Isis (comics)



Isis is a DC Comics super heroine based on an Egyptian Goddess. (Not to be confused with the music band Isis.)

She first appeared not in the comics but on The Secrets of Isis, a 1976 live-action American television show that served as the second half of The Shazam!/Isis Hour. It starred actress Joanna Cameron as Andrea Thomas, a high school science teacher who gains magical powers after finding an amulet during an archeological dig in Egypt and uses them to fight crime in her secret identity of Isis. She was soon introduced in the comics as well.

As was typical of superhero shows in the 70s, the special effects weren't too impressive and there were no supervillains and little violence. The show had a lot in common with Wonder Woman, which was also a TV hit at the time. Isis also appeared as a guest star in the Shazam! show.

She also had her own comic book series that lasted until 1979.

Isis also appeared in animated form on Filmation's Tarzan and the Super 7 show in 1980, as part of a segment called The Freedom Force.

After that, Isis didn't reappear until the 2006 miniseries Fifty Two, where she was reinvented as a slave whom Black Adam rescues, falls in love with, and then receives similar powers to his from an amulet that he obtained. This version of the character has little in common with the original; though she starts idealistic, she is soon killed by Adam's enemies as a way to return him to his status as a DC super villain; since then she has been revived, turned into a menace herself, then killed and raised again.

Note that the actual goddess Isis exists as a separate character in the DC universe. Presumably she empowers Thomas.

Tropes related to Isis:

 * Adventurer Archaeologist
 * Amulet of Concentrated Awesome
 * Magical Incantation
 * Nerd Glasses (as Andrea)
 * Stuffed Into the Fridge: Twice.
 * Transformation Sequence