The Many Many Many Lady Satans
Lady Satan must have been a popular moniker throughout the Golden Age because several different ladies took up the mantle during a short period of comics history. We've already talked about the Bronze Age version, even though she was more of an anti-heroine as it was about someone struggling with possession. The original was created by Shazam artist George Tsuka in Dynamic Comics and Red Seal Comics by Harry Chesler's Dynamic Publishing. The woman of mystery kept her true identity secret and first started out as a spy for the Allied Forces as she helped free a portion of France from German invaders. Lady Satan could slip in and out of her alias while wearing a mask and a long red cloak, even though both guises were of a leggy brunette in mini skirt which you think would gain some attention from any horny agents. This masked maiden immediately shifted from being a Nazi smasher to a full-on sorceress who tracked down supernatural foes along with a magic ring that could release various gasses to subdue creatures of the night. How she went from spy hunter to monster hunter is never revealed as it's believed by most comic historians that the two versions are exactly that, two separate characters with the same name and similar attire. It's like if James Bond went to being part of the X-Files, but not too far a stretch as far as most Golden Age premises go. This Lady Satan got reused for a comic series by St. John Publishing for their series titled Authentic Police Cases, even though it wasn't very authentic as it involved a masked super spy. St. John then renamed her in the same series as a maskless heroine called Marietta who chased ghosts, and then again in a horror anthology titled Strange Terrors now revamped as a spiritualist named Celeste Karloff. That alone is nearly five alternate adaptations of the same character! A totally different Lady Satan had a single-page text story in Harvey's Hello Pal Comics #1 about a familiar caped female spy who helped free France from Nazis, except this time she's a blonde. There were three other characters also with the professional name of Lady Satan from different publishers, all of which lived more up to their namesake as they were all villains. One was a serial killer who learned the identity of the superhero Jester and tried to blackmail him, but she ended up getting carried off by the cops after the Jester covers his secret by uncovering his pants to reveal he wasn't wearing spandex under his civilian clothes. The second evil Lady Satan was a deformed spy with a face looking like she was Skeletor's prom date who fought the vigilante known as The Hood. The final villainess out of this troika of terror was the female leader of a criminal gang being hunted down by James Fallon of the FBI with no real standout flare or charisma. Lady Satan has been the labels for both good girls and bad girls, as well as a 70s anti-hero, which totals around ten different characters. Some creative writer is going to have to bring all these variations together into a Lady Satan take on the Spider-Verse.
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