This, don't forget, was a quarter of a century before Catwoman and Black Panther began wearing almost identical costumes – and in French, incidentally, the character was called La Panth ère Noire. But it just so happens to be a slinky jumpsuit, complete with cat-eared mask, claws and tail. She also falls back on the exoticising clichés of the time and establishes that the skin was a ceremonial robe worn by an African witch doctor. Over-reacting slightly, Marla shreds the dress with her bare hands, thus affording readers a glimpse of her stockings and suspenders, but her understandably perturbed French maid Francine has a suggestion: 'Why not wear the black leopard skin your uncle left you?' Presumably, Mills was getting panthers and leopards mixed up. They introduce Marla Drake, a New York socialite who is about to go to a fancy-dress party in a frilly red Scarlett O’Hara gown when a friend phones to say that someone else has picked the same outfit. The first Miss Fury strips (or rather, Black Fury strips, until Mills changed the title shortly afterwards) are a sort of distaff pastiche of Batman. Her big break was a weekly Sunday newspaper strip about someone who was just as awesome as Daredevil Barry Finn – but who, the publicity materials emphasised, borrowed her indomitable personality and her glamorous, raven-haired looks from Mills herself. However Mills's true identity didn't stay hidden for long. 'It would have been a major letdown to the kids if they found out that the author of such virile and awesome characters was a gal,' she told the New York Post – a sentiment which would be echoed by Joanne Rowling nearly 60 years later when choosing the pen name JK. But when Mills signed those strips, she dropped the 'June' in favour of her androgynous middle name (her mother's maiden name), so that she would be known as Tarpé Mills. Raised by her widowed mother and their relatives, she worked as a model and a fashion illustrator before selling her first comic strips in the late 1930s, featuring the escapades of such two-fisted swashbucklers as The Purple Zombie, Mann of India, and Daredevil Barry Finn (not to mention his amphibious sidekick, Frogga). Mills was born in Brooklyn, New York either in 1912 or 1918, according to different sources. 'I think that the birth of Miss Fury can be considered the beginning of a new era,' Sanapo tells BBC Culture. Her devotees include Maria Laura Sanapo, an Italian comics artist. Written and drawn by June Tarpé Mills, she was the first superheroine to be created by a woman, which is one of many reasons why she is still so inspirational, eight decades on.

But before we start celebrating, we should raise a glass to another, even more groundbreaking superheroine who swung into action six months earlier, in April 1941. This autumn sees the 80th anniversary of Wonder Woman, who made her comics debut in October 1941, two years after Batman and three years after Superman.

Trina robbins wonder woman