I have enormous respect for the work of Robert Kanigher who likely wrote more comic book war stories than anyone ever, a difficult and perhaps sometimes grim task. But his story for Lady Cop in 1st Issue #4 is misfire. Despite some dandy pencils by John Rosenberger and adequate inks by Vince Colletta, this story never rises above the trite. The "Lady Cop" in question is Liza Warner who becomes a dedicated cop after suffering through seeing her two roommates murdered and finding herself unable to help. She knows a few key details about the murderer and I guess if this had become a series we'd have learned more ourselves about the identity of the killer.
But in this debut we get to see Liza graduate and spend two days on her rather hectic beat. In the course of her short tenure she saves a young girl from sexual assault from two ruffians, lifts the spirits of a kid by buying ice cream, stops a robber who cuts her shoulder and then gives mouth-to-mouth to the victim saving his life, continues her shift despite the knife wound, bicker with her boyfriend about her dangerous job, give advice to the young girl she'd saved earlier about STD's and reconciles her with her dad, and battles a chain-wielding thug then saves his life when they fall into the river. It's a hefty schedule and you can figure why she didn't have time to hunt down the murderer. Alas to my knowledge she never does.
This comic actually reads like a quasi-romance story which just happens to feature a woman who became a cop. Given the sexism of the 70's, especially in areas like policework it's actually a fairly forward looking feature, but it hasn't aged well at all over the decades. Liza never returns to comics apparently until early this century when she became police chief in Ivy Town in some Atom comics. She apparently also appeared in some episodes of Arrow.
In the next issue the "King" returns and so does a fellow called Manhunter.
Rip Off
Nobody drew more beautiful women than Vincenzo Colletta. Wow! Great artwork here. The shading on Liza's uniform shirt is so unique, moving from bold shadow inks to crosshatching on the opposite side. I was noticing one of the buildings where Vinnie started with square windows graduating to simple L outlines. Funny stuff.
ReplyDeleteI'd put a few people in his category as per lovely dames, but you're right he did draw some fine looking lasses.
DeleteTo his credit, Kanigher always showed a lot of interest in building stories around heroines. Lady Cop isn't on a level of Black Canary or the Thorn, or even Mademoiselle Marie, but the feature is an interesting marker of the way his creative mind worked. I find it hard to believe that DC ever contemplated this idea as a series; possibly they were just filling a hole in their schedule when they okayed the project.
ReplyDeleteThat makes sense. It does seem out of place a bit with stuff they were producing at the time. It might've fitted into a back up in Detective Comics reasonably well.
DeleteGood point, without looking I feel like that was around the same time that DETECTIVE COMICS started running a realistic detective-strip called "Tim Trench."
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