Woops – one more post before we leave 1942 behind for good! I thought it would be a good time to skip back a month and cover at least one superhero debut that I missed: Liberty Belle makes her debut hiding out in Boy Commandos #1. Liberty Belle was a World War II heroine who, […]
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Miss Fury newspaper strip reprints were collected into a comic book by Timely Comics (the company that became known as Marvel Comics) in December 1942. At first black and white, full color stories started in Issue #2. The character was known as Black Fury in the context of the stories, and I imagine her skin-tight […]
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All-Star Comics #15 (December 1942) features Wonder Woman rallying all the girlfriends of the men of the Justice Society of America to save them. It’s a far cry from A-Force or the Birds of Prey… Wonder Woman is still just the “secretary” of the Justice Society, for crap sakes.. but it’s a start, at least!
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More “name-squatting” continues in the Golden Age – we see a character name “Marvel Boy” created by Timely Comics during the hey-day of Fawcett Comics’ Captain Marvel craze. This is actually the second story featuring this version of Marvel Boy, Martin Burns. As Wikipedia points out, both stories were pretty different and the character never […]
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In December 1942, Wonder Woman #3 features the first time a recurring villain character goes through a reform and becomes an ally of a superhero. Baroness Paula von Gunther is revealed to have become a villain after Nazis kidnapped her child. Having restored her child, Wonder Woman sets out to reform her. And she stays […]
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Fawcett, creates a new Marvel family character: Hoppy the Marvel Bunny. I have to assume that Fawcett was hoping to capitalize on two crazes at once: The Marvel Family and “funny animal” cartoons/comics (like Bugs Bunny). By the end of 1942, members of the Marvel Family graced the covers of no less than 8 different […]
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Not to be outdone by Namor, Aquaman brings the concept of Atlantis further into its mythos in November 1942. At this point, Aquaman still gained his powers from his scientist father who discovered how to live underwater, but this is the first time an actual Atlantis is seen in the Aquaman stories. In this story, […]
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The Marvel Family expands again in Captain Marvel #18 (November 1942) with the addition of the female version of Captain Marvel Jr: Mary Marvel. Mary was the newly discovered twin sister of Billy Batson. I believe Bulletgirl was the first female version of a superhero (1941), followed one month later by Hawkgirl.
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By November 1942, Hawkgirl is a regular in the DC universe. She has her own pet hawks (one is named Kitty Hawk) and helps Hawkman on his adventures.
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Freddy Freeman (Captain Marvel Jr) gets his own comic book in October 1942. A nice retelling of his origin story and then more battling World War II foes for Freddy! As far as I can tell, this is the first time a “junior” superhero gets their own solo comic book, beating Superboy by seven years!
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