A Brief History of Iconic Women Spies in the Comics

Señorita Rio stands out as a particularly groundbreaking character, an actor of Latinx heritage who gives up the glitz of Hollywood for the danger of espionage. Created by writer Joe Hawkins and artist Nick Viscardi (also known as Nick “Cardy”) for Fight Comics, published by Fiction House, Rita Farrar arrived on the scene in Fight Comics #19 in June of 1942.

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As explained within the storyline, Farrar, a glamorous actress and stuntperson in the movies, is a rising star in Hollywood when she receives word that her fiancé, a naval officer named Bill, has been killed in the attack on Pearl Harbor. Searching for a way to avenge her great love, she joins the intelligence service, demonstrating her ties to two popular tropes of female spies in popular culture: the honorable patriot and the woman seeking revenge.

Given her background and language skills, she is asked to gather intelligence in South America. The movie star fakes her own death following the premiere of her movie Lady Dance No More, and on assuming her new, clandestine position, takes on the codename “Señorita Rio” in her quest to become the “Queen of the Spies.” Señorita Rio takes an active role in searching for secrets, but often has to pause to reject suitors, as she does in Fight Comics #20, when her Argentinian guide is overcome with emotion and proposes marriage. Señorita Rio regretfully declines, explaining, “my life now is vengeance.” Up until 1950, Señorita Rio uses her expert marksmanship, fencing skills, and keen intellect to fight Axis powers across South America.

Sanjak refuses to fit into the tropes of women spies as femme fatales, patriots, or avenging angels, working exclusively for her own self-interest, and she has a great time doing it.

Although initially drawn by Viscardi, Señorita Rio is most associated with comics artist Lily Renée, herself a trailblazing woman and survivor of war. Born in 1921, Renée fled her native Austria on the Kindertransport, settling in Leeds, England, where she worked and waited for her parents to escape. At the age of sixteen, Renée was able to reunite with her parents in the United States and found employment as a comics artist, filling in for the many male artists drafted into service. She worked on various Señorita Rio episodes in Fight Comics from 1944–47, and helped popularize the sensational character. Renée also had something of a secret identity, signing her comics “L. Renée.” Many readers assumed the artist was a man, directing fan mail to Mr. Renée.

For the young artist, drawing the adventures of the jet-setting starlet was the perfect assignment. Renée shared a hatred of Nazis and had a keen desire to defeat the Axis powers. Furthermore, the talented illustrator found escape in the fanciful action stories. Through the character of Señorita Rio, Renée was able to combat fascism and showcase fabulous fashion. She explained, “it’s sort of a fantasy. Señorita Rio got clothes that I couldn’t have . . . She had a leopard coat and she wore these high-end shoes and all this and had adventures and was very daring and sexy and glamorous.”

While Señorita Rio retired from the comics pages in 1950, she was later revived as Rita Rio by AC Comics in 1994. For her part, Lily Renée continued drawing comics for many years after Rio’s retirement and was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2007 before passing away in New York in 2022, at the age of 101. Cartoonist and comics historian Trina Robbins even wrote a biography of the celebrated artist in comics form: Lily Renée Escape Artist: From Holocaust Survivor to Comic Book Pioneer.

Not all spies in the comics worked for the United States and not all had noble intentions, as evidenced by the trickster figure, Sanjak, an audacious spy and a master of disguise who kidnaps young heroine April Kane, steals treasure, and hides out on a secret island before evading capture. The character, widely credited as the first lesbian comics character, first appeared on February 12, 1939 in Milton Caniff’s popular weekly comic strip Terry and the Pirates (1934–73), an action-adventure comic strip that followed the antics of Terry Lee, a courageous teen, along with a cast of recurring heroes and villains. Sanjak refuses to fit into the tropes of women spies as femme fatales, patriots, or avenging angels, working exclusively for her own self-interest, and she has a great time doing it.

Sanjak makes quite a splash in her first appearance in 1939, disguising herself as a French hotel owner, “Madame Sud,” and abducting Terry’s sweetheart April Kane before commandeering an airplane filled with treasure and running off to her island lair. Although the heroes track Sanjak down and rescue April, the villain escapes, only to reappear several years later with another disguise and another plot, this time posing as a military pilot in an effort to steal plans from the Americans to aid the Axis powers during World War II.

However, despite the fact she is portrayed as a villainous spy within the comic strip, letters sent to Milton Caniff reveal that she was an incredibly popular character.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the idea of lesbian identity was not understood as it is today, and Caniff chose to “code” the character as LGBTQ+ using the stereotypes of the time. Caniff explained: “In those days the word ‘lesbian’ simply wouldn’t have been understood by half your audience, and the other half would have resented it.”

First, Caniff indicated that the name “Sanjak” obliquely referred to a Greek island near Lesbos. Although this would not be common knowledge to the reading audience, it would resonate with careful readers. Caniff also drew on common stereotypes associated with lesbian fashion of the time, including masculine suits and the wearing of a monocle, choices inspired by the notorious lesbian bar Le Monocle, a famous Parisian gathering place for LGBTQ+ women in the 1930s. Radclyffe Hall, author of the novel The Well of Loneliness (1928), which featured explicitly LGBTQ+ content, also popularized this distinctive lesbian style, marked by male work attire, and, of course, the monocle. In Terry and the Pirates, Sanjak shares this penchant for masculine-coded clothing, and hair worn in a short style.

In addition, she frequently sports her own stylish monocle, which she uses to hypnotize her victims. In her rejection of stereotypically female fashion and her flair for the dramatic, Sanjak definitely would have fit in at Le Monocle. Caniff also depicted Sanjak flirting with the naive April, whom she called “the charmeeng A-preel,” in a distinctive French accent. Sanjak is notable for her many skills, including piloting small aircraft, disguising herself as “Madame Sud” and “Captain Midi,” and enacting various nefarious plans.

Given these characteristics, Sanjak clearly fits into stereotypical depictions of lesbians at the time, and, unfortunately, she further suggests a link between homosexuality and ill intentions. From her first appearance until her plane is shot down in January 1944, Sanjak is an agent of chaos.

However, despite the fact she is portrayed as a villainous spy within the comic strip, letters sent to Milton Caniff reveal that she was an incredibly popular character. One letter, dated March 1939, raved: “I have just discovered your character ‘Sanjak’. . . She’s the most colorful personality I have met in a comic strip in a long time. Please let us have much more Sanjak in the future.” This was high praise at a time when America was recovering from the Depression while teetering on the brink of World War II. Another letter, dated April 1939, from reader T.H.R., argued:

She has a subtle enjoyable cynicism to her, and yet for all of her cynicism, there is certainly a note of loneliness and even sadness in her. Perhaps I am carrying my interpretation too far, but for Pete’s sake, don’t spoil a good intention by making her pure villain, and even if she be a villain, she is too enjoyable to be deprecated for it. Your study of her is a revelation after the usual goo of pure villainy that one finds in the usual cartoon strip. She’s a jewel. Let her stay single, unafraid, and cynically humorous as ever when she fades out of your strip.

Some readers even argued that Sanjak would make a much better romantic partner for April, as “Lucille” did in her letter, also from 1939, which she “dared” the newspaper to print. Her plea, addressed to the character, read: “Dear April, If I were you, I would go for Sanjak and forget Terry. You know Sanjak is fine. I wish she were a real person. I could go for her myself.” Thus, although Sanjak the spy might have been portrayed as an evil agent, many readers cheered this original, unapologetic character who took control of her destiny and challenged traditional gender norms.

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Excerpted from Women in Comics by Susan Kirtley, Ph.D and Nhora Lucia Serrano (Black Dog & Leventhal). Copyright © 2026.