A couple of things to know about Lady Satan. She switched her personality and powers midstream; first she was an avenging angel in 1940's France, wreaking havoc on the Germans for killing her fiance; then, a few issues later, she is the world's most powerful sorceress battling occult forces. Also, she has no name and is known only as Lady Satan. (In some later reprints, she was renamed variously as "Marietta," "Celeste Karloff," and "Josephine Le Blanc." Don't believe them -- she has no name.)
Created by comics legend George Tuska, she first appeared in Dynamic Comics #2 (December 1941). "A strange, mysterious woman dedicates her life to ferret out the secrets of the enemies of democracy and to turn these secrets over to the nations engaged in a death struggle to keep the light of liberty aglow. This weird, swift striking character is known as......LADY SATAN." We start on a voyage to New York where she and her unnamed fiance are to be married. Then a German appears in the sky...the next panel shows her in the ocean, clinging to wreckage, and vowing to devote her life to the destruction of 'those tyrants." Weeks later she is in a cafe in German-occupied Paris where Nazi Captain Fritz appears enamored of this mysterious lady in a red evening dress, cap, and a red domino mask. (Yeah, she wanders around Paris like that and the Nazis don't suspect a thing,) Using Fritz to discover a secret Nazi plan, she is soon caught, placed before a firing squad, escapes, is shot down in a plane, nearly drowns. commandeers a Nazi vehicle, infiltrates a Nazi meeting at a Berlin hotel, gases the Nazis, steals the plans, and delivers them to England. all in a day's work for this talented lady.
She appeared once more, in the following issue of Dynamic Comics, then reappeared four years later in Red Seal Comics #17 (July 1946). By now the Nazi menace is old hat and Lady Satan has transformed herself completely, although still with the red evening dress, cape, and mask -- although now the cape also has a cowl. "Perhaps I am the only person in the world today who is a master of the art of Black Magic. That is why I am called Lady Satan. If you are an unbeliever and scorn the idea that such creatures as ghost, vampires and werewolves really exist, read this story and you'll change your mind. It was a dark stormy night. the rain was beating against my windshield when --" Lady Satan stops to aid three children standing by the road and is attacked by werewolves under the control of the werewolf Master, who used candy to lure kids and then turns them into werewolves.
This new Lady Satan uses "powerful magic that allows her to do just about anything." She has a serpent-shaped ring that can release gases made from "dragon scales." And she can "unveil the shadow world." All nifty tricks is you are going to fight evil, which she does. In the following issues, a ghost reveals an evil plot to kill his daughter for her inheritance, and basically the same thing happens in her next adventure. In her final adventure, a man pretends to be a cursed tree (really!) to kill and frighten people.
This compilation also includes two reprints which have been reworked.
The artwork is great. The stories range from fast-paced to eerie but ho-hum. All in all. worth a look.
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=95730&comicpage=&b=i
What I said to George. I admire your ability to retain interest in all sorts of publications. I always found the artwork in comics to be difficult to appreciate due to the intermingling with text.
ReplyDeletePatti, Jerry and I share similar interests and a love of a variety of books!
ReplyDelete