Check this out:
Stupid Comics Code Authority.
For you non-comic book nerdlingers: Phantom Lady was notorious for wearing an outfit that was much more revealing, but then there was the whole Seduction of the Innocent and subsequent Congressional investigation that brought about the Comics Code Authority and ruined it for everyone.
And yup, she wore blue and red when Fox Feature Syndicate published her in the mid-1940's. This particular issue came from the short-lived Ajax-Farrell Publication run. She wouldn't go back to her original yellow-and-green until DC Comics revived a bunch of Quality characters in the awesome yet short-lived Freedom Fighters and Plastic Man titles of the 1970's.
But this issue did have a graphic depiction of a guy getting his teeth knocked out by a cue ball, so there's that:
As is often the case, the whole "secret identity" thing bothers me. Thusly:
Okay, she's well-known in the Pentagon. Got that? She's the daughter of a Senator, and is familiar enough that the the guards know who she is. Are you with me?
And here she is as Phantom Lady a few moments later:
No mask at all. She doesn't even put on a wig. No glasses, no nothing. She's well-known around the joint, but she parades around in a costume that does nothing to alter her facial features and no one says a thing.
I think she was recognized all over the place, but her daddy the Senator told everyone to play along. That's how life works.
Enough of that. It's time for some Fun with Out of Context Dialogue! (tm!)
Yeah! Take that, Comics Code Authority!
Heh.
See you Monday!
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7 comments:
I got a classic Phantom Lady book a while back and I think the writers were having fun with how little effort she went to to hide her "secret identity."
She regularly spoke to her friends, father and fiancé as the Phantom Lady without them giving any hint that they knew who she was. She also once went to a costume party presenting herself as Sandra Knight wearing a Phantom Lady costume, and everyone knew to address her as her Sandra, and not the Phantom Lady. I agree that everyone was just playing along.
You guys are missing the point. With these costumes, what guys were looking at her face!
Exactly what I was going to say Railbus. I looked up what her costume looked like before the SOTI and yowza. It was on par with Vamperilla, so....yeah, I doubt even women were looking at her face.
Bit of trivia:
Almost all the stories in the Ajax Phantom Lady run were toned-down reworkings of earlier stories!
For example, the Phantom Lady Commie-fighting story "Satan's Seal"...
http://heroheroinehistory.blogspot.com/2012/03/reading-room-phantom-lady-satans-seal.html
...was a reworking of the art for the Spifire Saunders Nazi-fighting story "Whip"...
http://heroheroinehistory.blogspot.com/2012/03/reading-room-spitfire-saunders-whip.html
...with Saunders replaced by Phantom Lady!
In one of James Robinson's STARMAN issues it is mentioned that Sandra and Ted Knight are related, and she tells how the whole point of her costume was to make the crooks distracted.
Good stuff, Britt! I didn't know that. And yeah, for the most part, it was easy to be distracted, but the Quality and Ajax versions weren't all that distracting IMHO.
Reminds me of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_gEWRQA4go
You only really have to watch about the first minute of this video to get the gist.
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