Lost Crossovers: The Forgotten Phantom Lady/Spider Widow epic, Part 1

Quality Comics was one of the finest publishers of the Golden Age of Comics. They lived up to their firm’s name by featuring a high level of polish in both their stories and their artwork. Quality’s most popular features included Plastic Man, Doll Man and Blackhawk, along with reprints of Will Eisner’s The Spirit, and a bevy of other characters such as Uncle Sam, the Ray, the Human Bomb, and one of the characters we’re going to be looking at today: Phantom Lady. Debuting in POLICE COMICS #1, Phantom Lady was Sandra Knight, the daughter of a prominent United States senator who donned a slinky costume and sometimes used a black light ray to battle both spies and the underworld. The strip ran for only 23 issues in POLICE COMICS, though the character would have a long and winding history thereafter. But we’re going to be looking at a story that ran through three of the last Phantom Lady stories, as well as three installment of a feature in another comic entirely.

The Phantom Lady strip had been drawn by Arthur Peddy in its earliest installments, before undergoing a series of rotating creators. By POLICE COMICS #20, it was in the hands of Frank M. Borth. Borth was simultaneously handing another series in the pages of FEATURE COMICS called The Spider Widow, and it may have been this fact that prompted him to create a crossover between the two series. The Spider Widow was a typical bored and wealthy socialite who, upon discovering that she could control deadly black widow spiders, decided to dress up in a witch’s costume and use her strange powers to battle saboteurs and crooks. She was often aided in these endeavors by the Raven, her sidekick, who wore a birdlike costume and could fly through the air.

The crossover begins in POLICE COMICS #20 in the Phantom Lady strip. Over the past few installments, Sandra Knight’s father had been the target of repeated assassination attempts, so as this story opens, Phantom Lady has received a note from the Raven telling her that Senator Knight is being held captive down by the docks. The story wastes no time in getting right into the action.

Five pages into this story, Phantom Lady comes face-to-face with the Raven, who had been captured by the would-be killers shortly after he sent his note. (Where he sent it and how he knew how to contact Phantom Lady are questions that are never addressed.) What’s more, the Raven is treated as a fait accompli figure. There isn’t any note of him being an associate of the Spider Widow or anything. He just shows up and presumes that Phantom Lady will know who he is.

So the duo wipes up the kidnappers and rescue Senator Knight. But the mastermind behind this plot is still out there, and the Raven is determined to stick around and get to the bottom of it. But while he mentions his regular FEATURE COMICS home, he doesn’t indicate that this story is going to be followed up next in its pages, rather than the next issue of POLICE COMICS.

But continue it does, in a very direct fashion, in that same month’s issue of FEATURE COMICS, #69. There isn’t any mention of this crossover on any of the covers of the comics it runs through–and in most cases, even the headline characters don’t rate a blurb (though the Spider Widow gets one here.) So this seems like a thing that Borth just went ahead and did, rather than anything that was planned to garner attention.

For regular readers of the Spider Widow series, there’s precious little recap. The Raven just shows up with Sandra Knight in the first panel and tells Dianne Grayton that he bumped into her over in POLICE COMICS and that she needs help locating the person who is targeting her father.

But amusingly, the two female crimefighters don’t get along at all, and within seconds, they’re sniping at one another. The Spider Widow seems put out by the Raven’s interest in Sandra, and Phantom Lady insists that she can manage her own affairs by herself. The raven also casually reveals Sandra’s identity to Dianne, which maybe explains how he knew where to send that note. Still, that seems like a major faux pas in the world of costumed crime-busters.

There’s a great bit here that Stan Lee and Jack Kirby would swipe knowingly or unknowingly years later in FANTASTIC FOUR where the trio of super heroes have to travel by subway to the underworld watering hole where they think they can find a clue as to the identity of the mastermind.

It’s kind of funny that, all through this installment, people seem a lot more impressed by or afraid of Phantom Lady than they are by the overtly-creepier Spider Widow. It’s also fun how the Raven acts as though he’s the lead character and the other two are his sidekicks, rather than the other way around. There’s a fun plug for Blackhawk on this page as well.

And here, the Raven calls out to Phantom Lady in her civilian name in the middle of a brawl with the bad guys. He’s definitely not good at this. And in all of the confusion, the mastermind successfully eludes capture, meaning that the story is going to be continued. But not in FEATURE COMICS #70 as the final burb would seem to indicate, but rather in POLICE COMICS #21–which we’ll look at in the future.