Historical Significance
Introduced in Mystic Comics #4 (Aug. 1940), the Black Widow is comic books' first costumed, superpowered female character. While writer-artist Fletcher Hanks' Fantomah, who has the superhero tropes of a dual identity and superpowers, debuted earlier, in Fiction House's Jungle Comics #1 (Feb. 1940), she lacks a distinctive costume. While The Woman In Red also predates her, debuting in Standard Comics' Thrilling Comics #2 (March 1940), that character has a distinctive costume but no superpowers. Russell Stamm's Invisible Scarlet O'Neil, a non-costumed character with the superpower of invisibility, debuted in a newspaper comic strip, rather than a comic book, on June 3, 1940.
Read more about this topic: Black Widow (Claire Voyant)
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