Forgotten Women in Comics

If you haven’t heard of it yet, my biggest pride and joy is my podcast Lady Comic Book History. I poured lots of time, effort and research into it and whenever I can get an episode out, I do. It's important work that means a lot to me and I feel so strongly about it that I am turning the idea of Lady Comic Book History into a book. I want the forgotten women of comics to be documented, recognized and remembered. That said I am going to start doing lists like this, consider them teasers as to the characters that I will be discussing in my book. And please listen to my podcast to find out about other incredible ladies that I have already talked about.

Sun Girl : She made her first appearance in 1948 with her own title from Timely Comics. She only starred in her own series for three issues, she then made appearances in several different titles. She fell victim to a very classic trope at the time, which was that she fell in love with her boss and became a hero in order to be near him…she became his sidekick. From secretary to sidekick is not exactly flattering. Also we have a very classic instance of a grown woman being given the title of “girl”.

Gimmick Girl : Originating in 1949 she was created to be a side character, appearing on a team for all sidekicks and never really has a storyline of her own. She has no agency and exists only to support other characters.

Doll Girl : Another assistant to the male main character. Doll Girl was introduced in 1951 and was an assistant to Doll Man. They managed to survive the Golden Age and were even part of the reboot post Crisis. In the original origin Doll Man was in control of her size transformation and she didn’t have any agency over it until much later…sound sexist much?

Night Girl (Are we sensing a pattern here): So she could have been a super incredible and powerful character but instead she was really just tossed to the side. She was one of the founding members of a team with quite possibly the dumbest name ever, Legion of Substitute Superheroes and really that's about it.

Phantom Lady : Literally referred to as “good girl art” which just meant that she had massive boobs and was depicted in pin up poses for quite literally no reason. She made her first appearance in 1941 and was brought to us by Quality Comics. Textbook sexist depiction of women.

Lady Luck : The first female character on this list that actually started in a comic strip before it was reprinted by Quality Comics in 1943. This is one character that was canceled, shelved and revived several times throughout her long history. She was revived in 2004, and again in 2013. She joins a long list of female characters that were from wealthy families but they were bored with that life so they decided to become vigilantes. A unique pastime that only rich white women could have. Essentially they were all Batman.

We may have noticed that these ladies are labeled as such, because you can't possibly have superheroes without reminding audiences that these are small, feminine women. Or we have grown women that are labeled as “girls” despite being full grown adults. Now I have talked about all of these ladies on the podcast and we will be discussing them in a different light in the book but this is just part of their history. Please comment on who you’d like to know more about!