Fantomah

Fantomah is among the earliest superpowered women in comics, and like Stardust she sprang from the fevered imagination of Fletcher Hanks. Debuting in Fiction House's Jungle Comics in 1940, she appears at first as a beautiful, mysterious guardian of the jungle — but when confronted by evil she transforms, her face becoming a blue, skull-like mask of vengeance as she unleashes strange and terrifying powers. The concept parallels the very first wave of costumed heroines, giving Fantomah a genuine claim as a pioneering female superhuman, even if she is cloaked in the exoticism and racial stereotyping typical of the jungle-comics genre of her day. Hanks rendered her in the same crude, hypnotic style that marks all his work, and she shares in the critical rediscovery that has restored his reputation. Now in the public domain, Fantomah has been reprinted and revisited by modern creators drawn to her eerie originality. She hangs here as both a landmark — one of the first women granted real superhuman power in the medium — and a vivid example of the untamed invention that flourished on the industry's fringe.