Miss Fury: Sensational Sundays

Miss Fury : Sensational Sundays #1

by Tarpe Mills, Trina Robbins (Editor), Lorraine Turner (Designer)

Eisner Award-nominee for BEST ARCHIVAL COLLECTION! Reprinting every Miss Fury Sunday page from the beginning in April 1941 through April 1944 (where IDW's companion volume picks up), we learn the origins of Miss Fury and her skin-tight panther costume - complete with its sharp claws on her hands and her feet! By day, she was socialite Marla Drake - by night, the costumed adventuress Miss Fury. These early exploits introduce all of the memorable characters who remained in the strip for the rest of the decade: the one-armed General Bruno, the Baroness Erica Von Kampf (with a swastika branded on her forehead), Albino Jo, and the all-American Gary Hale and Detective Carey, who each vies for Marla's affections. The stories range from downright kinky to all-out action against Nazis, spies, cuthroats, and thieves. Edited by Trina Robbins and designed by Lorraine Turner.

Genres: Comics, Comic Strips, Graphic Novels, Adventure

182 pages, Hardcover

First published November 5, 2013

About the author

Tarpé Mills was the pseudonym of comic book creator June Mills, one of the first major female comics artists. She is best known for her action comic strip, "Miss Fury", featuring the first female action hero created by a woman.

She also created "Devil's Dust", "The Cat Man", "The Purple Zombie" and "Daredevil Barry Finn".

She died on 12 December 1988 in Brooklyn, New York, and is buried in Forest Green Park Cemetery in Morganville, New Jersey.

June Tarpe Mills was inducted into the ComicCon Eisner Hall of Fame on July 19, 2019.

On the Radical, Popular Creator of the First Female Superhero
How June Tarpé Mills Captured Audiences

Hidden women of history: Tarpe Mills, 1940s comic writer, and her feisty superhero Miss Fury

Reviews

[Bart Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

This weekend serial ran from 1941-1952. Perhaps most notable for preceding Wonder Woman's appearance by a few months, Black Fury (later, Miss Fury)is considered to be the first female superhero. Also, Miss Fury was drawn/written by a woman (June Tarpe Mills). Interesting, that she doesn't have any superpowers, or any real expertise in fighting, etc.. But, when she dons a leopard skin suit that was given to her, she can change the future (such as preventing a crime or capturing a criminal. Miss Fury soon realizes that the suit is also a curse, because even if she can make one action right, two more problems may arise. This may explain why we seldom see her in costume.
This collection of three years worth of strips focuses on a single story. The story starts out as a basic cop/villains/socialite/crime story in New York, but quickly escalates into a plot involving Nazis in Brazil who are planning to overthrow the Brazilian government. All of our characters, for one reason or another leave New York, only to become entangled in this Nazi plot in Brazil, as well as Hitler.
I wasn't sure about giving this 4 stars for two reasons: 1) the single story running for three years and still not being resolved; can be tiring no matter how good it is at times. But, then keep in mind that many dailies in those years also ran for 6 months or more, before a story came to a resolution -- Mickey Mouse comes to mind.
The other reason I nearly lowered the rating is due to the material included in the introduction that is used to introduce us to Tarpe's work as writer/illustrator. Instead of either giving us single pages of various stories, or complete runs of other stories that appeared in comic books prior to Miss Fury, the author gives us 4 or more pages of several strips, so that we're left hanging as to how any of the strips turned out. Thus, I think it would have been better if the compiler had left out most of these samples.

[Dominick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, moderately successful attempt at a female superhero in newspaper Sunday format--and by a woman, to boot. Marla Drake kind of falls into being a superhero, thanks to the black cat costume she is wearing to a masquerade when she happens on some criming. Turns out, though we don't learn this for some time, that the costume is made from a genuine skin and has (vaguely-defined) powers, including answering negative consequences for any actions taken while wearing it. Mills has a healthy interest in exploiting the sexuality of Margo, not to mention other female characters (e.g. the evil vamp Baroness von Kamf), finding numerous excuses to show them in various states of undress. That said, there is also a lot of elaborate thriller plotting, notably an extended Brazilian sequence in which Nazis have set up shop there. This plot twists and winds across several months, and it includes some remarkable violent set pieces. I'm not sure whether all the blood is original or a function of the restoration, but the strips do look very good here--certainly netter than you would expect from simple scans. Mills is not the most innovative of strip designers--most follow a basic grid pattern--but she has an excellent grasp of strong visuals. Good somewhat salacious fun.

[Bob Fish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Top 5.
Serious.

[Erik · Rating 2 out of 5]

Story is only mildly interesting and the art is not very good. Only notable for being the first female superhero-type character.

[Joseph R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miss Fury started as a Sunday comic strip called Black Fury. Beautiful brunette Marla Drake has to go to a masquerade ball and has found out a copy of her gown is being worn to the ball by another New York socialite. Marla's maid suggests she wear the black leopard skin Marla inherited from her uncle. It's a ceremonial outfit from a witch-doctor in Africa. Driving to the ball, she gets embroiled in a manhunt for an escaped killer. This is just the start of her career as a crime fighter, though a case of mistaken identities in the story facilitates the change from Black Fury to Miss Fury. Marla then gets swept into an international political intrigue, something popular in World War II-era pulp and noir fiction. She winds up in South America where German General Bruno is planning to overthrow the Brazilian government. She works with the locals and with some Americans to thwart his plans, as well as those of Baroness Erika von Kampf, a German ex-patriate with her own schemes.

The story is thrilling and pulpy, with gangsters, mad doctors, Nazis, and secret formulas all making at least one appearance. A lot of the coincidences are a little too forced, e.g. Marla has an encounter with Detective Carey who winds up as a recurring love interest--he even enlists in the Marines and shows up in South America! Marla tries to get rid of the costume a few times but it always comes back to her. Another odd quirk is when the story follows the Baroness and the General for the last twenty pages of the book with hardly any mention of Marla Drake or Miss Fury. She winds up being a secondary character in her own comic! Even so, the melodrama is compelling.

The book is notable as it is the first female superhero created and drawn by a female cartoonist. The art is very good, a high-point in 1940s comics. Miss Fury herself doesn't have quite as much action as I'd expected but I liked the book a lot.

[Kris Shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

This first volume in the series was released after the second one. I loved the first (second) book when I read it, but some story elements eluded me early on in that book because they were plotlines that carried over from this one. That wrong has been righted with the release of this book. This strip was originally titled Black Fury, a nod to the black leopard skin costume that our femme fatale, Marla Drake, wore. In truth she doesn't wear it very much as the series progresses. While she is billed as a superhero, Miss Fury is in truth a World War II spy strip with dizzying plotline twists. Mills juggled so many plates that it's nothing short of a miracle that she didn't drop any.

There are some cheesecake and S & M elements here, made all the more curious considering that the strip was written and drawn by a woman. This was a true rarity for an adventure strip in this era. I wonder if Mills was pandering to her predominately male audience or if she genuinely enjoyed presenting this sort of thing.

Being a weekly strip, there were weeks and sometimes a month or more without so much as an appearance by the supposed star of the strip, and you know what? It doesn't matter one bit. Some of these supporting characters are as interesting as Miss Fury. Mills' artwork is unique and adds a certain charm to this strip.

[Matthew J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was entertaining if not amazing. It's definitely more twisting and involved than say Batman or Superman tended to be around the same time. If anything, it's more like Terry and the Pirates in its use of a large supporting cast, some character growth, and more serialized plots. It's also a hell of a lot sexier. Tarpe Mills was a pioneering woman in the field of comics, writing and drawing this strip. It was very much of its time, but sometimes feels a bit ahead of its time (or behind). In Hollywood at this time, many of the things she features in her comic strip would not have gone over. Ten years earlier or thirty years later...sure. But in the 1940s, it wouldn't have been OK. I guess newspaper comic strips got away with a bit more.
One really weird thing is that the titular Miss Fury actually appears in it vary little. It would be kind of like a Batman comic strip if Bruce Wayne only put on the Batman costume two or three times across 3 years of comic. Very odd.
If you're into comics of the age, it's probably worth giving a read. Is it great? No. Would I love to see a Miss Fury film set in the 1940s with a cat-suited lady fighting Nazis? You bet your ass I would.

[Anthony Wendel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection offers a great look into one of the most important but greatly unknown characters in the history of comics. Miss Fury, a female heroine, written and colored by a female creator, struggles with dealing with having a secret identity and having to take down the Nazi's. It's surprising how the story switches from the comfort of the main character's city to Rio De Janeirio and goes off on a crazy fight against Nazis. Of course this was the 40s and most media worked to fight for the war effort. Still, its a fantastic read and one that really offers a great insight into what comics were like before the invention of the comic code. There was surprisingly a lot of violence back in the day in what went to print in newspapers.

[Kriss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this. Trina does such a fantastic job with research books bringing forward artists & ideas & history we should all know.
My partner had a tiny part in helping with the research of this book, passing on to Trina a hand bound set of Ms Fury strips that had been in possession since high school.