Madam Fatal

NOTE: Because all of my profiles for the Quality Comics characters are still in print in the Quality Companion, this profile contains only the "data" portions and teasers of the profile itself.

Richard Stanton Richard Stanton was an accomplished stage actor and female impersonator who retired in 1930 when John Carver kidnapped his daughter. Carver had been in love with Stanton’s wife, and committed the crime out of jealousy. When police could not recover the girl, Stanton’s wife died of grief, and he took drastic measures. He would get revenge on Carver by donning his last stage costume—that of a little old lady—to become the world’s first cross-dressing hero. No one ever suspected that the harmless old woman was actually a costumed mystery man—until it was too late. Eight years later, he caught up to Carver, who accidentally shot himself. But before he died, Carver revealed that Stanton’s daughter was still alive! (Crack #1)

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DC

Madam Fatal was still active in 1944, when Stanton became an agent of the anti-hero (and sometime villain), the Shade. The Shade employed Madam Fatal to protect his own descendant, Darnell Caldecott. Stanton posed as Caldecott's assistant, Miss Sharp. Sharp escorted Caldecott to safety, and when his life was endangered by Nazis, revealed herself as Madam Fatal. The Shade arrived soon thereafter to relieve Madam Fatal, and presented Stanton with his payment—the information he'd sought for so long... the whereabouts of his kidnapped daughter. It seemed that she eleven years earlier by Dr. Prowl. (The Shade v.2 #4)

Madam Fatal’s activities after the war are unrecorded, so we don’t know if he ever found his lost daughter. Eventually, Richard Stanton passed away, of presumably natural causes. He was buried in Valhalla Cemetery. Sadly, the only mourners at his funeral were reputed to be the touring company of “La Cage aux Folles.” (JSA #1)