Painting by The Skräuss
Lady Cop begins when a murder sends terror stricken young Liza Warner to witness it from under a bed. Her roommates drop dead before her eyes, strangled one by one in the hands of a pop crime act, as Grant Morrison has labelled it.
Batman no. 700, Illus. Tony S. Daniel, written by Grant Morrison
All she knows of the killer is his novelty western wear! His boots are burned into her retinas.
The women were nothing but cards!
She's traumatised by the event as any human would be, and as every red blooded American comic book character is at the sight of death. Shame, directed at her own cowardice, coupled with survivor's guilt drive her into a rash vow, she will find the popcriminal and serve him justice. So far this is a standard American comics plot. But Lady Cop diverges at the bottom of page two when Liza Warner makes the first sensible decision in comics vigilante history. She joins the police academy.
Look at that trauma. She can't even relax enough to fall half-asleep like the rest of her classmates. She's keyed up, on edge, ready to blow. She's a powder keg with a lit fuse. As we know, this makes her perfect protagonist material. Being on edge, gives you the edge. So when a disgruntled student pulling a Columbine twenty years too soon interrupts her police academy graduation, Warner takes action.
That's all it takes in New York, destroy some municipal property and it's, "Welcome to the force."
Officer Warner pounds a beat. She's a flatfoot patrolling the mean streets, the most Street level hero of them all, all she has on her utility belt is a pair of cuffs. She doesn't even have the billy club advertised in all its erect glory on the front cover. She doesn't need it.
In that back alley gladiatorial arena, Officer Warner clearly holds all the power while facing a flaccid chain weilding thug. Study that left foot of hers as she addresses her aggressor. It's off the ground, indicating action. She steps in, toward her opponent, intersecting his stable triangular stance where he positions his gang snugly between his legs.
Slicing off her own sub-triangle, which she fills with trash, she steals his power.
Lady Cop knows the score.
But inside her comic book she does even better. Without a night stick she stops a rape (her own), thwarts a knife murder, redistributes wealth to the impoverished children, has a date on the beach, battles for women's rights, facilitates the reconciliation of a father and his syphilitic daughter (the actual venerial disease is not mentioned), and then survives a murder attempt, by the thug pictured on the cover, in a valiant display of mid air fisticuffs followed by a swimmer's rescue.
It's a busy life if you're a lady cop. But where is she now? Where's the Lady Cop signal? Shine it from a hilltop! We need Lady Cop today! We need someone strong as iron but soft as a woman hoovering just below popcriminality.
