​Golden Age Superheroine Comic Museum

 

Actual Comics:

 

Bald, K., Rico, D. & Roth, W. (2011). Marvel masterworks atlas era venus (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Marvel Comics.               
              Reprinting the first 9 issues of Venus’s on-going and Lana #4 and Mystery Comics #91, this showcases Venus’s first appearance in to comics as the mysterious heroine and all around genre bending character.  Venus is, of course, the Goddess Venus or Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Beauty, who comes to earth accidentally from her planet, Venus and becomes the editor of a beauty magazine. Venus becomes one of the few female superheroes to appear at the end of the Golden Age and her ability to change from superhero to romance heroine to even sci-fi heroine allowed her to survive while many other superhero titles were being cancelled.              

 

Fox, G., Moldoff, S., Flinton, B., Bernard, B., Hibbard, E., Hasen, I., & Aschmeier, S. (1997). All-star archives (Vol. 1). New York, NY: DC Comics.

                Reprinting All-Star Comics #4-6. This is important for a few reasons. All-Star Comics #3 contains the only reprint with the original Red Tornado, Abilgail “Ma” Hunkle. Red Tornado would be the first female to male cross dressing superhero. She’d also be one of the first comedic female superheroes and a full-figured female superhero as well. She’d dress up in a gaudy outfit of red long johns, a yellow tank top, green shorts, purple shorts, a blue cape, and yellow pointy shoes. To top the outfit off, she wore a metal buckle on her head. She had no powers, but being a large woman she was shown as being a rather powerful fighter. Also reprinted here, is All-Star Comics #5, the first appearance of Hawkgirl. Hawkgirl is Sheira Sanders, girlfriend and later wife of Carter Hall. She would don his spare costume in this adventure and later wear it regularly as Hawkgirl. She’d also become an unofficial and honorary member of the Justice Society of America.  Hawkgirl would be unique as one of the few female super heroes to change her codename from girl to woman as she changed and times changed, though it’d be decades later and a slightly different incarnation, but still the same character.

 

Hanks, F. (2010). I shall destroy all civilized planet. P. Karasik (Ed.). Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books.
                Reprinting the adventures of first adventure Fantomah, Goddess of the Jungle and first female superhero. Fantomah was a mysterious woman who protected the jungles of Africa. She would appear as a beautiful blond woman to warn away evil or greedy men who would try to harm her jungle or the people or animals within, when they ignored her face would change into a grim skull and she would mete out unusual yet strangely appropriate punishments to the men involved.  This collects the majority of Fantomah’s adventures.

Hanks, F. (2009). You shall be destroyed by your own evil creation!. P. Karasik (Ed.). Seattle, WA: Fantagraphics Books.
This contains the rest of Fantomah’s appearances by Fletcher Hanks, which would be the few remaining where Fantomah would wield her fantastic powers. The stories included here would see Fantomah face off against the Nazis as they invade her jungle. The later stories begin to lose some of the unique charm of Fantomah, but after Hanks mysteriously leaves his character, she is slowly reduced to just a jungle woman like a female Tarzan until her adventures were eventually cancelled.

 

Harr, W., Binder, J., Kaptain, G., Sahle, H. Erisman, R. O.,  Newton, A. H., & Nordling, K. (2011). Marvel masterworks golden age mystic comics (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Marvel Publishing.
                   Reprints Mystic Comics #1-4. This includes several superheroes, but the important section in this is the reprints of the original Black Widow, Claire Voyant. This shows the mysterious and beautiful woman as she makes a bargain to become the bride of Satan to avenge her family’s death. She entrances evil men and kills them to send them to her beloved Satan for whatever nefarious purposes he desires.

Kanigher, R. & Infantino, C. (2001). Black canary archives (Vol. 1). New York, NY: DC Comics.
Reprinting Flash Comics #86-104, Comic Cavalcade #25, DC Special #3, Adventure Comics #399, #418-419, The Brave and the Bold #61-62. This introduces the beautiful thief, Dinah Drake aka the Black Canary, into the adventures of goofy dullard, Johnny Thunder and his Thunderbolt. Black Canary would appear for a few issues before quickly becoming a hero, first as a hero that stole from bad men and returned the items, then into just plain hero. During this early stage, she had a trained black canary and could summon birds to her aid. Those powers would be lost though after just a few issues of guest-starting with Johnny Thunder, she took over his spot and began a career of crime fighting. With the change, Dinah Drake gained a flower shop and a love interest in Larry Lance, a P.I. whose offices were often above her flower shop, but a few times actually in the shop itself. Dinah would also be a unique superheroine to go from drab, dark haired Dinah Drake to the feisty blond Black Canary, thanks to the help of a wig.

 

Kida, F. (2013). The complete golden age airboy & valkyrie. Buford, GA: Canton Street Press.

                Reprints Air Fighters Comics V1 #12, V2 #2 & 7 and Airboy Comics V2 #12, V3 #6 & 12, V4 #10, & V9 #2.  This reprints the complete adventures of Airboy and Valkyrie. Valkyrie, born Liselotte von Schellendorf, would be Airboy’s rival and love interest. She would be an ace pilot that would rival the US’s great Airboy even with his unusual plane. Valkyrie would fight him to a standstill then later become his greatest ally. Her low cut V custom would be a great distraction and an obvious draw for any men reading the comic. Valkyrie would also go on to lead her own team of female pilots, the Airmaidens. Valkyrie would also go on to be revived, untouched into the modern age when the series was revived, but Airboy would be a new character, the son of the original Airboy.

 

Moulton, W. & Peter, H.G. (1998). Wonder woman archives (Vol. 1). New York, NY: DC Comics
                  Reprinting All-Star Comics #8, Sensation Comics #1-12 , and Wonder Woman #1, probably the most well-known and influential of all female superheroes, this is the early adventures of Wonder Woman. These early adventures clearly show Marston trying to puzzle out her mythos as her powers, abilities, and origin change over the course of the year. It also includes the Wonder Woman using a lie detector since she doesn’t get her fabled Golden Lass of Truth until Sensation Comics #8. A great look into the beginnings of the most famous and longest lasting female superhero.

Moulton, W. & Peter, H.G. (2000). Wonder woman archives (Vol. 2). New York, NY: DC Comics.
Reprinting Sensation Comics #13-17, Wonder Woman #2-4, continuing the early adventures of Wonder Woman, this establishes Wonder Woman’s love for Reformation and goes deeper into Marston’s theory of women as better leaders than men. During this run, Wonder Woman faces against her greatest villain thus far, Baroness Paula Von Gunther and through a series of adventures and defeats, turns her into one of Wonder Woman’s staunchest allies. It’s also important to note that Wonder Woman was quarterly at this point and took up her entire solo comic, which was rare as most comics were anthologies.

 

Moulton, W. & Peter, H.G. (2002). Wonder woman archives (Vol. 3). New York, NY: DC Comics.
                Reprinting Sensation Comics #18-24, Wonder Woman #5-7, this set introduces Wonder Woman’s greatest enemies, the misogynist Doctor Psycho, an insane psychologist that becomes a powerful telepath and her best known enemy, the Cheetah, a rich debutante named Priscilla Rich that would down a skin tight leopard suit and steal various items while plotting revenge on Wonder Woman. Both of these villains would be impossible for Wonder Woman to reform. 

 

Parker, J. & Leonard, K. (2009). Agents of atlas. New York, NY: Marvel Publishing.
                 Reprinting Agents of Atlas 1-6, Marvel Mystery Comics #82, Venus #1, Marvel Boy #1, Men’s Adventures #26, Menace #11, and Yellow Claw #1. This is a modern day incarnation of the Atlas heroes including Venus and Namora on a team together. However, the most important aspect of this has the only reprint of Namora, Aquaria Nautica Neptunia, cousin of Namor and female superhero of the late Golden Age. Namora wouldn’t last long compared to her cousin, she did make enough of an impact to be one of the few Atlas Era (the Second Golden Age incarnation of the company that would become Marvel Comics) female heroines to make a resurgence and play an important role in modern comics.

 

Robbins, T. (Ed). (2011). Tarpé Mills & miss fury sensational sundays 1944-1949. San Diego, CA: IDW Publishing.

                Reprinting Miss Fury Sundays from 1944-1949, Miss Fury is known as being the first female superhero created, drawn, and written by a woman, Tarpé Mills. It’s also important to note that while these were comic strips, comic books and comic strips often shared similar stories and characters. Some of Miss Fury’s adventures would be reprinted at Timely Comics (the first incarnation of the company that would become the modern Marvel Comics), which was a common practice in the day. Also comic heroes would get regular daily and Sunday comic strips. This reprints some of Miss Fury’s later adventures until her main villain would take over the Sundays which ended in 1954. Miss Fury does not appear much in these pages, though her civilian identity as Marla Drake does. The majority of material here is more soap opera and drama than superhero, but it’s important to see the sexuality and risqué subjects Mills was able to get away with including cross dressing villains, a single woman adopting a child, and even animal abuse.

 

Shores, S. Alascia, V., Sekowsky, M., Schomburg, A., Stone, C., & Wolverton, B. (2011). Marvel masterworks golden age u.s.a. comics (Vol. 2). New York, NY: Marvel Publishing.

                Reprints U.S.A. Comics 5-8. This reprints the final adventures of the Black Widow, Claire Voyant as she tracks down evil men for her husband/bridegroom Satan. Claire Voyant would disappear after this and never be mentioned again until recently in The Twelve, she would be briefly revived with twelve other Golden Age heroes. Even in her modern revamp, she would be used very little compared to the other characters, staying mysterious and remote. The name Black Widow would be revamped though for an Avenger during the Silver Age (mid-1950’s to about 1970s) when Timely Comics would transform to Marvel Comics. The new Black Widow would have no powers and be a spy, taking a completely different direction with the name.

 

Thomas, R. (Ed.) . (2013). Roy Thomas presents phantom lady (Vol. 1). East Yorkshire, UK: PS Artbooks.

                Reprints Police Comics 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54, 60, 66, 72, 78, 84, 89, 94, 100, 106, 112, 118, 124, 130, 136, 141, 147, 152, 158, 163 and Fox Publication’s Phantom Lady 13-17. These are the early adventures of Sandra Knight, a senator’s daughter who would change into a scantily clad outfit and fight crime along with no powers. She was solely skilled with martial arts, a brilliant mind for detective work, and a strange invention known as a black out light that projects a beam of darkness and blinds her foes. These early adventures also feature another female hero, the Spider Widow, who wore a Halloween mask of a witch to frighten enemies and fought bad guys with trained spiders. The two would be rivals over the affections of a hero named the Raven, but they would eventually team up. This collection also reprints the controversial cover of Phantom Lady 17 where her nipples can be seen through the fabric of her top that would epitomize a movement known as “Good Girl” art, which is basically just well –drawn ladies that look good.

 

Thomas, R. (Ed.). (2013). Roy Thomas presents phantom lady (Vol. 2). East Yorkshire, UK: PS Artbooks.

                Reprints Fox Publication’s Phantom Lady 18-23, All-Top Comics 8-17, Ajax’s Phantom Lady 5, 2-4, Wonder Boy 17-18 and an unused story. This reprints the final adventures of Phantom Lady as she transitions from superhero to more detective and police crime. The art also transitions to more cheesecake art that accentuates the beautiful lead. Phantom Lady was owned by Iger Studios, so she would jump from publication to publication as the various comic companies paid Iger to make comics for them rather than make their own. Because of this situation, Phantom Lady was able to stick around for longer than most. She has also been purchased by DC Comics and revitalized to appear in comics even to today. 

               

Annotated Comics:

 

Madrid, M. (2013). Divas dames & daredevils: Lost heroines of golden age comics. USA: Exterminating Angel Press

                Madrid comes back to talk more about comics and female superheroes of the time. This is a combination of reprints, all in black and white, and information about the heroines. It does not include just super heroines, but rather all different types of leading ladies from the time period. It gives a lot of great background information on the heroines, how long they lasted and some bit how they came to be. It is broken down into five different categories: women at war, mystery women, daring dames, 20^th century goddesses, and warriors and queens. The women at war section includes reprints and descriptions of the superheroes War Nurse, Madame Strange, Pat Patriot, Lady Satan, and Black Venus. Mystery women highlights the Woman in Red, Spider Queen, Mother Hubbard, Spider Woman, and the Veiled Avenger. It also has the anthropomorphic cat heroine, Pussy Katnip, which goes for a cartoony feel than the others. Daring Dames has the heroines Calamity Jane and the Blonde Bomber. 20^th Century goddesses has Fantomah, Wildfire, and Diana the Huntress. The Warriors and queens section highlights Sorceress of Zoom, who is more of a super villain than a super hero. 

 

Materials about golden age comics:

 

Cowsill, A., Irvine, A. Manning, M.K., McAvennie, M., Wallace, D. & Dougall, A. (2010). DC comics year by years a visual chronicle. New  York,           NY: DK Publishing.

                A complete visual history of 75 years of DC/National Publications/All-Star Publications history all in one giant book.  The first chapter is all about the Golden Age and shows the vast different types of comics coming out during the time period. It also explains that DC’s name actually came from one of their early flag ship titles, Detective Comics which would later be where Batman got his start. DC would become the name as the DC logo would start appearing on the comics over National Publications or All-Star Publications. There is also a little talk of Fawcett Comics, where Captain Marvel , Mary Marvel and others would come from and a little of Charlton/Quality comics where Blue Beetle and the Question would find their home.

 

Daniels, L. (2000). Wonder woman: The complete history. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.

                Daniels recounts the entire history of comics leading lady, Wonder Woman. He starts with her early days under William Moulton Marston and explains the birth of this iconic character. He explains Marston’s strong feminist background, his history with the lie detector, and his usual family life. Daniels follows Wonder Woman’s career to the most recent version as of 2000 when it was written. He does a great job talking about the evolution and changes of Wonder Woman, but it’s clear his main love is Marston’s run all the way up past his death, since he had written so many stories. Daniels also explores Marston’s family life and how it affected the creation of Wonder Woman and how Marston’s kids even helped come up with ideas for Wonder Woman stories.

 

Levitz, P. (2013). The golden age of dc comics. Los Angeles, CA: Taschen.

                Levitz does a great job of explaining the Golden Age of DC comics and how DC Comics came about being formed. He explains the unusual history of DC and how it started as National Comics then weirdly created a sister publisher, All-American Publications. Levitz does talk a bit about Wonder Woman as well, but it’s clear his focus is more Superman and Batman.  He doesn’t take a lot of time to talk about any of DC’s other leading ladies, but he doesn’t really discuss any lesser characters at all. There is a brief mention of comic’s first female to male crossdressing superhero, Abigail “Ma” Hunkle, the original Red Tornado. Most of the focus is on Superman and Batman and showing beautiful covers and related merchandise from the Golden Age. It does give a great feel for the Golden Age though and how comics worked at the time, so a great starter primer for general knowledge about the Golden Age and eventually the death of the Golden Age.

 

Howe, S. (2012). Marvel comics: The untold story.  New York, NY: Harper Collins.

                Howe’s main focus is not characters, at least not fictional characters. Howe describes the personalities and history surrounding one of the biggest comic companies that has still survived today. He talks about the history of Marvel from Timely to Atlas to its modern Marvel incarnation and how personalities and the people that work there. There is some discussions about characters and comics, but mostly it’s about the early people who made Marvel what it is today. The majority of the book does talk about the Silver Age, since that is when Marvel really came to be as Marvel, but Stan Lee had been working for the company through the entire transition and it talks about his early days and his early work as editor on Captain America. It also focus on Simon and Kirby and their frustrations with Timely/Atlas/Marvel over their creation, Captain America, that lead to a spark of patriotic themed heroes and eventually lead to the Golden Age duo leaving the company for a bit.

 

Madrid, M. (2009). The supergirls: Fashion, feminism, fantasy, and the history of comic book heroines. USA: Exterminating Angel Press.

                Madrid takes on the entire history of female superheroes and their outfits in this tome. The first part of the book is focused solely on the golden age heroines and their daring adventures. He breaks them down as Debutants like Sandra Knight, the Phantom Lady and Darla Drake, Miss Fury, the Partners, like Namora, Sun Girl, Hawkgirl, Bullet Girl and others, the Victory Girls, which would include more patriotic super heroines like Wonder Woman and the original Black Cat, and the Glamour Girls, which includes Black Canary, the Blonde Phantom, and Venus. He does a good job of explaining who the characters are and their history and he continues up to the modern day. Because he is dealing with so much though, he gives rather brief descriptions of the heroines, but he does a good job of summing them up rather quickly. The only major issue would probably be including Mary Marvel as a partner especially since he spends so much time on her much later DC analog, Supergirl, who never gained as much popularity and never managed to sustain her own title, unlike Mary Marvel.

 

Fiction about Golden age comics:

 

Chabon, M. (2000). The amazing adventures of kavalier & clay, a novel. New York, NY: Random House.

                This is a work of fiction, but it is set in the Golden Age of Comics and it’s based strongly on the biography of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel, creators of Superman. In this fictional world, Kavalier and Clay create a new hero called the Escapist and begin a life as comic book professionals. It does a great job of setting the tone of the era. It mirrors how a lot of young Jewish men came to work in comics and created the amazing ideas that have lasted even to today. It also does a great job of creating the feeling of the comic workshops during the time and how creator’s rights were often ignored or trampled upon during this time. It fills in gaps about the era for someone who is not very familiar with the 1940’s.

 

TV:

 

Cramer, D. (Producer). (1975-1977). Wonder woman [Television series]. Hollywood:  American Broadcast Company.

                The first season of the show was set in during World War II and has all the camp and fun of a typical Golden Age comic. This early season has Wonder Woman fighting Nazis, many of them were actually comedians. Lynda Carter would play as Wonder Woman and Lyle Waggoner would play her love interest, Major Steve Trevor.  Wonder Woman would retain some of her bondage elements as well since her powers would be lost the moment they removed her magic belt. Wonder Woman’s first major re-occurring villain, Baroness Paula Von Gunther would also appear in the series, as an evil Nazi conspirator. This episode would be used to reflect Wonder Woman’s horror that women aren’t all good.

 

Websites:

 

Public Domain Superheroes. Retrieved from http://pdsh.wikia.com/wiki/Public_Domain_Super_Heroes

                This is an open source wiki, but contains every public domain superhero there is. The benefit of this is you can actually refine the search to just women or witch characters or golden age characters. The thing is though, not all of these are Golden Age, but the vast majority is from that time period. It also includes information about characters that are a cross between public domain and currently owned or used by a company. Some, like Phantom Lady, have an usual past because they’ve been owned by so many companies and are now owned by DC, but their old adventures before DC bought them are not owned by DC. Most of the others though come from the fact that the company that created them is long gone and nobody has bothered to try to use the characters anymore. The sticky part using these creatively is that many companies have begun to use these public domain characters, so do due diligence before assuming these are all public domain and free to use.

 

Superheroes. Comic Book Plus. Retrieved from http://comicbookplus.com/?cbplus=superhero

                Comic Book Plus is a site that hosts thousands of golden age comic books and comic strips that have fallen into public domain. They do require a sign up to download any of the comics, but the sign up is completely free. After that, you have complete access to download all of their comics and comic strips. I have selected just the Superhero section, but they have a ton of other options. Highlights in this section for the female superheroes are Lady Luck, the Invisible Scarlet O’Neil, and of course, Mary Marvel and the Marvel Family. Lady Luck is a well-known character created by Will Eisner, one of the most respected creators in comics, so much so that an award was named after him. Invisible Scarlett O’Neil is a fun title about a young woman that can become invisible and fights crime. Finally the great Mary Marvel who appears in Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr, Mary Marvel, and Wow Comics. Mary is unique for several reasons. First, she’s a female version of a male superhero, Captain Marvel. Second, she’s not his wife or girlfriend, but his twin sister. Third, unlike most female counterparts, she was considered equal to the male counter parts in power, but also she retained a unique aspect, while her brother, Captain Marvel, relied more on strength and speed, Mary relied more on her powers of wisdom and grace. The final thing that makes Mary unique is that she is still being used and published today. After the Golden Age Company that owned her, Fawcett City comics, went bankrupt, DC bought their properties and use them today.