Phantom Woman
29 years ago - Dee Tyler is born.
21 years ago - 8-year-old Dee's father becomes the US attorney general.
16 years ago - 13-year-old Dee's father is killed. She is accepted into the Université Notre Dame Des Ombres where she befriends Sandra Knight, who encourages her to work with her Dark Light Projectors.
8 years ago - 21-year-old Dee makes a major break thru with her hardlight projectors. Sandra Knight helps her develop her new Phantom Girl identity.
3 years ago - 26-year-old Dee decides to change her heroic identity to Phantom Woman
After the golden age career of Sandra Knight, DC created a new, modern version of the character named Dee Tyler. She had essentially the exact same story, although her having at least MET Sandra was cannon. Her costume was an even more sexualized version of the original Phantom Lady outfit, to the point where it was downright scandalous. She also added a decidedly eighties pair of glasses and a blowout that would make Sara Connors proud. It's an absolutely ludicrous design, and given the fact that Dee Tyler never really had any LASTING impact on DC's continuity, and she becomes a character we could absolutely leave out of our timeline entirely.
However, Sandra Knight's role in our timeline is a really cool one, and it seems like a missed opportunity not to give her legacy it's due. The official version of Dee Tyler is pretty ridiculous, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a redeemable idea here. The idea of her being a student of Sandra's from the Universite Notre Dame Des Ombres makes a lot of sense, so that's a good place to start. Finding a version of her costume that isn't a complete joke is a little tricky, but not without precedent. |
Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray's Crisis Aftermath: Battle for Bludhaven featured a re-imagined Freedom Fighters. Among them was Stormy Knight, a new and largely redundant version of Phantom Lady with a costume that might not cover her more, but at least seems a little bit more practical. Even better, there's the image at the top of the page: Absolutely fantastic fanart by deviant.artist Chubeto. It's still overtly sexual, but at least less comically so.
Actually, the solution to this weird preoccupation with Phantom Girl's pinup status might be an idea that also helps differentiate her from her predecessor. We'd like to claim this is a completely original idea, but later we discovered Paul Dini's Madame Mirage; an absolutely fantastic series featuring a character that used the exact same idea. It's such a good book that we actually recommend that you not read any further here if you don't want any spoilers for it. The idea is that Dee Tyler's huge advancement with Sandra's light projectors is the ability to craft hard-light holograms. When she dons her Phantom Girl identity, she's actually putting on a completely holographic visage. |
What's more, she might actually be projecting the image of her superhero-persona totally separate from herself, and elaborate distraction while she performs other tasks. Suddenly, the idea of her over-sexualized costume actually makes sense. It's a deliberate ruse, an attempt to wield the original Phantom Lady's trademark sexuality as a diversion, but unlike the usual "nudity-as-distraction" argument, it is in fact a LITERAL distraction.
So what then is Dee actually wearing? There was another reboot of the character in the post 52 DC named Jennifer Knight in a book called Phantom Lady & Doll Man, again created by Jimmy Palmiotti. This time, the look is decidedly more utilitarian, and might actually make sense as a superhero costume for a character who's primary power is to divert people away from her. This skillset is actually a great choice for a character that joins a modern version of the Freedom Fighters; perfect for espionage and other less-direct versions of superheroics. We love the idea of Dee deciding to be Phantom GIRL instead of Phantom Lady, and then later as she's become a more veteran hero to decide to become Phantom Woman. The resulting character is totally original (well, mostly... apologies to Paul Dini), and a great way to honor the legacy of Phantom Lady without creating a simple carbon copy of her. |