AMAZON ART #32

ANGEL AND THE APE was a short-lived DC feature that teamed up Angel O'Day-- a hot, martially-trained blonde-- with Sam Simeon, an intelligent but inarticulate ape. The series was never as funny as its writer thought it was, but the art by Bob Oskner retains a trippy charm.

AMAZON ART #31

Just realized I'd never done a pic of the second DC Huntress, whom I liked better than the Helena Wayne version.

AMAZON ART #30

A punchout scene from the "underage-but-not-really" Green Lantern ARISIA.

AMAZON ART #29

SUB-MARINER #58 introduced a new potential love-interfest for Namor, a red-sklnned lady named Tamara. She gained super-strength when she came to Earth but was not in Namor's league. She only made a handful of appearances in the Silver Age series and in the 1990s NAMOR title, and seems to have disappeared since.

AMAZON ART #28

Excellent BLACK WIDOW fight-scenes from master artist Gene Colan.

AMAZON ART #27

SAILOR MOON was never a favorite of mine, but here's a fight-scene from her TV show anyway.

AMAZON ART #26

Though she was just a supporting character in THE PHANTOM, girlfriend Diana Palmer was often portrayed as a tough cookie--as witness the first panel of the first PHANTOM comic, where she's practice-boxing a guy. Pretty good for 1936!

AMAZON ART #25

In addition to the changes in Poison Ivy that I described in this post, she was also occasionally given a little more martial talent than she'd displayed in her first appearances. I haven't found many screencaps of relevant scenes on the web, though there is this nice Jim Lee page, in which Poison Ivy gets physical with Catwoman and finds herself completely outclassed.

AMAZON ART #24

One of the DC groups that may have influenced the Fantastic Four was the the Sea Devils (1960-67), a group of deep-sea daredevils made up of an alpha-male leader, his girlfriend, the girlfriend's brother and the leader's best buddy. Girlfriend Judy Walton wasn't one of the most prepossessing heroines of the period, but given that she was a full-time swimmer, there was a little more emphasis on her fighting villains alongside the boys.

AMAZON ART #23

Screenshot from ep 15 of KILL LA KILL, one of the better recent female-centric anime TV show. Feminists ought to appreciate that it's almost entirely about female-female relationships-- there's no romantic arc whatever-- even if many of the women are devoted to kicking each other's asses.

AMAZON ART #21

Hmm, the live-action GHOST IN THE SHELL appears in theaters tomorrow, and there's hardly any caps of Major Kusanagi fighting to be found.

Here's the only one I located.

AMAZON ART #20

I had heard that in recent years DC had been building Aquaman's sidekick Mera as a power in her own right. Still--

The idea that she could send Superman flying with one blow is a little nuts.

Nice punch, though.

AMAZON ART #19

Since I devoted some space to Lois Lane on ARCHETYPAL ARCHIVE this week, I might as well toss out some of Lois' more memorable martial moments.

AMAZON ART #18

A quick shot of one of the more balls-to-the-walls moments in Yukito Kishiro's BATTLE ANGEL ALITA, forever rumored to be in "development hell."

AMAZON ART #17

I don't know that I ever would have devoted a post just to BULLETGIRL, as she was the somewhat mediocre sidekick to BULLETMAN, who was no great shakes either, albeit more popular than a lot of Golden Age heroes.

Like most sidekicks, Bulletgirl got clobbered a lot, but she does have some decent scenes slugging it out with villains.

And here she is teamed with Mary Marvel in a 1970s story by Don Newton.

AMAZON ART #16

This 2004 Joe Jusko cover is a little more "posed" than I usually like them. However, in contrast to a lot of "hot babe comics" from around this time, this one is high on the fem-violence, as Vampirella meets Witchblade for the first time and they both go to Hell and kick ass.

Best part is when they rag on each other's outfits, with Witchblade comparing Vampi's getup to "butt floss," while Vampi shoots back that WB looks like she's dressed for the "half-time show."

AMAZON ART #15

Here's a particularly fine Alan Davis cover of Black Canary stomping a passel of thugs, from ACTION COMICS #624.