Lady Luck Becomes A Stripper!

Will Eisner created not only The Spirit who was one of the first comic heroes to get his own separate newspaper release, but Eisner also made two other characters to help fill out The Spirit Section to a full 16-page segment, the magical Mr. Mystic and veiled vixen known as Lady Luck. This mysterious figure was yet another in a long line of Golden Age heroines who were a young rich debutante that secretly battled evil as a costumed crusader. Eisner along with artist Chuck Mazoujian made debutante Brenda Banks who would match her Irish luck in a green clad outfit with wide brimmed hat and a veil instead of a domino mask as the crimefighter Lady Luck. Klaus Nordling eventually took over the story and art for the weekly section that went from the newspapers to its own regular comic book run under Quality Publications. Issue #50 of their Smash Comics anthology reprints one such story from two years prior where Lady Luck is staking out a joint-Axis Powers hideout along with her bumbling sidekick Peecolo who is like a clumsier version of Alfred Pennyworth that insists on tripping his way into his boss' adventures. When Lady Luck first premiered, she was a two-fisted defender of justice like a female Green Hornet, but at this point she had become more farcical like something out of early Plastic Man comics. Whereas Ms. Luck used to have her own patrol unit, in this case she's stuck with Peecolo possibly due to her finances being stretched during wartime. Peecolo gives away their listening in on the German and Japanese spies who are using a pointlessly convoluted system of passing secret messages via exotic dancers in a nightclub called the Jollity Theater. Lady Luck lack of hiring a helper who couldn't munch apples quieter is what causes the chase to begin as our heroine ducks into a dancer's dressing room. She listens into a dancer plotting with the short Japanese agents who will drop balloons with secret messages into the audience where their spies will receive them. Lady Luck clocks out the double-dealing dancing girl and takes her place by removing her green duds off and wearing the stripper's undergarments hoping that no one will notice that a burlesque dancer looks exactly like a famous rich heiress as she risks exposing her secret identity. Lady Luck goes down the runway with a bunch of balloons while the conflicting Nazi and Japanese agents burst the balloons by shooting at them from opposite sides of the room. Peecolo's brute strength and Lady Luck's martial arts help round up the pistol packing foreign spies, and Lady Luck manages to get her green veil back on just as the cops bust into the joint to round up the villains. Ms. Luck keeps her identity secret, but at the cost of whatever upstanding reputation she had as she's seen wearing nothing but her veil and stripper's outfit. Luck might be on this Lady's side, even though it tends to change at the drop of a spy balloon in a nudie bar.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

All I Need Is A Miracle Man

Bingo The Racist Wonder Boy

The Super-est American Hero