up against some remarkably well-armed thugs and manages to get clear of a bazooka shot. She just barely managed to do it, but she did it.

 

 

How do you miss someone with a bazooka?

 

You do when you’re aiming at a phantom.

 

Comic Book Awareness

 

During her frenemies phase with Spider Widow, Phantom Lady, Raven, and Spider Widow all demonstrated an awareness of their comic book reality, something more common among golden age superheroes than you might think. Remember, it used to be customary for Superman to wink at the reader at the end of every adventure.

 

The following example is from Police Comics 22.