Golden Age Phantom Lady (Sandra Knight) <orig. Quality Comics> Appreciation 2022

[MajorHoy]

from Starman #44 (July 1998)

NOTE: Previous version of this thread:

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...reciation-2021

And previous threads for Sandra and others who went by "Phantom Lady":

* https://community.cbr.com/showthread...)-all-versions
* https://community.cbr.com/showthread...ciation-Thread

First appearance: Police Comics #1 (August 1941) <from Quality Comics>


And her entry in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe Vol. XVIII (August 1986):

[MajorHoy]

Phantom Lady from Police Comics #8 (March 1942):

[ducklord]

Can I just say that, for the record, I've never been a big fan of retconning familial relationships between characters that we originally created by different publishers?

Whether it's Ted and Sandra Knight or Freddy and Kit Freeman, it just feels... wrong.

[justinslot]

I actually like Kid Eternity with the Marvel Family, and see why they didn't exile the Kid to Earth-X.

Sandra and Ted...eh, shrugs, take or leave. One of those rascally Roy Thomas things he just couldn't resist...I do like Kate Spencer being her granddaughter, though.

[justinslot]

Gonna try to pull a MajorHoy here...the first five pages of "WINE WOMEN and SUDDEN DEATH!" from Phantom Lady 19.

[justinslot]

The exciting conclusion to "WINE WOMEN and SUDDEN DEATH!"

[justinslot]

Favorite panel:

long_distance_chumps.jpg

GCD credits the pencils to Baker but this Roy Thomas reprint book I bought merely says it was by the "Iger Shop," which I suppose explains why this sometimes looks like Baker and sometimes does not.

I love how her secret identity makes no sense--no attempt to disguise herself whatsoever! Not even her hair over her eyes a la Liberty Belle!

GRAB HER, YOU DOPES! lol

[MajorHoy]

Gonna try to pull a MajorHoy here...the first five pages of "WINE WOMEN and SUDDEN DEATH!" from Phantom Lady 19.

This is where things get tricky.

This version of Phantom Lady isn't directly connected to the one who DC Comics has used.

The character that originally appeared in Quality Comics' Police Comics was originally produced by the Eisner & Iger studio (Will Eisner and Jerry Iger), but after Quality Comics stopped using the feature, Jerry Iger (Will Eisner had left and sold out his share to Iger by then) later let Fox Features use the character. Whether Iger really still owned the rights to the character at that point is hazy.

When DC Comics later acquired the rights to many Quality Comics titles / characters in the 1950s, DC believed those rights included the Quality Comics version of Phantom Lady. I don't think DC has ever tried to claim any rights to versions of the character not published by Quality Comics, though DC has previously threatened legal challenges over the uses of the names "Phantom Lady" and "Sandra Knight" for any new material, with DC basing any claims on the Quality Comics version of the character.

[MajorHoy]

from Starman #44 (July 1998)

A few more pages from that issue:

[justinslot]

Who is Sandra fighting there? Is that Spider Widow?? (googles) No, somebody called Prairie Witch. Spider Widow remains one of the Quality heroes Roy Thomas forgot to write into All-Star Squadron, along with the Raven and Wildfire.

(Went on a public domain comics bender recently, which I recommend. Jack Cole's Midnight in Smash Comics? Great stuff.)

[MajorHoy]

Who is Sandra fighting there? Is that Spider Widow?? (googles) No, somebody called Prairie Witch. Spider Widow remains one of the Quality heroes Roy Thomas forgot to write into All-Star Squadron, along with the Raven and Wildfire.

(Went on a public domain comics bender recently, which I recommend. Jack Cole's Midnight in Smash Comics? Great stuff.)

Spider Widow and Raven to my knowledge haven't been used by Roy, but Wildfire is definitely a different story.

The female Firebrand created for All-Star Squadron

was said to have to originally intended to be Quality Comics' Wildfire

but had to be changed because DC already had the unrelated character named Wildfire in the Legion of Super-Heroes.

[signalman112]

Art by Mayhew.

PhantomLadyMeyhew.jpg

[Frontier]

I loved her appearance in Starman .

[MajorHoy]

As mentioned in past versions of this thread, while the original version of Phantom Lady (from Quality Comics) had no special "phantom powers", that changed in the 1976 version of Freedom Fighters.

From the first issue,


Some other members of the team would also develop new powers as the series went on, evidently a result of the team relocating from their original home on Earth-X to Earth-1.

This was the same reasoning used to give Black Canary her erratic sonic "Canary cry" abilities once she had established herself on Earth-1 from Earth-2, before they retconned the Earth-1 Black Canary into being the daughter of Earth-2's Golden Age Black Canary.

[MajorHoy]

From Police Comics #9 (May 1942):



To be continued . . .