Who's Who in the DCU #18

 

Who's Who

The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #18 

(Aug 1986)

cover: George Perez & Dick Giordano

editor: Robert Greenberger

contributing editor: Len Wein

contributing writers: Mike W. Barr, Paul Kupperberg, Paul Levitz,

Barbara Randall, Greg Weisman

contributing writers/researchers: E. Nelson Bridwell, Peter Sanderson

production/contributing writer: Todd Klein

colorists: Anthony Tollin, Len Wein, Tatjana Wood, Tom Ziuko

copy editor: Brenda Pope

Featuring: Phantom Lady

Continuing our review of the six main Freedom Fighters' Who's Who pages from 1985-1987 (plus two more profiles for two more characters who were involved with the Fighters in a specific, meaningful way.) 

Phantom Lady

Art by Murphy Anderson

As mentioned before, Who's Who was appearing concurrently with the Crisis, but with this entry the CRISIS has ended and Earths 2 and X no longer exist. You can almost read where the basic outline was written for all of the Freedom Fighters at the same time, but the last paragraph(s) keep getting altered as CRISIS unfolded. Specifically, the entry reads almost exactly the same as Black Condor's and Doll Man's: after the situation was resolved, the Freedom Fighters returned to Earth-X. However, the last bit tells us that CRISIS then happened and none of those other things really did. So DC is recognizing Phantom Lady's initial retconned history, her secondary retconned history, and then telling us that the third time is the charm, and THAT is what really happened to her! 

The other note of interest is that Phantom Lady's entry noted her additional powers of invisibility and intangibility. Her "phantoming out" power was used consistently during the run of Freedom Fighters, but was never shown in any issue of the Crisis. Similarly, Roy Thomas gave her the power of invisibility in her second appearance in All-Star Squadron, but that power was never shown after its initial use, either. 

The art is by the late, great Dave Stevens, who was well-known for his "good girl" pin-up type illustrations. If you're interested, check out his similar illustration of Catwoman in Who's Who #4. 

Freedom of Information

• Phantom Lady appears on the back cover. 
• Dave Stevens is most famous for creating The Rocketeer.  

The Freedom Fighters

assembled by Len Wein