YEAR 1962: CATHY GALE

Cathy Gale (played by Honor Blackman for two seasons of Great Britain's THE AVENGERS from1961 to 1969) was far from the first heroine in pop-fiction who'd been seen to use judo on her opponents, but the producers of the teleseries emphasized her facility with that martial art on a regular basis as soon as Gale's character joined the show in its second year.

Wikipedia sums up her appeal nicely:

"Cathy Gale was considered a trail-blazing female character for British television, displaying a level of self-assurance and physical prowess rarely seen in women on television before that time."

As most fans know, Blackman left the series in 1964 and was replaced by Diana Rigg, playing the character of Emma Peel (who will covered in a future entry).  It's interesting to speculate whether or not Blackman's Gale would have become a pop-phenomenon equal to that of Emma Peel once the teleseries adapted to color photography and was broadcast in the United States.

The character appeared in one paperback spinoff novel, titled simply THE AVENGERS.

YEAR 1961: THE INVISIBLE GIRL

I suppose I might be fairly accused of unoriginality in using here the same illustration I used in an earlier post, but the scene captures a different set of associations here.

Of all Silver Age heroines, the Invisible Girl-- who in the 1980s would "become a woman," as in changing her name to "Invisible Woman"-- gets the least respect.  The Lee-Kirby FANTASTIC FOUR did include scenarios that got a lot of mileage out of feminine stereotypes, whether it was making fun of her for feminine activities like shopping or expecting her to be the "den mother" of the supergroup.  (Side-note: given how many fans think Kirby plotted everything in FF, it's surprising that he's rarely blamed for these politically incorrect lapses, though it's clear to me that Kirby's art sets up a number of comic bits, like Sue getting pissy with Reed because he doesn't notice her new hairdo).

Nevertheless, most of Sue's detractors pay no attention to scenes like the one above, where the gutsy heroine-- at a time before she acquired her force-field powers-- takes on Doctor Doom by herself, just to prove that she can do it.  She does end up needing rescue from her male partners,  but that's no stain on her escutcheon: it is Doctor Doom, after all. 

Though she wasn't the first heroine created for the Silver Age of Comics, arguably she's better known that 1959's Supergirl, who seems to wax and wane with the times-- while the Invisible Girl/Woman remains, well-- highly visible.

YEAR 1960: PRINCESS ASA

I've commented elsewhere that not until the 1950s did American cinema begin to spawn a fair number of  femmes formidables, and the same is true for foreign cinema.  One of the few non-American films I've referenced thus far was the British CAT GIRL from 1957.

It was the Brits' most noteworthy competitors in horror, the Italians, who ended up spawning not just a particular group of female monsters, but the first actress to become predominantly associated with the marketing of horror, after the fashion of male actors like Karloff, Lugosi, and Price. Ironically, the Italians accomplished this by using a actress born in Great Britain.

A smattering of Italian horror films had preceded 1960's BLACK SUNDAY, but SUNDAY impressed the new decade's audiences with the unique, exotic looks of Barbara Steele.  In the film Steele portrays the dual role of Princess Asa, a centuries-dead witch who rises from the grave to avenge herself on the descendants of her murderers, and one of Asa's own descendants, the innocent Katia.

The opening sequence of BLACK SUNDAY-- quite violent for the period-- did a lot toward propelling the film to its fame, but Steele's performance was equally important, conveying the witch's cruelty and sadism with as much skill as she played the guileless innocent.

SUNDAY's only disappointment is that director Mario Bava concentrates so much on well-photographed atmosphere that in the final analysis Princess Asa, despite being a vampire as well as a witch, doesn't really *do* much beyond being evil.  But on the strength of that performance Steele made several more noteworthy horror-films-- PIT AND THE PENDULUM, CASTLE OF BLOOD, and NIGHTMARE CASTLE-- a few of which I may cover in future posts

YEAR 1959: SUPERGIRL

Though Lois Lane was the premiere feminine influence on the Superman mythology, a case could be made that his super-cousin was number two in importance.

It must be admitted that Supergirl had a spotty career in the years of her introduction.  Perhaps in keeping with the mythos' love of secrets, for the first year or so during her appearance in a back-up series in ACTION COMICS, Superman kept the "Maid of Might" secret from the world, with the justification that he might need to use her as a "secret weapon."

A skeptic might assume that Superman may've had some issues about not being the only Kryptonian hero on the planet any more.  To be fair, the writers did employ Supergirl in a few stories that hinged on the populace's non-knowledge of her existence.  In addition, the editor may have been waiting to see whether or not she sparked any popularity with the young audience.  One assumes that there was some positive response by the time of ACTION #260 (1960), when Supergirl pleads with her cousin to be allowed more than "mild, secret adventures."   However, it took another 25 issues before Supergirl officially debuted to the contemporary world of Silver-Age DC, in ACTION #285.

Once this took place, the character arguably became more assertive, with one of her best 1960s battles occuring in ACTION #339 (seen above), when she meets Brainiac for the first time and kicks his android ass.

Unfortunately, the 1970s and 1980s weren't that kind to Supergirl, as she wasn't able to sustain a successful series, be it in SUPERGIRL, ADVENTURE COMICS, or THE DARING NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERGIRL-- though to be sure, she never enjoyed the best art or writing in any of these venues.

The big comedown, according to fannish lore, was the failure of the 1984 SUPERGIRL film.  The film suffered from its own creative problems, but allegedly DC was more willing thereafter to view the cousin from Krypton as an expendable commodity, leading to her famous fade-out in CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS.

Though that Supergirl died, arguably she continues to influence some if not all of her later incarnations.

YEAR 1958: THE FIFTY-FOOT WOMAN

In terms of the title (though not so much the story), ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN is one of the best-known of  the female-oriented "creature features" of the 1950s.  The film has been remade (with several changes to the Mark Hanna script) and parodied in assorted venues.  It would seem to be the only "femme formidable" film for director Nathan Juran/Hertz, though scripter Hanna also produced the "lady sheriff" western GUNSLINGER, which will be covered in a future post.

Like CAT GIRL, ATTACK deals with a rich woman beset with the problems of having a rat for a husband. Wealthy Nancy Archer, neglected by her cheating husband Harry, has the additional misfortune of a "close encounter" with a gigantic male alien.  She becomes sick from the encounter and her husband and his girlfriend plot to kill her secretly.  However, she becomes a giantess-- albeit one who manages to remain adequately clothed at all times-- and goes out looking to avenge herself on the plotters.

The tone of the film's final sequence is perhaps a little too jokey, what with Nancy stomping around the local dives calling her husband's name, "HARRRRY!"  I can't exactly say that ATTACK exploits the themes of the soon-to-be-burgeoning feminism as such. But I imagine it gave some women in 1950s audiences a charge out of seeing themselves as "the bigger sex."

YEAR 1957: LEONORA BRANDT

For 1957 here's a rewriting of CAT PEOPLE: CAT GIRL, written by the same scripter who wrote THE SHE CREATURE the previous year.

Leonora, played by a young Barbara Shelley, is a woman dominated and marginalized by the men in her life-- her husband, her former boyfriend (and later, psychiatrist), and her uncle.  The uncle informs that Leonora that their family is heir to a curse.  Victims of said curse share a mutual identity with a killer beast, in this case a wild leopard.  When the uncle dies, Leonora gains a mysterious communion with the leopard, and finds that she can wield control over the beast, and make it kill-- for instance, her cheating husband.

On the NATURALISTIC UNCANNY MARVELOUS blog I've written a fuller review of CAT GIRL. In part I noted one way in which I preferred it to CAT PEOPLE:

CAT GIRL isn’t as stylishly directed as CAT PEOPLE; Alfred Shaughnessy is never more than simply competent. However, though most critics prefer CAT PEOPLE’s script for its ambivalence as to the existence of the supernatural, I find that sort of ambivalence tedious. I like the way CAT GIRL shows up the conceit and pretension of patriarchal society, as represented by Richard and Brian, by showing the profundity of the world of feelings to which women are sensitive—and, by extension, the reality of Leonora’s shared identity with a prehuman creature.

YEAR 1956: BATWOMAN

Though the "Kathy Kane" version of Batwoman doesn't get many props these days, she did accomplish one thing that even Catwoman couldn't: injecting a continuing feminine presence into the Batman adventures in both DETECTIVE COMICS and the regular BATMAN book.

Prior to Batwoman, the crimefighting world of Batman and Robin was one in which women didn't have much of a role. That may sound like I'm subscribing to the old canard that Batman's gay again, but that's not quite my point.  The Batman stories tended to follow the rule that women didn't have much of a place in the rough-and-tumble world of crime, and most of the mundane crimefighter-comics of the time followed roughly the same paradigm, aside from Will Eisner's SPIRIT and Jack Cole's PLASTIC MAN. 

Catwoman was the one exception to this-- but she was the exception that proved the rule.  For over fifteen years, Catwoman was the only notable female villain in the stories. I scanned the Fleischer BATMAN ENCYLOPEDIA and found no others beyond a minor gun-moll or two.  The only other memorable villainess, a lady crime-boss named "the Sparrow," appeared in a 1948 story in the syndicated comic strip.  As it happens, 1948 was the same year Batman got his own version of Lois Lane, Vicky Vale, in the comic books.

As the cover to DETECTIVE COMICS #233 shows, the Batwoman is initially presented as a threat to the Dynamic Duo's mantle as Gotham City's top crimefighters.  The story's creators and editors may have been somewhat uncertain about such a character's reception, since at story's end Batman ferrets out Batwoman's secret identity and persuades her to retire from the dangerous business of crimefighting.  Nevertheless, she was back in action within less than a year, and continued to appear irregularly in the two Bat-books and in the WORLD'S FINEST Superman-Batman title.  She and Batman formed a loose "will-they/won't they" romantic relationship despite his continued attempts to get her to quit being a superhero. In 1961, possibly due to positive reader response, the creators brought Kathy's niece into the action as Bat-Girl, so that Batwoman and Bat-Girl provided an effective mirror-image of the starring heroes, as well providing regular romantic interest for both males. 

One rather odd characteristic of Batwoman was that she called attention to her femininity by modeling her crimefighting weapons on feminine accoutrements-- trapping thugs in giant "hair-nets," using "charm-bracelets" as handcuffs, and so on.  There's not much question in my mind that the creators did this in a rather jokey spirit.  Nevertheless, Batwoman wasn't dependent on her oddball weapons as were some "feminine-version" heroines of the period, and was often presented as being above-average in terms of hand-to-hand combat.

Batwoman and Bat-Girl both faded from official DC continuity in 1964, when Julius Schwarz sought to impose a new editorial approach on the Bat-books, which would lead to a new "Batgirl" some years later (see 1967, when I get to it).  In DETECTIVE COMICS #485 (1979), Denny O'Neil uses her as "cannon fodder" (his word), killing her off to make Batman get extra-mad at her murderers.  Bat-Girl made a comeback of sorts in the Bob Rozakis TEEN TITANS, but the most remarkable thing about her seems to be that despite the many minor characters knocked off during DC's "Crisis on Infinite Earths," she somehow survived in the backwaters of continuity and continues in a new version today, just as Kathy Kane's legacy begat a new Batwoman in 2006.