Military Comics #1 (1941)
by Ed Wexler
If you thought Blackhawk has a complicated history, that’s nothing: their transition from Quality to DC Comics was very smooth.
But there’s another character debuting in the same issue, a character that is simultaneously in the public domain and in the DC Universe proper… Miss America.
Who gets her powers when the Statue Of Liberty literally walks up to her and gives her magic powers!!!
Keep in mind that this happens when she’s asleep in front of the statue. There is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON for the statue to move!!!
The woman understandably things she just had a dream, but soon discovers she has magic powers.
Making her way back on a ferry, a guy suddenly starts making a speech about democracy.
I would joke about how realistic this is, but… if media depicting New York City has even the slightest truth about it, the only unrealistic part is that it’s a speech about democracy instead of the ramblings of a crazy man.
And then the “gang of ruffians” are TURNED INTO DOVES.
They are not returned back to humans later in the story, by the way.
And that’s why she calls herself Miss America.
The beauty pageant started in the 20s, by the way. Just for fun, the 1941 Miss America was Rosemary LaPlanche; she’s not confirmed to have had magic powers.
She (the comic book character, not the beauty pageant) then investigates a factory that has been bombed.
I know she’s a superhero now, but… she’s supposed to be a journalist, shouldn’t her job be just reporting the bomb instead of looking for the bombers?
It’s easy being the world’s greatest detective when your magic powers just instantly give you the solution.
She can ALSO teleport herself where the bombers are, and listen to their plans.
Okay there’s evidently little to no limit to what she can do with her powers, so why exactly does she need to go to the F.B.I. have them arrested?
Just wish them to be in jail! Or if you want this to be somewhat legal, wish for the F.B.I. to find the evidence!!!
Yeah I kind of agree with the F.B.I. on this one. Why would they have ANY reason to believe this random reporter showing up and accusing people without proof?
She’s then ambushed by the saboteurs, but she’s fine since she can just TURN THEM INTO TREES.
Also she can just wish the saboteurs to bomb themselves.
Not to mention stealing the gun out of the saboteur’s boss hand.
If she didn’t want to wish this guy to jail because she wanted to follow the law… good luck having this confession be recognized.
Miss America turned 3 men into birds and 3 more into trees. Assuming they’re all dead at this point, and adding the two saboteurs she bombed, she ALREADY has a body count of 8.
Historical significance: 0/1776
Miss America has a very weird legacy, but you wouldn’t even recognize her here.
Silver Age-ness: 1776/10
I can absolutely believe the Statue Of Liberty came to life to give this random woman infinite power.
Does it stand the test of time? 0/1776
In addition to being incredibly simplistic and just 6 pages long, the story doesn’t even make all that much sense. The artwork is fine, but nothing spectacular even for the Golden Age.
How close is this to the modern character? 4/10
You would expect this to be a one-off with no consequences. Especially since this is one of the FEW series from Quality Comics that doesn’t last long.
She only appears in the first 7 issues of Military Comics.
She’s still in her original red civilian dress for issues 2 and 3.
But it’s in issue 4 that she gets a proper costume. She still has vague magic powers.
She gets a small costume change in issue 5; her powers are still very random, but she mostly transmutes stuff.
Issue 6 has yet another costume change, emphasizing the patriotic theme.
She’s depicted as somewhat of a fun-loving character…
…that MURDERS NAZIS WITH MOLTEN STEEL.
Issue 7 from 1942 is her last Golden Age appearance.
And if that was everything I wouldn’t even be talking about Miss America, other then the curiosity of her existing when Marvel also has a Golden Age heroine named Miss America (who will be covered later).
Even after Quality Comics ceased publications and DC Comics picked up the rights to its characters, nobody did anything with Miss America (possibly because she shared the name with the Marvel heroine).
But things get complicated when Roy Thomas gets involved.
Because in 1984, despite not appearing anywhere for FORTY-TWO years, Thomas included her among the minor Quality heroes in All-Star Squadron #31.
To accommodate this, her origin story is then re-told (by Roy Thomas, of course) and updated… but still keeping all the Statue Of Liberty stuff.
At least THIS time she has the courtesy to turn the doves back into humans!
She also gets the costume right from the start.
And in 1988, she becomes the All-Star Squadron’s secretary in the spinoff series Young All-Stars. Also by Roy Thomas, because of course.
Her being the secretary is not because of Thomas having problems with female heroes (he most definitely doesn’t), but because it’s a callback to Wonder Woman being the secretary of the Justice Society back in the day.
Then on the pages if “Infinity Inc” (as always, by Roy Thomas) she begins her role as a continuity insert useful for retcons.
Because she ends up marrying Derek Trevor, a not-so-subtle replacement for Wonder Woman’s Steve Trevor; therefore becoming the stepmother of Lyta Hall, the superheroine Fury.
Lyra WAS the daughter of Earth-Two’s Wonder Woman, but post-Crisis that ended up being retconned into being the daughter of a different WWII crimefighting amazon.
We do get a bit of clarity about her history, now that she’s fully merged with the DC Golden Age.
Lyta Hall is a lingering continuity snarl, and not just because of Roy Thomas.
But because her son Daniel shows up in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, becoming the second Dream of the Endless.
That makes Miss America the adoptive grandmother of Dream!!!
Sadly, Miss America doesn’t make a full appearance on the pages of Sandman. The closest thing is a picture of her superhero days in 1994’s Sandman #57, when Lyta’s crazy life is being recapped.
That’s far from the only connection between Miss America and Wonder Woman, though.
Because, thanks to the post-Crisis Wonder Woman showing up in modern times, it resulted in there being no Wonder Woman for Golden Age adventures.
This was solved by having Hippolyta, Wonder Woman’s mother, going back in time to act as Wondy herself during WWII.
And then in 2002 the actual Wonder Woman goes back in time to team up with her mother to fight Nazis together… and to avoid completely breaking history (too late!), Wonder Woman decides to pose as Miss America.
The actual Miss America would later show up in 2007 in the pages of “Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters”, where she reveals she didn’t actually grow old and then defeats an android posing as her.
I guess that if you only knew Miss America from her Roy Thomas stories, her sudden power-up could seem to be out of nowhere. But after reading her Golden Age stories… I get it.
The following year, she changes her codename to Miss Cosmos in the second volume of the same series.
A completely new version of the same character shows up in 2013 on the pages of Human Bomb, but she wouldn’t take the Miss America name and costume until 2018 on the pages of Harley Quinn (of all places).
Although I’m not entirely sure we’re supposed to consider that issue seriously.
An alternate version of Miss America shows up in the James Robinson miniseries “The Golden Age” in 1993.
It’s a MASTERPIECE of a series. If you haven’t read it I can’t recommend it enough!
If you haven’t read it, skip the part below. You might spoil a extremely well-done twist!
CLICK FOR SPOILER
Her boyfriend's brain has been replaced with that of the Ultra-Humanite.
She also dies in the end, after exposing his plan.
Bizarrely, the Golden Age version of the character is in the public domain because DC Comics didn’t bother with Miss America for too long… but the post-80s version is not.
You’d think more people would take advantage of playing with a character linked to both Wonder Woman and Sandman, but I guess sharing the name with the Marvel character is confusing.
This is already a long review, but I have to mention what else was in Military Comics #1 besides Miss America and Blackhawk.
Unsurprisingly given the title, they’re all military stories.
Some of which have aged poorly.
Of note is the absolutely stunning teaser page of Yankee Eagle.
James Robinson’s “The Golden Age” was just superb. A love letter for DC and Quality’s characters of the time, and also a thrilling tale of desperate drama and loss.
Heck, it made me scared of Johnny Thunder. Johnny fricking Thunder. And that was almost a cameo appearance to boot. I could not read the last issue fast enough. I really rooted for the characters in evidence.
And Joan’s scene is also excellent.
Death Patrol Is pretty surreal. Five convicts and a playboy (who can all fly fighter planes!) fly to England to join the RAF, and someone gets killed and replaced almost every issue. Every original member gets killed in the first twenty issues of MILITARY (though some get better).
Don’t bother reading after issue 20 though. The strip goes on hiatus and when it returns it’s much lighter in tone and hardly worth reading.
Oh, and I forgot to mention: by current standards it’s laughably racist.