Who was the first comic book Phantom Lady you ever read about in a story?

[The Darknight Detective]

I have a bone to pick with Major Hoy. Not serious, but this poll seems inconsistent with the other ones. In other polls we could only pick DC versions of a character--yet here we can go outside DC. Also, I wonder if Phantom Girl should count as a Phantom “Lady.” But then we get into a whole question of how many other Phantom characters fit under that umbrella--Phantom Stranger?

As was the case with the Starman poll, I saw Phantom Girl years before any version of Phantom Lady.

[MajorHoy]

I have a bone to pick with Major Hoy. Not serious, but this poll seems inconsistent with the other ones. In other polls we could only pick DC versions of a character--yet here we can go outside DC.

But, as you yourself said,

They're both the same character--Fox just acquired the rights from Quality . . .

though I believe Fox got permission from Iger (who was involved in creating the character and then packaging it for Quality), not Fox getting permission directly from Quality comics.
And aside from the color change to the costume, the characters from Quality and Fox were essentially the same, though Fox went more for the "Good Girl art"/cheesecake route.

Also, I wonder if Phantom Girl should count as a Phantom “Lady.”

No, she wouldn't. In the story "The Adult Legion!" from Adventure Comics #354, I believe she went by the name "Phantom Woman", not "Phantom Lady".




The reason Thom Kallor (Star Boy) was in the "Starman" poll was because he was CALLED "Starman" when he was in the Justice Society of America.

I’m not sure when I first read about Phantom Lady--maybe in ALL COLOR FOR A DIME or the STERANKO HISTORY OF COMICS Volume 2. But our public library had SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT and I borrowed that book at around the same time as ALL IN COLOR A DIME. However, I didn’t read all of Wertham’s prose back then (not a real page turner, although now I have my own copy and I have read the whole thing). I spent more time looking at the pictures and I do remember that the library copy had a lot of pages torn out--so I think it was missing some of Matt Baker’s Phantom Lady art.

But remember the TITLE of this poll / thread:

Who was the first comic book Phantom Lady you ever read about in a story?

So unless you read a reprint of a story, not just a bunch of covers / illustrations, that wouldn't matter.

[Timothy Hunter]

ls there a character whose legitimately called "Stormy Knight"? Anyway I am familiar with the Dee Tyler iteration.

[The Darknight Detective]

ls there a character whose legitimately called "Stormy Knight"?

Sounds like she should have been part of a tandem stripping act with Tempest Storm.

[justinslot]

So I guess we're thinking when DC reintroduced the character in the 70s they weren't sure if they could use the blue and red costume--or if they owned it exclusively--so we've been stuck with the yellow and green version ever since?

I'm going through some Fox Phantom Ladys now...I know nothing has to make sense in the Golden Age, but how was Sandra protecting her identity when she became PL? Are the crooks distracted by her costume and so they never look at her face?

Also interesting: the scholars at Comic Book Plus think Baker did not draw many of the Fox PL stories--they had artists mimic his style.

[MajorHoy]

So I guess we're thinking when DC reintroduced the character in the 70s they weren't sure if they could use the blue and red costume--or if they owned it exclusively--so we've been stuck with the yellow and green version ever since?

I'm assuming since DC thought they had the rights to stuff put out by Quality (NOT to anything and everything with "Phantom Lady") they went with the version / color scheme that Quality used. They had already reprinted a Quality Phantom Lady story the year before, so why bother changing the color scheme? (And on a side-note, blue-and-red is a BORING color scheme already used by how many other DC heroes at that time? The yellow-and-green would have been more distinct in a crowd scene.)

[Jim Kelly]

But, as you yourself said,

”They're both the same character--Fox just acquired the rights from Quality . . .”

though I believe Fox got permission from Iger (who was involved in creating the character and then packaging it for Quality), not Fox getting permission directly from Quality comics.

Yeah, I wasn’t sure exactly how Fox ended up with the rights to Phantom Lady--I suspected it was an involved story--but I figured that my phrasing was vague enough that it covered all possibilities. I’m usually not on solid ground when it comes to these grammatical questions.

The first story I read with Phantom Lady in it was probably in JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA No. 107 (September-October ’73). But that’s not an interesting anecdote to tell, so I thought it was more entertaining for the folks here to mention SEDUCTION OF THE INNOCENT.

PL also got a reprint in the Super-Spectactular ADVENTURE COMICS No. 416 (March ’72)--an all-female reprint issue. But I never bought that comic at the time, much to my chagrin. It took me a lot of years to finally get my own copy.

I somehow knew enough about Phantom Lady before I read that JLA issue--so this is me thinking out loud trying to remember where I gained that knowledge. For example I knew that she and Black Condor had similarities in their secret identities and names--she was Sandra Knight daughter of a senator and he was a senator Thomas Wright.

So I guess we're thinking when DC reintroduced the character in the 70s they weren't sure if they could use the blue and red costume--or if they owned it exclusively--so we've been stuck with the yellow and green version ever since?

I'm going through some Fox Phantom Ladys now...I know nothing has to make sense in the Golden Age, but how was Sandra protecting her identity when she became PL? Are the crooks distracted by her costume and so they never look at her face?

Also interesting: the scholars at Comic Book Plus think Baker did not draw many of the Fox PL stories--they had artists mimic his style.

A lot of Quality heroes did nothing to disguise themeslves. Since these characters were coming from the Iger-Eisner shop, I reckon that it was something they just didn’t worry about.

Copying Baker’s “Good Girl” style must have been a thing at Iger--comics experts used to credit Rulah to Baker but now it’s thought that he didn’t do any work on that character. I imagine it's something like how Mac Raboy did some work on Captain Marvel Jr., but then the Binder shop just copied his style afterwards--sometimes pasting Raboy figures onto the page.

[MajorHoy]

Taking a look at this several months later, current poll results show

* Sandra Knight (Quality [1941 - 1943] / DC Comics [1972 - various periods]) = 9 votes
* Dee Tyler (DC Comics1989 - 2005) = 4 votes, and tied with
* Stormy Knight (DC Comics 2006 - 2011?) = 4 votes
* Sandra Knight (Fox Features & Ajax-Farrell / 1947-1963?) = 1 vote
* Jennifer Knight (DC Comics 2012) = 1 vote
* other = 1 vote

[MajorHoy]

There are now 12 votes for Sandra Knight (Quality [1941 - 1943] / DC Comics [1972 - various periods]), an increase of three more votes than last time.
(Everybody else is still the same.)

[MajorHoy]

There are now 12 votes for Sandra Knight (Quality [1941 - 1943] / DC Comics [1972 - various periods]), an increase of three more votes than last time.
(Everybody else is still the same.)

Make that 14 (+ two more) for Quality's Sandra Knight; still no other increases for the others.

[Babylon23]

Sandra Knight for me in All-Star Squadron.

I didn't read her early exploits until the 2-volume Roy Thomas Presents hard covers were released a few years back

[MajorHoy]

It's been a few month since I last ran an update on the poll results.
* Sandra Knight (Quality [1941 - 1943] / DC Comics [1972 - various periods]) = 17 votes now, up 3 since the last tally
* Dee Tyler (DC Comics1989 - 2005) = 6 votes, an increase of 2 votes

Still no change in the number of votes for the other ladies.

[Ascended]

I voted for the first Sandra Knight option, but that's a little questionable.

The first Phantom Lady I ever encountered was in the pages of the 90's title Damage. In that book, protagonist Grant Emerson meets the original Phantom Lady who reveals she now runs the training center Phantom Lady spies come from, which is disguised (naturally) as a all-girls college in Washington, DC.

Obviously they were going for a whole "American Black Widow" thing. But Sandra never actually does anything in that issue and definitely doesn't wear the costume so I dunno if it counts.

The first *active* Phantom Lady I ever saw was also Sandra, but that was largely just small cameos or guest spots, mostly in flashback. The first real story I read PL in was the first Palometti Freedom Fighters mini from 06 or so, and that was Stormy Knight (who remains my favorite, largely because she helps cement my idea of the Knight family as the DC equivalent of the Kennedy's).

[Darkspellmaster]

Dee was my first, and then I read Sandra, I do like Jenifer though. Her costume is something I can see being used more as a modern version of the character.

[Agent Z]

Stormy was the first one I read about in Battle For Bludhaven. Not the best introduction admittedly. I did grow to like Dee when I read about her.