Villainess spotlight: Spider Lady from Superman (1948)

The first Superman piece of live-action media was this 1948 serial by Columbia and the first ever villain in live-action Superman was a female one. Yes, even in the boy's club that is genre cinema of the forties and fifties there was still room for an evil lady to battle against a hero.

The villainess in question is the dreaded Spider Lady, a mysterious crime boss who controls the underworld of metropolis. She is played by Carol Forman, her career is interesting because she specialized in female villains when it came to serials, as she played an antagonistic role in more Republic and Columbia series: Brick Bradford (1947), The Black Widow (1947), Federal Agents vs. Underworld, Inc (1948) and The Miraculous Blackhawk: Freedom's Champion (1952). Surely one of the icons in action girl media from her time. 

This cunning and menacing underworld boss is a beautiful and stylish woman who commands her goons to do her dirty work. The Spider Lady is first seen set against a spiderweb backdrop, one that she uses to electrocute and harm her victims. Usually seen in the dark, she keeps her hideout a secret and builds an intimidating appearance with her shadowy figure ordering her men and questioning her prey before torturing them. 

It's obvious that a human couldn't stand against Superman in a fight but her seedy plans manage to test the hero, pushing the superguy to his limits. The constant array of crimes and destruction she causes really keeps the show going before elevating things to an exciting ending. A pro at outsmarting her foes and causing havoc. She isn't the queen of the underworld for nothing. She even hurts Lois Lane at one point, she was close to killing her but she needed the reporter in order to continue her plans.

Throughout the show, she wants to get a scientist to help her get a weapon known as the reducer ray in order to destroy the Daily Planet building and harm Superman. She also gets kryptonite and challenges Superman to stop her. Armed with these devices, Spider Lady confronts the hero, but Superman outsmarts her: he wears a lead-lined costume that prevents him from being affected by the kryptonite. The Spider Lady panics and orders the scientist to turn on the ray but she is hit by the beam and stumbles upon her deadly web, destroying her. 

A brutal ending but considering her evilness, maybe it couldn't be any more fitting. 

Spider Lady would then come back in DC's Batman/Superman #16, part of the Infinite Frontier event. This time, Lois Lane is the villaness! Yeah, in this story of alternate realities Lois becomes the queen of the criminal underworld.

Batman and Robin try to catch her but the real Lois Lane slips through time and space, ending up in Spider Lady's timeline and meeting Batman. She then helps the dynamic duo catch her evil version. Turns out, Lois turned evil because Superman wasn't there to save her friends and partners when the Daily Planet was attacked. So she became a crime boss and used her forces to fight against Dr. Atom, the real villain. 

It's a cool storyline that I would recommend if you wanna read more about her. Very interesting plot with surprising moments and really solid paneling and artwork, good comic storytelling. 

Power Girl: Uncovered (2024) Review

This is nothing more than a collection of alternate covers from various recent and not so recent Power Girl issues. We begin with Power Girl telling us that her “eyes are up here” and then she introduces the following artwork we are here to see by confessing that her roomate (Omen) suggested she should be more open to people, so Kara decides to show us some top secret files of her.

It's a solid collection. I am gonna give you some personal highlights that I cropped, so if you wanna see the full thing you are gonna have to buy it. 

Then Streaky gets upset at Kara, flaming her up!

We close the show with Lilith Clay, Omen, coming in and threatening to give Kara another psychic noogie (as this seems to be common for them) if she mentions Supergirl again. Kara closes things up by telling her she's gonna be more open and that her method worked.  

This cute little collection was written by Brittany Holzherr and the new artwork was done by Meghan Hetrick. However, the covers are by all kinds of artists, from Staton and Orlando to George Perez, Ron Randall, Carlos Pacheco, Jim Lee, Amanda Conner, Paul Mounts and many more.

Dirty Pair (1985) Retrospective - Episode 4: The Chase Smells Like Cheesecake and Death

This episode begins with workers fixing the wreck the dirty pair did at their building complex. Kei is watching wrestling while fixing stuff, a recurring thing in the show, which is funny because the series was inspired by women wrestlers. This scene shows Kei's tomboyish personality and Yuri's feminine side, as Yuri comes in with a girly magazine and groceries while Kei watches her sports while doing hard work. They are then called in to a new mission by their boss, not before Yuri announces that she has a date, nobody is amused. 

The mission involves catching a missing cat that was given a muscle fortifier that a company is working on, one that supposedly can make “humans break buildings with their own hands.” The little feline's favorite food is cheesecake, so the girls have to look for her in cake shops. Sounds like every female agent's dream assignment!

An intruder interrupts the briefing, it's the sister of the scientist who is talking to the dirty pair. It turns out his sister is one of the girl wrestlers Kei was watching at the beginning, Lan from the wrestling duo known as The Elegants. 

Truer words were never spoken.

The girls then go to some cake shops and begin to eat. There's a nice little moment of Kei eating a lot of cakes only to worry about her curves and deciding to do exercises right there. A good little character moment. The show is defined by these. Then Kei finds the cat and chases after her throughout the city.

Gotta keep herself in shape.

Eventually they arrive at a fancy hotel where the cat hides. Kei interrupts a newly wed couple and everything makes it seem as if Kei is angry at the guy for breaking her heart but she's really just looking for the little animal, which is funny enough, but after that Yuri comes in following the tracks of the cat and exactly the same thing happens. Poor guy, just after being forgiven by his sweetheart as well. 

A clue of what's to come.

After chasing the pussycat they arrive at a hair bank. The guys attending don't know what the 3WA is, so the protagonists have to force their way into the storage room where the cat is hiding. However, once they get her they are surprised by a train crashing into the room. It is the work of some mobsters who also want the cat. Needles to say, the girls start shooting up bad guys. 

The baddies are under arrest but they manage to escape by playing victims. But it doesn't end there. The girls then have to fight the real villains, Lan herself along with her wrestling partner, Jerry. That's right. The gals Kei was watching and gushing over at the start of the episode. 

The agents and the wrestlers have a fight in a hanging section of a bridge that hasn't been connected to the other parts yet, making the environment tilt and the cars slide around the place while the girls have a battle. Kei eventually defeats Lan and goes after the cat, grabbing her, Yuri then joins them. They end up hanging for their lives but alive and relatively safe. 

We don't see what happens next, we know the girls are fine and the villains are out of sight. We cut to the scientist that gave the gals their mission, we assume Lan and her wrestling partner were arrested. Turns out the dirty pair screwed up and picked up the wrong cat! Who has the real kitty? Oh no, she's with Mughi. Cute. 

An enjoyable episode but one that feels a little too unfocused. I wish Lan and Jerry would get more screen time and perhaps a more prominent role as antagonists because here they just seem like an afterthought, there is also not much in the way of an arc or a lesson for our characters to learn or a thematic idea to fight against, at least not one that's understandable and clear. But overall I think it holds up real well with all the dynamic fights and rapid pace that characterizes the show.