Miss America (DC Comics)
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Miss America is a DC Comics superhero. She was first created by Quality Comics in Military Comics #1 (1941), and was carried over to DC Comics when they purchased Quality in the 1950s. While the original Golden Age character is in public domain, the subsequent versions created by DC Comics are not.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Pre-Crisis History
Miss America was originally Joan Dale, a courageous reporter who had a dream in which the Statue of Liberty appeared to her and, giving her the power to transmute elements, instructed her to battle evil. Joan awoke to find that she now had these powers; adopting a patriotically-themed costume, she began fighting evil as Miss America.
She had a brief run in Military Comics #1-7, then faded into obscurity to a degree that Timely Comics (later Marvel) Comics soon felt free to create an unrelated character with the same name.
Initially Miss America did not have a super-hero costume, largely using her powers surreptitiously. In later stories she wore a costume comprising a sleeveless red blouse, a red and white striped skirt, and a blue cape fastened with a silver star. This costume continually changed in appearance, possibly because she used her powers to create it. Following her initial run, later appearances of the character added a red domino mask.
In the 1980s, writer Roy Thomas revived the character. She was briefly referenced in the first appearance of the Freedom Fighters in the pages of All-Star Squadron, when she was said to have been a member of that group who was thought to have had been killed when Uncle Sam attempted to prevent the attack on Pearl Harbor from occurring on Earth-X.
In pre-Crisis continuity, Wonder Woman had become a member of the Justice Society in 1942, and with Steve Trevor was the mother of Fury.
[edit] Post-Crisis History
[edit] Joan Dale Trevor
In the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity, in the late spring of 1941 on Liberty Island, reporter Joan Dale had a dream that the Statue of Liberty came to life and granted her the power to alter the nature of matter. Regardless of the dream, she created a colorful costume and became Miss America, one of America's first heroines. In truth, she had been abducted by the top secret government agency, Project M, and her powers were actually the result of a secret experiment. They believed the experiment to be a failure and had returned her to whence she had been taken, leaving her none the wiser. (Military Comics #1, Secret Origins #26)
Later that year, the Japanese would plot their attack on Pearl Harbor. Uncle Sam got wind of the attack and assembled a group of heroes to prevent it. This group, called the Freedom Fighters (with Hourman, the Invisible Hood, Magno, Neon the Unknown, and the Red Torpedo). The mission was doomed and all but Uncle Sam seemingly perished in the fight. Sam would later discover however that three of his allies had survived: Miss America among them. She was reclaimed by Project M. (All-Star Squadron #31)
When Robotman and the Young All-Stars visited Project M, they discovered that Miss America was indeed alive, albeit comatose. A battle with the Ultra-Humanite broke out, which awakened Joan from her coma. She promptly returned to the defense of her country and in late May, 1942, she joined the Justice Society as the group's secretary. (Young All-Stars # 12-14, Annual #1).
Miss America and her husband, Admiral Derek Trevor, are the adoptive parents of the modern-day Fury (Hippolyta "Lyta" Trevor Hall), formerly of Infinity, Inc. In early post-Crisis stories, Miss America and the original Fury (Lyta's biological mother) were portrayed to have replaced Wonder Woman in several adventures of the Justice Society that Wonder Woman had originally been involved in. In post-Crisis continuity, Wonder Woman had not debuted until relatively recently, leaving several stories and origins in chaos. Miss America was said to have taken Wonder Woman's place as recording secretary of the JSA.
However, several months after Miss America joined the JSA, Wonder Woman debuted on the scene and also joined the JSA. It is still unclear how Hippolyta's membership affected Miss America's status with the JSA, if at all. (Wonder Woman v.2 #130-133)
Miss America was last seen in a flashback in JSA, where she was once more working with the Freedom Fighters.
[edit] Princess Diana
Later, as was shown in Phil Jimenez's run on Wonder Woman, Princess Diana had attempted to crossover into her own time after a dimension hopping adventure and had taken the mantle of Miss America (using her powers of disguise) to fight along side Queen Hippolyta (who had recently died in the present) in the 1940s.
Diana and Trevor Barnes leave Skartaris and arrive in Virginia in early October 1943. Leaving Trevor to watch the dinosaurs and Villainy Inc., Diana goes scouting, only to come upon a battle between Queen Clea (the one from 1943) and Hippolyta. Seeing Clea get the upper hand, Diana decides to intervene. To avoid damaging the timestream (too late), she disguises herself as "an obscure heroine during the war" - Miss America, and remembers that Hippolyta mentioned meeting her once. The two women trounce the Nazis and Clea, but one of the Nazis gets away, finds Trevor and takes Poseidon's Trident from him.
Later that same day, Hippolyta and Diana return to Washington, where Diana sees for herself the impact her mother had on the women of the city - or at least her neighborhood - including Hippolyta's roommate, Diana Prince. As night falls, Hippolyta and Diana go hunting for Armageddon, the leader of the saboteurs. While Hippolyta defeats Armageddon, Diana recovers Poseidon's Trident and disappears. By that time, however, Hippolyta has figured out that the woman she fought with wasn't the real Miss America. Either that night or the next night, Hippolyta makes a phone call to the real Miss America and confirms her suspicions. So the whole adventure really takes place over the course of one day.
After Diana returns to the present, she does tell Philippus that she saw her mother, but what she gasps is "Hera help me, Miss America!" This wasn't explained, but it's probably because Diana realized that all her mother had to do was contact Miss America to figure out the whole thing - which, of course, she did.
[edit] One Year Later
A much older Joan Dale returns in the fifth issue of Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters, to confront a youthful imposter bearing the mantle who has under the orders of Father Time managed to neutralize and capture the new team of Freedom Fighters. In issue #6, Joan reveals that she never in fact lost her powers but used them to create the illusion that she had aged in order to retire and live a normal life with her husband. Now that Derek Trevor has passed away, she has let the illusion slip and resumed her youthful, heroic guise to aid Uncle Sam and his new team.
[edit] Powers
Miss America has the powers of transmutation on a molecular level. Her own inexperience with the physical sciences initially curtailed her use of the powers, usually using it for simple changes that were not permanent. There appeared to be an upper limit to the size of matter, and the duration of its transmutation, but this was not ever made specific. Following her recent return, Miss America appears to have become much more proficient with her powers, claiming that she would be able to transform an enemy's organs to glass or shrink them to microscopic size.
The Imposter version could fire energy blasts, and possessed the ability to psionically neutralise the Freedom Fighters' powers.
[edit] Other versions
[edit] Elseworlds
Outside of regular DCU continuity, James Robinson and Paul Smith featured the Miss America in 1993's The Golden Age. Joan Dale was the girlfriend of Tex Thompson, also known as Mr. America.
Later in the story, disturbed by the increasingly moody and abusive actions of her lover Thompson, she makes off with Thompson's locked journal and heads to her friend Paula Brooks, the reformed costumed thief once known as the Huntress. Paula picks the lock and soon Joan, Paula and Paula's lover Lance Gallant are made aware of the same ugly fact that Paul Kirk has finally remembered: that Tex Thompson is really the Ultra-Humanite. The journal, however, holds even worse revelations, prompting Paula to call Johnny Chambers, whom the story has characterized as the one superhero that everyone else came to with their problems.
In the story's final chapter, a hasty war council is convened of the few mystery-men who know Thompson's secret, and a plan is made: during the upcoming ceremony at which all of America's superheroes are supposed to go to Washington to swear their loyalty, another new recruit will be named to Thompson's camp, who will then expose the truth about Thompson before the superhero community and the eyes of the world.
However, to withstand the strength Thompson has at his disposal, the whistleblower has to be one of the big guns, and Rex Tyler is elected. Nearly every mystery-man and superhero turns out at the nation's Capitol for the ceremony, and before things can begin, Joan takes to the podium and exposes Thompson herself, but before she can tell the entire truth, Robotman brutally and permanently silences her.
