ink, then digital. 2008.

Some early playing with the style I'm now using for the Ironclaw pictures.
Character biography and commentary to follow.

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The Woman in Red is a fictional character who first appeared in the period known to comic book historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books. Created by writer Richard E. Hughes and artist George Mandel, she first appeared in Thrilling Comics #2 (March 1940), published by Nedor Comics.

The Woman in Red is the secret identity of policewoman Peggy Allen. Frustrated by the limitations of her job, Peggy creates a secret identity. As the Woman In Red, she wears a red floor-length coat, hood and mask.

The Woman in Red made her debut in Thrilling Comics #2 (March 1940). Comics historian Trina Robbins has claimed that the Woman in Red is the first female costumed superhero, preceding such better known characters as Wonder Woman, Phantom Lady, and Mary Marvel. While the Woman in Red never made a cover appearance, she continued to appear regularly in issues of Thrilling Comics. Her last Golden Age appearance was in issue #46 (February 1945).

COMMENTARY

The above information is all from the wiki. And there's more if you look. She's so old that she predates certain superhero conventions and she doesn't even have a "proper" name, or rather she does ("The Woman in Red") but it's more in the vigilante tradition of the Lone Ranger - who was called that by the people around him. She doesn't have any powers, including Batman's superhuman bank account. She's a cop using her wits to fight crime in ways she can't as woman on the force. She is much more in the mode of Dick Tracy than Wonder Woman, but what lumps her in with the start of the superhero tradition rather than the end of the detective tradition is the costume. She wears a mask, she dresses in red; she has a secret identity.

However, she wasn't nearly as successful a character as those that followed her. Let's compare, and see if you can figure out why:

1. The Woman in Red (1940)
2. The Woman in Red (1940)

3. Wonder Woman (1941)
4. Phantom Lady (1941)
5. The Black Cat (1941)

And there are others, certainly. Once superhero comics got going in 1941 and the ground rules were set, you had lots of women running around in their swimsuits saving the city. However, in 1940, the Woman in Red was not about cheesecake fan service. Of the various explanations for why Wonder Woman still dresses the way she does, one that's been given in our lifetime is that she uses her physicality as a distraction. And I guess that's as valid as unstable molecules, why not :P

Anyway, the marked difference between the Woman in Red and her subsequent "daughters" is pretty obvious. In the examples I list above, I don't show a cover with her on it because she was never featured nor mentioned on any covers of Thrilling Comics. She's clothed from wrist to ankles. She covers her hair. She hides her eyes. She is conservatively dressed and not presented as an available sex object to the viewer. She is, in fact, quite prescient.

Also of note is that she's not wearing the masculine uniform: the long trenchcoat and fedora (see Carmen Sandiego, a visual descendent. Perhaps relatedly, Sandiego is considered a transgressor/villain). Instead she wears a scarf and a cloak that is decidedly feminine, almost a dress.

THE BAD NEWS

Anyway, so here's what happened to the Woman in Red: Nothing - and for a long, long time. She couldn't compete with Wonder Woman's bondage imagery, gilded bosom, and spangled ass. The Woman in Red just kinda went away for a while. Until Alan Moore got his hands on her. He had her acquire a red gem that gave her knock-off Green Lantern powers, but y'know, red. Oh yeah, and she was recast from being a police officer to an entertainer with a singing career(!). Moore then gave her red skin that she was ashamed of (a motive to cover herself up completely) but then she came to terms with that, and in a fit of self-empowerment that only makes sense in stories for eleventeen-year-old boys, she started wearing a skimpy one-piece bathing suit to show off her body.

In general, she was shoehorned into the female superhero mold, with blatantly derivative powers and the fashion sense of a pole-dancer.

And so, the basics of the character as originally conceived - smart, tough, conservatively dressed woman, fighting crime on her own terms, in positions of moral authority both in and out of costume - were decidedly changed. Now she was ashamed of her body; because why else would a woman cover up? By the logic of the genre: something must be wrong with her, if she's denying the viewer access to her as a sexual object.

Etc, etc, etc. There's more, of course there's more. And it's hardly surprising. It didn't take long for superhero comic books to find their audience, hone in on what they want to see and develop traditions accordingly. My suspicion is that she was originally created to appeal to a possible female audience for what would have been a new and untested genre at the time. But there just wasn't any place for the Woman in Red once the ball got rolling and it was clear who was reading.

THE GOOD NEWS

The good news is that she's in the public domain :D The original character is up for grabs and free to use by anybody for anything. If Alan Moore wants to trollop her up and dumb her down, then great, fine. But I'm also free to re-imagine her any way I want. And after coming to understand the character better, what I imagine is something directed by the Wachowski brothers :)

I mean, c'mon, visually she is totally, totally right out of The Matrix / V for Vendetta (Moore again!). Or in the same vein, something animated by Peter Chung. maybe. *sighs* I personally like to think that she chose her costume, not because she's ashamed of her body, or is trying to hide some disfiguring attribute, or for patriarchal religious reasons (even though recasting her as a Muslim woman does have a certain edgy contemporary appeal), but simply because she likes it and doesn't want to prance around flashing her thighs to the criminal underbelly.

Anyway, there are scads of public domain old costumed heroes now. Pick one and make your opus! GEEKS WILL LOVE IT; there is a readymade audience waiting to eat it up :D

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