The Black Orchid
     For years the Black Orchid was DC's most enigmatic character.  She first
appeared briefly in Adventure Comics then became the backup feature in 
The Phantom Stranger.  Lots of superheroines had secret identities but 
while they fooled other characters the readers knew who was who.  But nobody 
knew the Black Orchid's real name.  Everything about her was mysterious 
including her name; she wasn't black, wore a purple costume and was on the 
side of the angels so why "Black Orchid"?  At least the Orchid part made a 
little sense as she occasionally left them as calling cards.

True confession time, that wasn't the real Black Orchid in the thumbnail.  
That was a Black Orchid Wannabe from the story you are about to see.  The 
Black Orchid wasn't one to fall into the clutches of criminals and wind up in 
some deathtrap.  In fact she was more of a binder than a bindee.  That was 
the other mysterious thing about her.  The Black Orchid was obviously a real
powerhouse, she could fly, had superstrength and was bulletproof.  If those 
powers were innate or derived from the costume nobody knew but either way 
normally superheroines with powers like that spent all their time out in the 
open looking for a supervillain to punch into the side of a building.  Instead
she operated more like Batman, in fact she outdid him when it came to 
disguising herself and infiltrating criminal gangs.  She preferred to operate
in the shadows using a variety of identities, often removing and replacing
people long enough to learn the missing details, and just emerge in costume
long enough to wrap up the case.  For example in Phantom Stranger #32 (Aug-Sept
1974), "The Crime of the Black Orchid", this guy thinks he's been gloating over
a successful caper with his girlfriend until she leaves the cabin to freshen
up.   He's absolutely unaware that the plane's radio has been broadcasting
everything they've said to the police.  As his girlfriend had impersonated the
Black Orchif to frame her it was a clear case of turnabout is fair play, but I
digress.

To my knowledge there's only one scene of Black Orchid in a deathtrap but 
I'll return to that on the next page.  In the meantime here's the Black Orchid 
from the two part story which ran in The Phantom Stranger issues 40-41
(Dec 1975/Jan 1976-Feb-Mar 1976), which were also the final two issues of this
comic.

In on of Michael Fleisher's better stories a gang of female criminals comes up
with a unique idea.  Since nobody knows that much about the Black Orchid it
wouldn't be a hard sell to convince a heroine wannabe that she's actual a
group of women using the same costume to fight crime, the Legion of Black
Orchids!  Which is crucial as Ronnie Kuhn is the key to the biggest bank
robbery in history.







 
Eager to become a heroine Ronnie buys the Black Orchid Legion's story that
Red agents (it's the seventies) plan to break into the world bank and make off
with the bullion reserves causing economic chaos (a la "Goldfinger") to be
followed and compounded by military and diplomatic strikes.  To avoid a
political incident the Legion will quietly capture the thieves once they've
made it to the vault area and no one outside the State Department and the KGB
will ever know anything happened.  But for the Legion to be there waiting for
the Reds without warning them anything's wrong they need to be able to avoid
the bank's security systems themselves.  Ronnie is eager to help.




Doesn't look good for Ronnie, does it?  Like the caption says

To Be Continued!









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