Writer's Commentary: Black Scorpion/Phantom Lady Team-Up

Hello Patrons and Happy Friday! I'm back again with another writer's commentary, this time it's for one of my favorite stories and a fan favorite as well, my Black Scorpion and Phantom Lady team-up! Readers on DA seem to love this series and I do as well, and I think I revisit this one more than I do any other story of mine. It's crazy to look back on this and realize that it's actually the only story that I've written where these two heroines team up, but I've commissioned plenty of art afterwards showcasing new adventures featuring these two, and made plenty myself, to the point where it seems like I'm forever associated with them (I've had more than one person assume that Phantom Lady is an OC of mine and not a DC character), not that I don't mind that :)

After writing individual Black Scorpion and Phantom Lady stories, it seemed natural to have them team-up. Many fantasies of mine were inspired by old Batman comics where Batman and Robin got captured together, so for me the idea for this sprang from needing someone to get captured alongside Black Scorpion or Phantom Lady, so I just mashed them up together. Plus I liked the idea that neither of them were sidekicks, who are usually seen as the more submissive, kidnappable ones. Two strong, capable heroines getting captured greatly appealed to me, though through the story Phantom Lady ended up becoming the more submissive and "damsel-like" one of the two based on their personalities. Phantom Lady's skimpy outfit, along with her knack for wardrobe malfunctions and less physical nature make her seem more vulnerable. Black Scorpion though is head strong and more physical, which leads her into different damsel situations than Phantom Lady, and in the end both ladies played off of each other well while also getting into fun situations. 

As I said before, my inspiration was old Batman comics, as well as the animated series and classic 66 TV show, and as with many previous stories I just swapped out Batman and Robin for Black Scorpion and Phantom Lady. At the time I had so many ideas for these characters (and still do) and was unsure of how to fit them all into this story, as well as not sure how to bring them together, but as you all know by now, I wasn't going to let something like not having a plot stop me. I came up with  the idea to do short, one off prelude stories featuring the individual heroines that would sort of put them in place for the team up. Being a comic book fan, every time there's a big crossover event in comics there always seems to be a lead up first involving solo comics for the heroes involved, and that was my inspiration. Both preludes are included in the attachment below for you all to enjoy.

Both preludes were inspired by scenes from Batman: The Animated Series, with the Black Scorpion one being inspired by the episode "The Mechanic". In the episode, The Penguin discovers the mechanic who works on the Batmobile for Batman and at the end kidnaps the man's daughter as a way of making the mechanic work for him. The goons hold out a gag in front of the girl's mouth, almost like a threat, and when she tries to tell her Dad not to listen to The Penguin, they pull the gag tight over her mouth. She goes on to be a feisty, and vocal damsel. After seeing it, I had an idea to do something similar with Black Scorpion and her assistant Argyle. In the TV show, Argyle has a criminal past, and his brother is one of Black Scorpion's enemies, The Gangster Prankster, so my idea would be take on "The Mechanic" where Gangster Prankster kidnaps Black Scorpion to use as a hostage to make Argyle work for him. I obviously changed that idea for this, and Gangster Prankster's role became quite different in the story, but the concept of villains using Black Scorpion as a hostage to make Argyle work for them remained. 

The next scene, involving Phantom Lady, was inspired by the Batman episode "Appointment in Crime Alley". It's one of my favorite scenes, where Leslie Thompkins is caught by bad guys and tied up in a basement along with a ticking bomb, and she is in the middle of saying "You won't get away with this!" Before she gets cut off by a gag. Many might discount this scene because she's an older damsel but I how she's cut off by the gag, and then her subsequent struggles and gag-talk. Of course, it's much sexier when it's Phantom Lady in her place, and I added the timer on the bomb set to 3 minutes as an homage to one of my favorite scenes of all time, the Wonder Woman episode "The Starships are Coming" where Diana Prince is bound and gagged in a warehouse with a bomb timed to explode in three minutes. 

Then of course we get into the thick of things, the team-up! The first scenario in this is a fun one, and a scenario that I wanted to include in a story for a while inspired by an old Batman comic. In the comic, I don't remember the specifics, but the bad guys think they've killed Batman only to find him floating unconscious in the river. One of the goons remarks that Batman isn't dead only for the boss to reply that Batman will wish he was after they get through with him, but all hope is not lost as Alfred of all people is on the way to help! Alfred spies from a distance as the goon's pull up to a dock with a bound and gagged Batman in the passenger seat of their boat, and later Alfred tries to rescue Batman only to get bound and gagged himself. There's even a bit with Alfred gag-talking as the bad guys prepared to hang him and Batman and one of the goons tells him that he's wired for hanging, not talking. Of course, Batman gets them out of danger at the last minute. 

I wanted to do a scene inspired by this comic, and at one point was considering doing an Arrowverse bondage fan-fic with Caity Lotz's Black Canary, with her in the Batman role and Felicity Smoak in the Alfred role, but in the end chose to do this scene with Black Scorpion and Phantom Lady, with a few amendments of course. 

The next scene is interesting because it's inspired by an M&M commercial, of all things. Growing up, there was a commercial for blue M&Ms where the yellow and Red M&Ms paint themselves blue to go to an audition for the blue M&Ms, only to get caught and bound and gagged backstage, at least, that's how I remember it, it's been a while. Once again,  I had always wanted to do a scene with damsels going into a theater undercover, pretending to be performers, only to get caught and bound and gagged backstage. Originally, I had envisioned this as part of a Catwoman/Batgirl story where the heroines stumble across bad guys, lead by Two-Face, auditioning exotic dancers, so both of them ditch their costumes and go on stage in their bras and thongs in an attempt to go undercover as dancers, only to get caught. Two-Face flips his coin, with heads they live, tails they die, and gets heads, but has his men bind and gag the two backstage until he can figure out what to do with them. In the end, I changed my idea a bit, with Black Scorpion and Phantom Lady just snooping while an audition is happening and getting caught, though the dancers stumbling across the bound and gagged heroines and being told that they're just getting ready for another show is one of my favorite touches of this scene. 

Then after this we move into another moment I love, the cement peril. As you know by now, I love cement peril. For this scene, I took inspiration from the 1966 Batman show and the Dick Tracy movie from 1990. In one episode of Batman, both Batman and Robin are battling The Mad Hatter and his goons, only for the bad guys to open up a chute that pours plaster on Batman, encasing him, and then they overpower Robin. When we come back from commercial, Robin is bound and gagged on top of a ceramic horse, though Batman soon breaks free from his encasement. With this scene, I had Black Scorpion bound and tapped onto the horse, but added some more peril with Phantom Lady by taking a bit of inspiration from the Dick Tracy movie. The villain in that film punishes his enemies by giving them a "bath" as he calls it by tying them in a tube and pouring cement over them, and in one scene there's a quick shot of someone in the bath, caked in concrete and gagged with a red cleave gag. I really liked that visual so I added some peril elements to this with Phantom Lady being coated with concrete except for the red cleave gag. Then of course we get some hot humiliation and accidental nudity as Black Scorpion tries to rescue her, only to end up removing Phantom Lady's costume. 

If there's something else I love, it's a "kidnapped by an imposter" scenario, and if there's something that's even better, it's the imposter then kidnapping another unsuspecting damsel. I pick up a plot thread from the solo Black Scorpion story by having Aerobicide dress as Black Scorpion and take her place. As was the case with all of my writing then, I was just making things up as I went, and really only knew what images and scenarios that I wanted in this story. In this case, I was inspired by several things. One was a selfie by one of my favorite models, Latina milf Maripily Rivera, and another was a B-horror film called Satan's Little Helper.

Maripily posts on social media a lot... and I mean a lot. Many of her posts are beach selfies or of her in tiny thongs. Some have said that Maripily is obsessed with her butt, which I'm okay with. One such selfie was taken by a friend, where Maripily is relaxing on the beach with her ass facing the camera, and her friends are resting their heads on either of her beautiful, tanned butt cheeks while taking the selfie. I would find the photo but she posts so much on social media that it would take me forever. Anyway, it gave me the idea that it would be sexy to have two captors posing with a damsel the exact same way, so in this story I have Aerobicide and Gangster Prankster hogtie and gag Black Scorpion and then take a selfie in front of her thonged backside while she struggles. Then of course, the imposter Black Scorpion goes out and joins the unsuspecting Phantom Lady. 

For the next scene, I was inspired by a clip from a horror movie called Satan's Little Helper (it may have actually been the sequel) where the titular monster or whatever has a woman wrapped up in clingwrap and gagged with clear tape, and then brings the woman into a Halloween party. Everyone at the party thinks she's dressed like that as a costume despite her gagged protests, and there's even a bit where she falls and rolls around on the floor trying to get up while everyone laughs at her. Since Phantom Lady is a character so prone to humiliation, I loved this scenario for her, but added some extra flavor. Though many longtime readers may know of my fondness for buttplugs and anal play, this was my first time trying something in a story. Once again, I was hesitant about a writing a scene where Phantom Lady has a bomb shoved up her ass, thinking that at some point someone would object or say I went too far, but as I've said before, to this day no one has.

Then we get some brief scenes featuring the heroines leading up to the big finale. It should be obvious that the Black Scorpion, Gangster Prankster scene is inspired by the Lois Lane scene in the World's Finest team-up of the Superman and Batman animated series. After that, we get both heroines tied in wheelchairs before being gagged, which was inspired by a another panel from an old Batman comic. 

Then we have the big finale, where Black Scorpion and Phantom Lady are bound, gagged, and forced to participate in a demented game show. This was inspired by two separate Batman scenes from two different TV shows: Batman: The Animated Series and Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Black Scorpion strapped into the electric is very obviously a homage to the Batman: TAS episode "Almost Got 'Im", which, as you all know, features my favorite scene of all time where Catwoman is bound and gagged by Harley Quinn. Earlier in that episode, Batman is strapped to a giant electric chair in front of a studio audience which then gets doused with laughing gas. Previously, Batman is hidden behind a curtain, which pulls back to reveal him just before Joker unveils himself and his plan. As you know, I have no problem with guys in distress, and I particularly like seeing Batman bound and gagged. It never really made sense to me why Batman wasn't gagged when he was in the chair seeing how only a curtain separated him from the audience, so there was nothing stopping him from warning them about the Joker's plan or calling out for help. Alas, maybe both Batman and Catwoman gagged in the same episdoe would have been too much for me to handle. 

In my story, Black Scorpion takes Batman's place, but sports a gag, and Phantom Lady is tied and gagged behind a podium. This part is inspired by the Brave and the Bold episode where Riddler has Batman bound and gagged on a demented game show and Booster Gold much answer trivia questions to save Batman's life. I thought this would be a fun way of showing that Phantom Lady is smarter than we give her credit for, though more in a "book smart" kind of way, and she has a pretty good chance of saving Black Scorpion, though of course the bad guys cheat and gag her so that she can no longer answer the questions. 

When I end my stories, I usually always try to end things on a sexy note, usually with at least one character still bound and gagged. This usually means that a lot of my stories end on cliffhangers, and this one is no different. Though the main conflict is resolved, I thought it would be hot to end it with Aerobicide once again switching places with Black Scorpion, leaving the real one bound and gagged in a bag. This was inspired by an episode of Garfield and Friends that I saw when I was young when the chicken characters gets caught and bound and gagged in a bag. I don't quite remember the plot of the episode, but at the end all of the other farm animal characters solve the problem and head off home, but forget about the chicken, who hops after them still bound, gagged, and bagged. 

I knew that I wanted to end this story with the other characters leaving the studio as Black Scorpion hops out from backstage, tied, gagged, and bagged, but as I wrote it I also came up with the idea of the imposter Black Scorpion tying and gagged Phantom Lady once again and instructing Argyle to drop her off in Opal City like that, while giving her a warning to stay out of Angel City. I realized that if a villainness was posing as a heroine, she would probably want to get the other heroine out of the way as well. So Black Scorpion and Phantom Lady started off this story as uneasy partners, and that's how they left things as well. If you've read my stories after this, you'll know that Phantom Lady pops back up in still unfinished Catwoman story, but this was the last we've seen of Black Scorpion...

For now...

As I've said, I still have plans for both heroines. They are some of my favorite characters to write and I'm almost always thinking up of new stories for them. So this is not the last that I'll write of these ladies. I don't get as much time to write fan fics these days due to my other writing and commissions, but I'll finish my Catwoman story soon enough, and then maybe Black Scorpion and Phantom Lay will cross paths again. Until then, enjoy!