Black Venus

Real Name: Mary Roche

Identity/Class: Human technology user

Occupation: USO hostess;
   former dancer

Group Membership:

Affiliations: Lieutenant Bill Evans (boyfriend), Jean Cartier (fiance, deceased), Arago

Enemies: Agent X, Colonel Yamota

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Australia;
   formerly Burma

First Appearance: Contact Comics #5 (Aviation Press, March 1945)

Powers/Abilities: Skilled aviator and excellent hand-to-hand fighter.

Height: Unrevealed
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Black

Summary: Mary Roche was born in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, a few years after the Wright Brothers made their historic first flight there, and grew up with a lifelong fascination with aviation. At the outbreak of WWII, she became a nurse and was stationed to a US held Pacific Island, but soon came to realise that black marketeers and other criminals were taking advantage of the wounded. Mary created a costume and obtained a modified fighter plane to become the crime fighting Black Venus.

History: 

Comments: Black Venus lasted for eleven issues of Contact Comics, but was revived as one of the Americomics heroes in the 1980s.

   As early as her second appearance Black Venus changed her outfit to something even more revealing than her original one (seen bottom left). The image bottom right is the second costume, which she perhaps only wore when operating on the ground and not planning to fly. Though the image in question doesn't show them, this outfit also came with heels, rather than the flats of her original costume.From her third story, and consistently thereafter, she wore the full bodysuit seen above right.

   In her initial appearance, her plane was a fairly normal looking affair, but as of her third appearance she had acquired the distinctive black model seen to the right.

   Bill Evans was introduced and slain in his first appearance in Contact Comics#2; Black Venus slew his murderer, Agent X, but noted that "nothing will bring Bill Evans back to me." Luckily she was wrong about that, and he'd recovered from his slight case of death by the time the war ended in Contact Comics#8.

Appearance checklist (not including reprints):

• Canonical: Contact Comics#1-11
• Non-canonical: (AC) FemForce#29-30, 34-36, 58-60, 67, 159; All Hero Retro Comics Annual#1; Cape and Mask#1
                            (Dynamite) Project Superpowers#4; Codename: Action#1-5; Vampirella versus Red Sonja#1-3; Red Sonja: The Superpowers#4-5; Vampirella: The Dark Powers#2
                            (Thrilling Nostalgia Comics) The Liberty Brigade#1

CLARIFICATIONS:
Black Venus should not be confused with

• Black Angel, an almost identically dressed female aviator from Hillman Comics
  
• Venus, Big Bang
• Venus, Timely Comics hero
• Venus de Milo, TMNT
• Venus Bluegenes, Genetic Infantry woman
• any other Black or Venus characters
  

First Posted: Circa 14/09/2004
Last updated: 21/05/2023

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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