Russkie-Smashers PHANTOM LADY "Television Spies!" 2.0

The Phantom Lady Usually Punched Nazis, but in This Case...

...she did so in a totally-redrawn version of a previous Phantom Lady tale! which now has her taking on Russkie spies!

In the original 1948 version of this tale, the tv images were in full glorious color, and television was just beginning to enter American households, so few people had actually seen a tv screen!

But, by the time of this story in Ajax/Farrell's Phantom Lady #3 (1955), almost half the households in America had tvs, but they were almost all b/w sets.

As a result, the tv screens shown in this version of the story were b/w, the way most Americans experienced video at the time.
Plus, in the original tale, it wasn't made clear if it was industrial spying or international spying!

The artist (or artists) of this tale are unknown, but the writer is probably editor Ruth Roche, as usual.

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Russkie-Smashers PHANTOM LADY "Man the Kremlin Applauded!"

We showed a tale where a different heroine battling Nazis became Phantom Lady battling Russkies...

...but here's an all-new story featuring our stalwart all-American heroine!

Script for this tale from Ajax-Farrell's Wonder Boy #17 (1955) is probably by Ruth Roche.

However, the art is not by Matt Baker (who had left the Iger Studios).
While competent, the art, by nameless Iger Studio staff artists, is hardly the classic cheesecake we've come to expect of Phantom Lady!

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A Twice-Told Tale About Nazis Becoming Russkies...and Being SMASHED Both TImes by Different Heroines!

This is a "twice-told tale"...

...demonstrating how similarly WWII Germans and Cold War Russkies could be portrayed in pop culture!

First, a tale starring a long-forgotten heroine from Elliot's Spitfire Comics #132 (1944)...

Secret agent Spitfire Sanders made only two appearances, in successive issues of Elliot Comics' Spitfire Comics, which despite the high numbering of this issue (#132), only had two issues!
(And this was the first of the two!)
The art on this story about an extremely competent female spy is by journeyman artist Paul Cooper, working for the Iger Studios, who also supplied art to Ajax/Farrell (where the re-worked version appeared several years later) and Fox Comics.
It was scripted by "Rick Shawn", which was likely a pen-name since he's only credited with the two Spitfire Saunders tales!

Now we jump a decade to 1954.

The Nazis have been defeated.

Communism is on the rise.

A comic book publisher needs a story about a superheroine to meet a deadline, so Nazi-Crusher Spitfire Sanders becomes...already-existing Russkie-Smasher Phantom Lady!

Oh, and due to space limitations, the original story has to be cut by a couple of pages...

For this presentation in Ajax/Farrell's Phantom Lady #5 (actually #1) from 1954, the brand new (and extremely-restrictive Comics Code also required a reduction in gunplay and use of torture instruments like whips, so a number of panels were reworked...or deleted entirely!

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Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Success is No Accident"

For the final time, if the story seems familiar...

...it's because this is yet another re-write of a story of the Fox Comics version of Phantom Lady published several years earlier!

Both ironically and appropriately, this final Phantom Lady tale in Wonder Boy #18 (1955) is based on a story that appeared, not in Phantom Lady, but All Top Comics #9 (1948), entitled "Killer Clown".

This is the final Golden Age Phantom Lady tale on this blog, but it's not the last one in our archives!

There's one more tale, from Phantom Lady #22 (1948), featuring our heroine at the 1948 London Olympics!

It'll appear in our new "sister" blog, Heroines™, when the Olympics open on July 27th!

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Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "Man the Kremlin Applauded"

Though she lost her own title for the second time in 1955, Phantom Lady battled on...

...in new stories as a second feature in Ajax/Farrell's Wonder Boy!

Script for this tale from Wonder Boy #17 (1955) is probably by Ruth Roche.

However, the art is not by Matt Baker, and, while competent, is hardly the classic cheesecake we've come to expect of Phantom Lady!
Be here next week to see Phantom Lady's final Golden Age appearance (not counting reprints)!

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Reading Room: PHANTOM LADY "What Price Protection?"

Once again, if the story seems familiar...

...it's because this is yet another re-write of a story presented in the Fox Comics version of Phantom Lady several years earlier!

The first version of this tale appeared in Fox Publishing's Phantom Lady #17 (1947) and called "Soda Mint Killer", as shown HERE, but it's toned-down both in terms of sexiness and violence in the new version published in Ajax/Farrell's Phantom Lady #4 (1955)!

So both stories in this issue are re-writes of earlier tales!

Script in both versions probably by Ruth Roche.

However, this time the art is not by Matt Baker, and though adequate, is no match for the original!
This was the final issue of Phantom Lady, but not her final Golden Age appearance!
Be here next week to see what we're talking about!