Patrick T. Webb

Background

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Lady Luck is a Golden Age superhero. She was created in 1940, according to Wikipedia, and co-created by Will Eisner and Chuck Mazoujian, with major contributions by Klaus Nordling and Nicholas Viscardi/Chuck Nording.

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Lady Luck, aka Brenda Banks, was a Irish-American socialite who decided to fight crime. Donning a Kelly green dress, hat and veil, she fought various criminals, from bank robbers to scammers.

 

Lady Luck was assisted by her family’s employees, usually Peecolo, her Italian chauffeur. During World War II, she had a group of volunteers known as the Lady Luck Patrol. Most of her Golden Age stories were written by Klaus Nordling.

 

Lady Luck appeared mostly in backup stories of other superheroes comics. She did gain her own comic titled after her in 1949. Sadly, her comic was cancelled by her publisher, Quality Comics, when they went bankrupt in 1950. Many of her golden age stories can be read online as they have fallen into the Public Domain.

 

Lady Luck, however is still copyrighted and owned by Eisner Estate.

 

Revivals

 

Lady Luck has been appeared a few times since her Golden Age appearances. In 2004, IDW Comics published “Will Eisner’s John Law: Dead Man Walking,” an anthology of retold and new stories of classic Will Eisner characters. Lady Luck appeared in the collection.

 

In 2011, Geoff Johns and Dan DiDio had Lady Luck cameo in DC’s The New 52 run of The Phantom Stranger as a card dealer.

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Senior Project

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I found out about Lady Luck while randomly scrolling through the Public Domain Superhero Wikipedia.

There was something about Lady Luck that drew me to her. I read her last issues, #86-90, on the now-defunct furycomics.com.

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Lady Luck takes charge in her adventures and isn’t afraid to get into a fight. Through all my searching, I could not find her origin story. To the best of my knowledge, Lady Luck's motivation to fight crime were not explored in a story. 

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In 2018, I decided to write a story about her. While she’s appeared in projects post-Golden Age, she’s never been the main character. So I began writing in my spare time while working a summer job.

 

In the Spring of 2021, I published my Lady Luck novella, "Lady Luck and the Monorail Conspiracy, available now from Goshen College English Department's Pinchpenny Press.

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Preview

 

Want an idea of what the novella will look like? You can read Chapter 1 for free on Tug & Tram Blogging.