FemForce #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFemForce #1 (June 1985) launched the first and longest-running ongoing comic series built around an all-female superhero team, a distinction the series has held continuously into the 21st century and past the 200-issue mark. The issue presented the team's debut in full color — their earlier appearance in the 1984 black-and-white Femforce Special had introduced the concept, but issue #1 was where the ongoing mythology took root in the modern era of 1985, complete with new characters and a forward-looking serialized structure. Creator Bill Black deliberately wove public-domain Golden Age heroines together with original creations, giving the book a dual identity as both a nostalgia exercise and a genuinely new superhero universe built from the ground up by a small independent publisher. Its self-conscious revival of 'good girl art' aesthetics — pinup-inflected linework channeling 1940s illustrators — also seeded a cottage genre that would attract a dedicated collector following throughout the direct-market era.
In "Trek for the Time Twister!", Rio Rita enlists Ms. Victory and the FemForce to find her missing granddaughter, Rita Farrar—only to stumble into a prehistoric realm where dinosaurs roam and giant Amazon women rule the wilds. With no clear path forward, the team must navigate the dangers of a lost world, chasing clues through time and terrain.
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Bill Black had been crafting female-led comics under his Paragon Publications imprint since 1969, and the company evolved through the Americomics name before settling on AC Comics in 1984. The Femforce concept crystallized when Black produced the 1984 Femforce Special as a low-cost black-and-white 'one-shot' test; its success prompted an immediate pivot to a full-color ongoing series, with issue #1 reaching shops in late spring 1985. Black wrote, laid out, and inked the lead story himself, with pencils supplied by collaborator Mark Heike; a second story, 'The Menace of Montague Moon' (introducing Colt and Professor Montague M. Moon), was written, penciled, and inked by Don Secrease with inks by Kevin Dzuban, giving the debut a genuine anthology structure from the outset.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First color appearance of the Femforce team — Ms. Victory (Joan Wayne), She-Cat (Claudette Meyler per GCD reprint data; see flagged note), Nightveil/Blue Bulleteer (Laura Wright), and Tara Fremont — in the lead story 'Trek for a Time Twister.'
- First appearances of Rita Farrar (Rio Rita's relative), Dr. Carlos Jimenez and his time-travel device called the Time Triangle, and villains Rip Jaw (Turk), Satch, and Wallow.
- Queen Arachna and the tribe of giant Amazon women also appear in the lead story, menacing the team in the South American jungle alongside time-displaced dinosaurs conjured by the Time Triangle.
- A second complete story, 'The Menace of Montague Moon,' serves as the first solo Colt adventure and introduces the villain Professor Montague M. Moon; written and penciled by Don Secrease, inked by Kevin Dzuban.
- Story, layouts, and inks on the lead feature by Bill Black; pencils by Mark Heike — the same creative partnership that produced the 1984 Femforce Special and would anchor the series for decades.
- Nightveil's arc in this issue is specifically that she wants to shed her sorcery and revert to her gun-toting Blue Bulleteer identity (Laura Wright), explaining why she appears in that Golden Age persona throughout the adventure.
- The issue was reprinted — with color retouching and a new framing sequence revealing the team's WWII origins — in The Untold Origin of the Femforce (1989), co-drawn by Darren Goodhart, John Dell, and Mark Propst.
- FemForce eventually became the 229th American comic title to surpass 100 issues, a milestone reached in 1997, underscoring the longevity that began with this debut.
Cast · 20 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in The Untold Origin of the Femforce #1 (1989), Femforce: Origins #[nn] (1997), FemForce Omnibus #1 (2009)
Key issues in FemForce
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