Sandra Knight (Earth-Two)

Sandy Knight was the first Phantom Lady, a vigilante fighting crime with black light. Active in the 1940s, she was a member of the All-Star Squadron and the Freedom Fighters.

History

Origin

Sandra "Sandy" Knight was a society girl, the daughter of Senator Henry Knight, and lived an unadventurous life until the day her father was the victim of an assassination attempt which Sandra herself foiled. This incident prompted her to become a crime fighter, armed with a 'black light ray' developed by an old friend named Professor Davis which could either blind her opponents with a field of darkness or make her invisible. She called herself the Phantom Lady, and fought crime both solo and as a member of the All-Star Squadron.

Earth-X

In 1942 though, Sandra was one of a number of members of the Squadron who migrated to the parallel world of Earth-X in order to help the mysterious Uncle Sam fight the Nazis there (where their progress towards world domination was far more advanced than on her own world, Earth-Two). Unfortunately, Sam's Freedom Fighters were unable to prevent the Nazis conquering Earth-X but, kept young by the mystical presence of Uncle Sam, Sandra and her colleagues did fight a valiant guerrilla war against them for decades, until they finally overthrew them and freed their adopted world with the aid of Earth-One's Justice League of America and Earth-Two's Justice Society of America.

Earth-One

Seeking new challenges, Sandy and the Freedom Fighters migrated to Earth-One for a time (Sandy gaining the ability to phase through solid objects as a result of the trip) but ended up as fugitives from justice due to a misunderstanding upon their arrival. Months later, they returned to Earth-X after a final battle with their arch foe the Silver Ghost, and Sandy, tired of fighting and saddened by the apparent death of her teammate Firebrand, retired from crimefighting, leaving the Freedom Fighters to continue without her.

Crisis on Infinite Earths

The Phantom Lady donned her costume at least once more though, and participated in the Crisis on Infinite Earths. She and her fellow Freedom Fighters fought what they at first thought was an invading force of superhumans, but quickly discovered they were fellow superheroes dealing with a multiversal crisis. They later helped deal with an army of supervillains organized by Brainiac and Lex Luthor.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Intangibility: Gained the power to become intangible at will while crossing the dimensional barrier between Earth-X and Earth-One.

Abilities

Acrobatics
Expert Combatant: The Phantom Lady is an Olympic-level athlete and a brilliant hand-to-hand combatant.^[1]

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Black Ray Goggles: She sometimes wore special goggles which enabled her to see in the darkness created by her Black Ray gun.

Weapons

Black Ray Gun

Notes

The Phantom Lady was created by Arthur F. Peddy, first appearing in Police Comics #1. However, the Earth-Two version of The Phantom Lady first appeared in Justice League of America #107 by Len Wein and Dick Dillin.
This version of the Phantom Lady, including all history and corresponding appearances, was erased from existence following the collapse of the original Multiverse in the 1985–86 Crisis on Infinite Earths event and later restored following the rebirth of the infinite Multiverse during the Dark Crisis of 2022-2023. Even though other versions of the character may have appeared, this information does not apply to those versions.

In 1956, DC Comics obtained the rights to the Quality Comics characters, and re-introduced them 17 years later as the Freedom Fighters in Justice League of America #107 (October 1973).

The Freedom Fighters were relocated to a parallel world, one called "Earth-X", where Nazi Germany had won World War II. The team was featured in its own series for 15 issues (1976–1978), in which it temporarily left Earth-X for "Earth-One" (where most DC titles are set).

In 1981, some Quality Characters became recurring guest-stars of All-Star Squadron, a superhero-team title set on "Earth-Two", the locale for DC's WWII-era superheroes, and at a time prior to when the Freedom Fighters were supposed to have left for Earth-X. They later appeared with the rest of DC's superheroes in Crisis on Infinite Earths, a story that was intended to eliminate the confusing histories that DC had attached to its characters by retroactively merging the various parallel worlds into one. The Freedom Fighters became a mere splinter group of the All-Star Squadron.