YEAR 1968: MADAME MASQUE

Technically, the character who would later be known as "Madame Masque"-- or even just "Masque" in one incarnation-- was called both by her given name "Whitney Frost" and by her formal name as head of the criminal "Maggia," "the Big M." (No relation to "M-Appeal," I guess.)

Whitney Frost, later revealed to be the daughter of the Maggia's former leader Count Nefaria, debuted in TALES OF SUSPENSE #98, as a glamor-girl who began romancing SHIELD agent Jasper Sitwell. The romance was at least partly for show, for she was trying to get intel from Sitwell so that her gang could break into Stark Industries and rip off the inventor's store of super-weapons. (Today, no one would believe that a criminal gang would bother making such a blatant assault, since it would be so much easier to bribe employees into copying the tech-- which more or less became the subject of the "Armor Wars" arc in the IRON MAN title.)

Sitwell only pretended to be fooled by Whitney's blandishments in order to lure her into a trap. Like many sentimental Marvel females, she couldn't resist saving Sitwell's life despite him setting her up to take a fall. Then she escaped. Several issues later, after TALES OF SUSPENSE had morphed into IRON MAN, writer Archie Goodwin essentially ripped off the origin of Doctor Doom, having Whitney facially injured in a tragic accident that forced her to wear a mask to conceal her ruined beauty.

I know that I've said this before of other characters, but from what I've seen of Masque's later incarnations, she never seemed to catch fire outside of the original arc of Goodwin-scripted stories. Goodwin's scripts had a more hard-edged, noir-ish feel than those of Smilin' Stan or any of the many Marvel raconteurs who followed some if not all aspects of Stan's writing-style.  Madama Masque, who was a "tough girl" at least a year before Marvel's Black Widow showed any propensity at hand-to-hand fighting, just didn't fit the rather "soft," soap-operatic style of later IRON MAN writers, particularly Bill Mantlo, who tried to make her into Stark's regular girlfriend.

YEAR 1968: TARA KING

By 1968 the British teleseries THE AVENGERS had lost the services of Diana Rigg to portray the popular character of Emma Peel.  For the serial's next (and, as it turned out, final) season, the producers cast Linda Thorson as John Steed's new partner.  Whereas all of Steed's other partners for the entirety of the series had been "talented amateurs," King was introduced as a spy who had gone through the same training as Steed, and worked for the same barely defined secret organization.

In the circles of television fandom, many viewers disdained Thorson's character not for its own failings but simply for not being Emma Peel.  It's questionable whether or not the series would have done any better, aesthetically or financially, had the producers attempted to follow the model set by Peel and the previous Cathy Gale figures. 

Whereas the tone of the Gale and Peel seasons captured a fine balance of drama and tongue-in-cheek humor, the final season with Tara King (1968-69) fumbled, occasionally straying into the realm of farce (particularly in those episodes that dealt with Steed and King's supervisor, a fat man known as "Mother.")  Being a more petite woman Thorson was not quite as impressive in fight-scenes as Blackman and Rigg had proven, but of the 33 episodes completed there are probably a good half-dozen battles in which King acquits herself just as well as her predecessors.

Tara King made her first prose appearance in 1968's THE DROWNED QUEEN by Keith Laumer, one of four paperback originals.  Amusingly, sometimes Emma Peel was featured on the cover of a Tara King adventure.