Fantomah

A mysterious ancient woman with supernatural powers, Fantomah protected the jungle from those who threatened it — transforming into a haunting skull-faced figure to punish evildoers. She is considered one of the very first superpowered female characters in comic-book history.

Fantomah is one of comics' genuine Golden Age treasures, debuting in Jungle Comics #6 in 1940 courtesy of creator George Tuska — making her among the earliest superpowered female characters to grace the four-color page. Born from Fiction House's wild, pulpy imagination, she prowled the jungle alongside the likes of Kaänga and Tabu, a fixture of that era's gloriously untamed adventure storytelling. What makes Fantomah's story especially remarkable is her sheer longevity — a character rooted in 1940 who has kept turning up across eight decades, even sharing pages with modern cult favorites like Cassie Hack in Hack/Slash. That kind of staying power, from Golden Age Fiction House to contemporary horror comics, marks her as exactly the sort of deep-cut discovery that makes digging through comics history so endlessly rewarding.