Nazi-Punchers PAT PARKER: WAR NURSE ""Disease from the Depths"

Few non-superpowered World War II heroines had as active a career as...

 ...who went through three different incarnations during the conflict!

Introduced in Harvey's Speed Comics #13, British nurse Patricia Parker kicked the butts of spies, saboteurs, and medical black marketers in plainclothes for two issues before donning her costume and identity at the end of this never-reprinted story from Speed #15 (1942).

She was as proficient at Nazi-clobbering in costume as without one.

You'll note Pat didn't need a guy to assist her.

But, as of Speed Comics #23, she teamed up with several women from other countries (China, Russia, and America) to form the Girl Commandos, a distaff version of the multi-national Blackhawks...

...and dropped the "War Nurse" identity for the remainder of her run!
Note: If the art seems a tad un-detailed, even for a Golden Age comic, that's because the book wasn't normal sized (7.75" x 10.5"), but the smaller digest magazine-size (4" x 6.75")!
We just ran it at the same size as regular comics on this blog for your viewing ease!

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Divas, Dames & Daredevils

Lost Heroines of Golden Age Comics

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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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Crime Never Pays!

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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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Russkie-Smashers LIBERTY BELLE "Freedom's Star"

The Russkies continued to be a threat into the 1970s and early 1980s...

...as this never-reprinted tale from Charlton's E-Man V1N5 (1974) so aptly demonstrates!

Apparently, the audience interest wasn't there, since the concluding chapter never appeared!.

Note: I, in fact, did write in, but I may have well been the only one!
The script, besides dealing with Commies, also goes into Women's Lib, which was in its' heyday.

The character has reappeared recently, without any mention of what happened on the space station!

And, before you ask, the Golden Age DC character, also named Liberty Belle, hadn't appeared since 1947, except in a 1972 reprint, so the name/trademark was available at the time.

DC's character would reappear in new stories in 1981 and her daughter, also called Liberty Belle, would debut in 2006, sometimes working alongside her mother!
Both still appear in DC books to this day.

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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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TPB Reprinting the Complete Golden Age Fox Comics Series, Mostly Illustrated by Legendary Good Girl Artist Matt Baker, and with a New Cover by Good Girl Artist Adam Hughes!