One of the very first superheroines from comics was Fantomah, mystery woman of the Jungle, she debuted in Jungle Comics #2 released in February 1940 by Fiction House. She has been credited as the first super heroine of comics but you could argue that the last comic action girl we talked about on the blog, Magician from Mars, holds that title.
Fantomah was created by Fletcher Hanks the so-called Ed Wood of golden age comics because of his rough art and delirious stories with bizarre plots and characters that defy conventions. Fantomah is a blonde white woman with a black dress in her human form, but once an intruder threatens the stability of the jungle she transforms into a ghastly specter with a skull as a head and then punishes the villains in outlandish or just weird and sadistic ways. That's essentially what happens in every story of hers. Her attire and the color of the skull is different in her early stories but the later look is more iconic.
Her powers change depending on the issue and the story, you have the typical ones like superstrength and being able to fly, but you also see her doing magic, manifesting stuff, vanishing objects and modifying reality to her will. She seems to be ultra powerful but we don't know how she got all those powers because we don't have an origin story for her, nor do we see more of her other than what's necessary for the story, she sometimes just flies around looking for a mean white man who she can punish for attacking her jungle. She loves the people and the animals of the jungle but for no other reason other than she is probably just an environmentalist at heart.
In her first story, Fantomah punishes two men who tried to steal jewels from the jungle, after one of the men backstabs the other one (literally), she leaves the other guy to drown in quicksand, suffering a slow death. What? She tried to warn them earlier. As you can see, she doesn't care for the life of her enemies, any other superhero probably would have tried to save the bad guy from the quicksand and take him to justice, but for Fantomah, death is the true justice.
Another issue has Fantomah leaving a mad doctor to be dismembered by his super-ape men, she just looks at the scene like it's just and fair, no expression. These early comics had that sadistic edge to it and downright crazy punishments, like when Fantomah turned two villains into alien-looking creatures and sent them to space. Fantomah is very creative when it comes to giving the bad guys their comeuppance.
Most of the original Fletcher Hanks run follows the same formula I laid out: Someone tries to disturb the jungle and its inhabitants, Fantomah catches up to what he is doing, she warns him to stop but the bad guy doesn't listen, she then uses her powers to foil the villain's plans and then she punishes them. However, this doesn't get tiresome because the things Hanks comes up with in every subsequent issue are amazingly bizarre, he really lives up to his title of the weirdest comic creator of his time.
Another good story features the Tiger-Women of Wildmoon Mountain, who wish to kill all the female population so all the males fall to their feet and they can conquer the world. The Tiger-Women with their poses and their name resemble another Fletcher Hanks creation, the Leopard Women of Venus from Hanks own Stardust. Both groups of flying superwomen dress similarly to their partners and they also ride animals, lizards in the case of the Leopard Women and tigers in the case of the Tiger-Women.
Since nothing good can last forever Fantomah's comics began a decline with issue 16 of Jungle Comics because of the absence of Hanks, the superheroine was knocked down into being a generic jungle girl and given a panther companion named Fury, the art and the stories became more conventional, almost indistinguishable from the rest of stories in the magazine. The series became irregular and mediocre at worst, it isn't awful but far from notable.
Fantomah also became more human-like and somewhat defeatable. The people from the jungle also got shown a lot more, some stories focused on individual tribe members. But it was all neutered and downgraded at the end of the day. Nobody knows who wrote these stories but they didnt do a good job at being memorable which is the exact opposite of what happened with Hanks and his kooky work. I can see people liking the more normal version of Fantomah but the loony images created by Hanks were everything but forgettable.
While in Egypt Fantomah faces her nemesis, the treacherous Ghazia, who plans some schemes in order to get rid of the new princess, including living mummies and even a group of Amazons from the Congo and their queen who she battles against in two issues of the series.
Fantomah has more stand out moments here and there, but still, the series became too by-the-numbers, a routinary work that, while not bad, it was far removed from the outrageous vision Fletcher had when creating his comics.
This new Fantomah lasted a few issues more until its permanent ending in issue number 51 and then the character mostly faded into obscurity despite being public domain.
The weird superheroine would return mostly in small cameos and as a secondary character in series like Hack/Slash (which used her more extensively than others), Femforce, Pathfinder: Wordscape, Local Man: Gold, Moloch and Murphy, Captain Canuck and The Extraordinary Miniature Man. Most of the time she was either a secondary character or just a small reference added as an easter egg.
However, there was one direct remake of Fantomah in 2017 by Chapterhouse, reimagined by Ray Fawkes (Batman Eternal, Intersect) and Soo Lee (Charlie's Angels vs. The Bionic Woman, DC/RWBY), this run lasted for four issues. We might take a look at it next october.
Other than that, Fantomah has been established as an icon of bizarre vintage comics, a symbol of unrestrained imagination and narrative insanity along with a carefree spirit that defines underground comics. We can only hope Fantomah will increase her cult status and reach a wider audience. A Fantomah TV series is now in the works, which will hopefully boost the character's popularity with audiences.
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