X is for X of the Underground

"X of the Underground" was a short-lived series that ran in Military Comics 8 - 13 from Golden Age giant Quality Comics. Edited by Will Eisner and created by Vern Henkel (who wrote and illustrated the first 3 episodes), the series was about a mysterious femme fatale who roamed Nazi occupied Europe, building a network of women underground resistance fighters and helping Allied agents when she could. She frequently operated in disguise, often cross-dressing as a German military officer to accomplish her mission.

X swings into action. Art by Lee Ames.

The "X of the Underground" series consists of fast-paced war-time espionage stories, with X inspiring the oppressed to fight back and engineering poetic (or just plain lethal) justice for loathsome Nazis. She also spends her time dodging an American war correspondent who has identified her and who wants to write her story, help in her efforts, and probably get her naked in a hayloft somewhere. The series is of high quality throughout, with the best episodes being drawn by the aforementioned Henkel, and by Lee Ames and Bob Hebberd. We will be publishing five or six of the "X of the Underground" stories in an upcoming book... we just need to decide on the presentation.

In our minds here at NUELOW Games, X is the same person as Lady Satan, even if X may be a little less coldblooded. We imagine that after she became too well-known around Paris, she gave up the red mask and cloak, honed her disguise skills, and widened her activity base. The "X of the Underground" serve as a nice bridge between the Lady Satan stories in this book, and the Lady Satan fiction and comic story we published here.