Capeworld Comics

Phantom Lady puts the sunset on Sun Girl.

 

This was a fun one to figure out and exactly why I started Golden Age Gladiatorial.

 

Let’s start with how the fight would go outside of melee range. At first, Sun Girl may seem to have the advantage as her wrist light can actually hurt people unlike the black light projector which just blinds people. But there are a few factors that result in Phantom Lady having the edge in a ranged battle.

 

First, think of this as a quick-draw. Who is more likely to aim their weapon and pull the trigger at the other girl first? Phantom Lady has a few feats where she beats gunmen to the trigger and Sun Girl doesn’t. She’s more likely to shoot first. Now consider that the weapons have different areas-of-effect. Sun Girl’s wrist light only blasts things when it’s projected as a tight, narrow beam. Even when its projected as a cone of light like when she lit up part of an operating room its AOE isn’t as large as the dark light projector’s AOE.

 

Say Phantom Lady and Sun Girl start fighting. They both try to juke and fire. Phantom Lady stands a much better chance of tagging Sun Girl than the reverse, and once she’s tagged its pretty much over. They’re both grapplers, but Phantom Lady has the edge in hand-to-hand even without Sun Girl being blind. That time she she climbed up her own noose to throw a guy out of a plane puts her physical stats over Sun Girl. Even if she didn’t have that, the time she picked up a guy and smashed him on the sidewalk head first would put her stats over. And being blind is a disadvantage in a grapple, science has proven it.

 

And consider that the black light has been shown to disable electronics. It’s very likely that even if the beam somehow doesn’t reach Sun Girl’s head and just tags her body that the beam could disable the wrist light.

 

Now, there are scenarios in which Sun Girl wins. If the fight starts with them locked up in a clinch, she would probably win. While Phantom Lady is stronger, it’s very easy to separate her from her black light projector. Random chance and thugs have done yet, so it shouldn’t be hard for a judo expert like Sun Girl to do it. Hand-to-hand against an unarmed Phantom Lady, Sun Girl can win just by turning on a point-blank sun blast.

 

But Sun Girl and Phantom Lady would have to start right on top of each other for such a scenario to happen.

 

The way I see the fight going, it starts as a friendly challenge.

 

Sun Girl and Phantom Lady foil a 5th columnist sabotage attempt at an airbase and the airmen want to put them on the noseart of the new bomber they saved…the only problem is, there’s only room for one…

 

Phantom Lady is fired up by the challenge and noseart while Sun Girl is flustered. She could care less about her likeness being draped over a plane, and lets Phantom Girl know as they shake hands, but she also lets her know that she’s looking forward to testing her skill against another martial arts expert and crimebuster.

 

The fight starts and both girls dive and fire. Sun Girl misses and Phantom Lady

 

They watch each other warily. Phantom Lady cheekily comments that she feels like “Linda Turner in one of those western pictures.”

 

Linda Turner as in, of course, the Black Cat, not the real life actress.

 

They fire again, but this time Sun Girl charges forward her wrist light under her chin shielding her eyes from the black light. She crashes into Phantom Lady and the airmen cheer as it becomes a wrestling match.

 

Sun Girl compliments Phantom Lady’s te-gatame as she uses it to avoid a point-blank sunblast, wrenching her arm to the side just as the blast goes. Phantom Lady then traps Sun Girl’s head between her legs in a sankaku-jime. The arimen go wild.

 

“You’re loving this attention, aren’t you?” Sun Girl snarls.

 

Phantom Lady just nods and smiles.

 

Sun Girl gets free and the fighters get to their feet. “Let’s see how you like my seoi-nage!” Phantom Lady flips Sun Girl over her shoulder. Sun Girl turns in the air, rolls as she hits the ground, comes up in a crouch, turns to face Phantom Lady…and finds she’s gotten her black light projector back.

 

Sun Girl just barely manages to turn on her wrist light to protect her…but then the mechanisms in her wrist light short out and she’s blinded.

 

Phantom Lady offers a hand to her blinded opponent…who flips her.

 

“Sorry, but I don’t give up that easily!”

 

There’s a brief skirmish, but its a foregone conclusion. Phantom Lady gets Sun Girl in a choke hold and knocks her out. When she comes to, Phantom Lady shakes her hand. “Golly Sun Girl! You were the toughest fight of my life!”

 

“Thanks you too!” Sun Girl checks her wrist light, which smokes and hisses. “Um…does anyone have any miniature vacuum tubes I can borrow?”

 

Everyone laughs.