Tarpe Mills was born June Tarpe Mills, but used Tarpe to be more sexually ambiguous in her line of action-oriented comic strips. She contributed to characters of such titles as The Purple Zombie, Devil’s Dust, The Cat Man, and Daredevil Barry Finn, but she is best known for creating Miss Fury in 1941. It was the first comic strip that featured a woman as a costume superhero, beating the appearance of Wonder Woman by several months. Newspapers followed with the popularity of series by including articles and photos of Tarpe Mills. From these photos, Tarpe Mills had a strong resemblance to her costumed hero. Miss Fury would last until 1951. Tarpe Mills returned to comics in 1971 with her romance comic Our Love Story, but was short lived as Marvel Comics considered her style outdated. She continued to try to sell her work until her death in 1988.
