That’s Miss Public Enemy No. 1 to You, Batman!

Interests of mine:

• the C-level supervillains of the DC universe
• the C-level supervillainesses of the DC universe
• the C-level supervillainesses of DC’s Batman universe

That’s why it surprised me that I’d never heard of Dragon Fly, Silken Spider and Tiger Moth until now. It’s “Make way for the Moondancers!” all over again, just with better dialogue this time.

via tom peyer

I’m choosing to refer to them collectively as The Bug Dames. And really — “Silken Spider”?

Context, via the Batman Wiki’s entry on Tiger Moth:

The display of the paintings at the Gotham City Museum attracted a parade of men, including Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. The duo was present when Poison Ivy crashed the scene, protesting that she was public enemy #1, her long career as a criminal overlooked because her crimes “were too perfect.”

Eventually, Ivy sent letters to the alleged world public enemies along with a plethora of other felons from the “most wanted” list, each message suggesting that their rivals were the superior criminal. The note invited them to a neutral site in the country to hash things out. The F.B.I. is still trying to figure out how Ivy got their addresses.

Incensed, Dragon Fly, Silken Spider, and Tiger Moth each vowed to arrive at the rendezvous early and kill their rivals. Parachuting into a crowd of dozens of feuding criminals, Batman and Robin prepared to take out all the criminals. Taking flight, Tiger Moth and company stopped long enough to fight over a gold crown that Ivy claimed she would present to “the real no. 1 wanted woman criminal of the world.”

So in other words, a victory for feminism all-around. The Bug Dames did not skitter away after their debut, I was surprised to learn, and have occasionally crawled out from under their rock to cause trouble again. Dragon Fly’s antennae were inverted into sideburns and Silken Spider is now black, so thank goodness the didn’t name her the Black Widow. See, here they are making Nightwing’s life worse than usual:

via dc wiki

Oh, please let their hideout be an overturned rock.

Superheroes, previously:

• The many, many animal-based superpowers of Vixen
• Poison Ivy, Black Orchid and one suggestively named Venus Fly Trap
• Batman characters or soap opera villains?
• That time Wonder Woman was a bitch to her overweight friend
• Jean Loring / Kris Jenner
• Hidden boners on Batman: The Animated Series