Tuesday 14 August 2018

The Coming of the Liberty Legion Part Nine Meet Miss America

The Next persons file to get the interest of The Patriot & Young Buck Barnes was that of a young late teen heiress called Madeline Joyce.


From the details contained in the records it said that Madeline was born in Washington DC and was the niece and ward of James Bennet, The Radio Mogul and businessman. James Bennet was investing much money into research of a Professor Lawson who claimed he could give super human powers to anyone with the aid of electrical energy resulting from lighting.

James Bennet has set the Professor up in a specially build laboratory in a deserted light house on the coast of the Eastern Seaboard. Madeline was known to be very curious of her uncles interests in the sciences and decided to find out for herself what his latest secret experiments were all about.

The details then became very sketchy to what then happened. Some reports said that in some way Madeline had caused the accident that destroyed the Laboratory or that it was a freak accident that occurred when the light house was hit by lightning... but the end result was that Madeline was hit by the full discharge of the electricity channelled through the Professors machine.

After a month in a coma Madeline awoke to find she had developed super powers. As Professor Lawson had died before he could fully discover what had happened, the powers Madeline had developed  were nicknamed Super Vitality. The truth of Professors death was covered up as it turned out he had originally believed his machine had killed Madeline and in a panic the scientist destroyed his equipment and notes  and in doing so took his  own life.

These powers of Madeline over the Years would vary, but on the whole she had Super Strength and the ability to fly.  Years later it was discover like Robert Frank aka The Whizzer , Madeline Joyce had been a latent Mutant and her exposure to the electrical charge her allowed her own abilities to surface.

Taking the name Miss America, Madeline Joyce had joined forces with the local law enforcement agencies to help fight for justice and freedom on the home front.

She decided not to adopt a secret identity as apart from her Uncle she had no one to worry about.

Like many of the Heroes of the time, Miss America's costume did change from time to time. Not much, but small differences popped up every now and then.

Here are a few of the different Looks over the Years.


Miss America as she appeared in the 1941 Marvel Mystery Comic # 49 



The Cape would change from Red to Blue at times, and the Head Dress Hat would change too


With the revival of the character in the 1970's she sported a Full Head Cowl
This look would also alter regarding colour between issues 
Back in the 1940's she even went Blond
And Brunette 
And even her poor eye sight meant she started to wear her glasses on missions. No wonder the writers dropped her X Ray Vision. 
But this version is the one she sported for most of her time with the Invaders during the 1970's

Miss America was one of the more powerful members of the Liberty Legion, but over time the number of powers she had reduced. Maybe she was too much like Superman


Next Time its another Hero to take a crack at joining the Liberty Legion.


Until then ENJOY !