Gender in speculative fiction
The first known female superhero is writer-artist Fletcher Hanks's minor character Fantomah, an ageless, ancient Egyptian woman in the modern day who could transform into a skull-faced creature with superpowers to fight evil; she debuted in 1940 in Fiction Houses "Jungle Comics".
Harry Sahle
His earliest-known interior credit is inking the seven-page Fiery Mask superhero story "The Jelly of Doom", over George Kapitan's pencil art, in Timely Comics' "Daring Mystery Comics" #5 (June 1940). With Kapitan writing and himself penciling and inking, Sahle co-created the Black Widow in "Mystic Comics" #4 (Aug. 1940). Not to be confused with the superhero Black Widow introduced in the 1960s by Timely's descendant Marvel Comics, this character — comics' first costumed, superpowered female protagonist — was a supernatural antihero who gathered deserving souls for Satan.