Divas, Dames & Daredevils: Lost Heroines of Golden Age Comics

Madrid (The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of Comic Book Heroines) is a scholar of comic book lore, especially that pertaining to the roles of women throughout the medium's 80-year history. Here Madrid relates his entry into comic fandom in the 1970s and the characters that drew him in. During the Seventies, comics from the Golden Age (pre-1950s) and Silver Age (1950–70) were collected in anthologies that Madrid picked up and pored over. In the Silver Age, superheroes were stripped of anything remotely exciting or provocative and relegated to flashy role models of the status quo. However, the Golden Age, as chronicled by Madrid, was exciting and fraught with danger. Even more interesting to him was that alongside the male comic book heroes were strong female characters that exhibited the hallmark traits promoted during the women's liberation movement happening concurrently with Madrid's reading of the books set 40 years earlier. This work collects some of his favorites from many genres including war comics and includes masked vigilantes, mythic warriors, and occult mystery women.