PHANTOM LADY in "Beauty and the Brain"

We begin presenting the COMPLETE 1940s Fox/Farrell Phantom Lady saga with this torrid tale from #13, which is her first issue. (Before this, the comic was titled WottaLife and featured funny animals.)

The art was by the incomparable Matt Baker, perhaps the premier "good girl" artist of the Golden Age.
As we mentioned at the top of this entry, we'll be presenting the complete run of stories including her All-Top Comics appearances.
PLUS: while we're not going to do most of the Quality Comics appearances (in the yellow and green ensemble), we will be doing the multi-issue crossover with Spider Widow which ran in both Police Comics and Feature Comics in a one-week daily presentation.

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featuring goodies emblazoned with the cover art from this issue of Phantom Lady.

Diahann Carroll (Kay/Glusman/DeLeon/Damone)

In the 90s, she was the insufferable Whitley Gilbert's equally-insufferable mother on A Different World!
In the 80s, she was elegant Dominique Deveraux, who went toe-to-toe catfighting with Alexis (Joan Collins) and Krystle (Linda Evans) on the legendary prime-time soaps Dynasty and The Colbys!
In the 70s, she appeared as a sultry hologram on the nigh-legendary Star Wars Holiday Special!
And, in the 60s, while she was the second Black woman to star in a tv series titled after her character, she was the FIRST to play a non-servant as Julia Baker, RN in Julia! (The first series, Beulah, was about a maid.)
A classically-trained singer, Diahann has over a dozen albums to her credit, and won a Tony for her performance on Broadway in No Strings!
She's a breast cancer activist / survivor, and even invited a camera crew into her treatment room for a national broadcast special to draw public attention to the disease.
Definitely one of the classiest women ever to grace the Fantastic Femmes section of our blog, Diahann's just written an autobiography entitled The Legs Are The Last To Go, but in her case, they ain't gone yet! In fact, she's still going strong at 74, having just done a tv pilot called White Collar!

Trivia: She attended NYC's Music and Art High School with fellow Star Wars actor Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian).
While they have performed together on other projects, they didn't work together on Star Wars. (She did the Holiday Special, he did The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi!)

Genre credits include...
Disney's the Legend of Tarzan (Queen La)
ABC WeekEnd Special "Jirimpimbira: an African Folk Tale" (Narrator)
Touched by an Angel "The Driver"
Perry Mason: the Case of the Lethal Lifestyle (Lydia Bishop)
From the Dead of Night (Maggie)
Burke's Law [1994] "Who Killed the Beauty Queen?"
Murder in Black & White (Margo Stover)
Star Wars Holiday Special (Mermeia the Hologram)
Death Scream (Betty May)
Naked City "A Horse has a Big Head"
Peter Gunn "Sing a Song of Murder"

Check out...
Diahann's Official WebSite

Queen La of Opar has also been played by...
Lilian Worth in Adventures of Tarzan (1921)
Mademoiselle Kithnou in Tarzan the Tiger (1929)

Maya Khabira Rudolph

You don't think "science fiction / fantasy" when you think of multi-talented Saturday Night Live alum Maya Rudolph.
Why not?
Currently appearing in BridesMaids, she hasn't done much genre, but what she's done recently has been either top-billed or featured player!
But perhaps her biggest Fantastic Femme credit was her uncanny ability to impersonate other Fantastic Femmes including Halle Berry, Lucy Liu, Beyonce, Vanessa Hudgens, and Whitney Houston during her tenure on SNL!
Trivia:
One of Maya's closest friends is Gwyneth Paltrow, whom she's known since grade school!
Maya is the daughter of legendary soul singer Minnie Riperton. Her greatest hit, "Lovin' You", was conceived and written by Minnie as a lullaby for baby Maya!

Genre appearances include...
Shrek Forever After / Shrek the Third (Rapunzel)
The Simpsons "Homer of Seville"
Idiocracy (Rita)
Devil's Child (Holly)
Gattica (Delivery Nurse)

Check out...
her bio on Saturday Night Live's Official Site

Other actresses to play Rapunzel include...
Mandy Moore in Tangled
Tereza Srbova in InkHeart
Emma Rose Lima in Enchanted
Kelly Sheridan in Barbie as Rapunzel
Tress MacNeille in The Simpsons "Treehouse of Horror XI"
Louise Robey in Play Nice
Pamela Winslow in Into the Woods
Stephanie Walski in Pee Wee's PlayHouse
Shelley Duvall in Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre "Rapunzel"
Carol Lynley in Shirley Temple's StoryBook "Rapunzel"

Gloria Reuben

Though her longest run was on ER (over 100 episodes), Gloria's been a regular or semi-regular on several tv series, most recently, Raising the Bar!
She's also sung backup for Tina Turner, and composed the theme music for 1-800-MISSING, one of the series she appeared in!

Genre appearances include...
Jesse Stone: Innocents Lost (Thelma Gleffey)
Understudy (Greta)
Sentinel (Mrs. Merriweather)
Salem Witch Trials (Tituba Indian)
1-800-MISSING (Brooke Haslett / Composer: main theme)
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (Christine Danielson)

The Agency / The District (Lisa Fabrizzi)
Happy Here and Now (Hannah)
Anne Rice's The Feast of All Saints (Cecile Ste. Marie)
Dean Koontz's Sole Survivor (Rose Tucker)
Cold Blooded aka Bad Faith (Lana Fuentes)
Shaft [2000] (Sgt. Council)
Inferno aka Pilgrim (Vicki)
TimeCop (Sarah Fielding)
Homicide: Life on the Street (Det. Theresa Walker)
Silk Stalkings (Hattie Morgan)
Confessions: Two Faces of Evil (Tanya Blackmon)
Nick of Time (Krista Brooks)
ShadowHunter (Cayla)
Dead Air (Judy)
The Flash (Sabrina)
Alfred Hitchcock Presents [1987] "World's Oldest Motive"

CAVE GIRL in "Ape Men of Kor"

The very first Cave Girl story (but not her origin) from Thun'da #2, guest-starring Thun'da himself, along with his "mate", Pha!

Art by "good girl" artist Bob Powell, who took over on Thun'da from the legendary Frank Frazetta!
Cave Girl continued as a back-up in the remaining four issues of Thun'da, and as the lead in four issues of her own title (with a Thun'da strip as a back-up!).
Despite the overlapping of the strips in each other's books, the characters never guest-starred in each other's strips again.

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