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".
Doctor Cyber
Doctor Cyber is a fictional character appearing in DC Comics publications and related media, traditionally as an adversary of the superhero Wonder Woman. She first appeared in 1968 as the head of a vast global criminal and terrorist group in "Wonder Woman", vol. 1, issue #179, written by Dennis O'Neil and illustrated by Mike Sekowsky and Dick Giordano. In her early appearances, Dr. Cyber was a beautiful and elegantly-attired woman. Later, after her face was disfigured in an accident, she donned a gold muzzle-mask and technologically advanced full-body exoskeleton. These cybernetic enhancements increased Cyber's physical strength, and gave her the ability to absorb and redirect energy, as well as to fire energy blasts from her hands. Despite the resulting upgrades to her power, Dr. Cyber's disfigurement also wrought a mounting emotional instability. She became obsessed with recapturing her beauty by transferring her mind into Wonder Woman's body, a project she attempted several times with the help of her operative Doctor Moon.