Miss Masque was, frankly, something of rip-off of Lady Luck. Her red costume (as opposed to LL’s green outfit), was also a well-fitting dress, complete with opera gloves and wide brimmed hat, only differing from Luck in her disguise, which was a Lone Ranger-style mask, in contrast to Lady Luck’s alluring veil. Like LL’s alter ego, Brenda Banks, Miss Masque’s true identity was that of a blonde and bored socialite (Diana Adams) looking for excitement and possessed with a sense of justice who pursued vigilante campaigns against gangsters, murderers and other villains. Unlike her green-clad predecessor however, Miss Masque pursued far less in the way of detective skills to catch the bad guys, and was much more comfortable duking it out with the thugs than trying to outsmart the cops in cracking the case. It seemed Masque was never happier than when punching a crook’s lights out, or clattering him over the head with one of her two pistols. This in-their-faces action did mean in many stories Masque was captured by the bad guys, but was usually able to turn the tables just as the police arrived. Masque was therefore an altogether tougher and less compromising character than many of her peers and she was perhaps arguably the first truly “kick ass” heroine in comics, matching her male counterparts in aggression and physical prowess.
Miss Masque enjoyed a nine issue run in America’s Best Comics between 1947 and 1949, and usually featured on the cover of the comic, in scenes that emphasised her sexiness but rarely had much in common with the story inside. The character also appeared in Exciting Comics (where she made her debut in 1946), Fighting Yank and The Black Terror comics. She was more recently resurrected in AC Comics in the 1990s where she re-emerges, along with other Golden Age heroines, from suspended animation to resume her crime fighting activities. Miss Masque’s principal artists were Alex Schomberg and Frank Frezatta. Ultimately the derivative nature of Miss Masque makes her a rather routine Golden Age heroine, although her hard boiled nature perhaps paved the way for later tough female characters such as Black Canary, Huntress and Catwoman.
The splash panel and page featured above is from the story Cleopatra’s Comb and appeared in America’s Best Comics #25 (February 1948).
Sources: comicbookplus and the Miss Masque Wikipedia page.
