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".
Superwoman
Another version of Superwoman, this one a heroic character, came about in the form of Kristin Wells, who was created by Superman comic writer Elliot S! Maggin. Wells first appeared in Maggin's Superman novel "Miracle Monday", but he later introduced her in the pages of "DC Comics Presents" as Superwoman. The character Wells is a 29th-century descendant of Jimmy Olsen. Wells time travels to the 20th century, where the technology she had brought from the future gives her superpowers. It is this iteration of the character which appears briefly in "" which creates a continuity problem in that she had already revealed Jimmy Olsen's final fate: to become a great editor like Perry White.