GOLDEN GIRL AND CAPTAIN AMERICA: 1940s ADVENTURES

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog will look at the late 1940s stories with Captain America teamed up with Golden Girl, who replaced Bucky after he was seriously injured.

GOLDEN GIRL 

Secret Identity: Betsy Ross

First Appearance: As Betsy Ross – Captain America Comics #1 (March 1941) As Golden Girl – Captain America Comics #66 (April 1948) Her final Golden Age appearance came in July of 1949.

Origin: After years of working off and on with Captain America in her capacity as a federal agent, Betsy Ross adopted the costumed identity of Golden Girl in 1948 to serve as Cap’s new partner when Bucky was out of commission after suffering injuries at the hands of the supervillainess called Lavender.

Powers: Golden Girl was in peak physical condition and excelled at unarmed combat. She was more agile than an acrobat and wore a bulletproof cape which she could wrap around herself or innocent bystanders as needed.

Comment: In the 1960s, Marvel retconned events to claim that the original Captain America and Bucky were MIA after their 1945 mission to thwart Baron Zemo’s rocket attacks on England. 

From then on it was canon that Captain America stories after the end of World War Two and into the 1950s featured replacement Captain Americas who simply wore the costume while the original was frozen in suspended animation in the far north.

In this context, Golden Girl would have been serving as a sidekick to one of Steve Rogers’ successors in the costume of Captain America. Specifically, Jeff Mace, formerly the superhero called the Patriot. In 1964 the Avengers found the original Captain America, who emerged from suspended animation and resumed serving as that hero.

CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS Vol 1 #66 (April 1948)

Title: Golden Girl

Villainess: Lavender

NOTE: Marvel Comics, called Timely Comics back then, had decided to add more female characters by replacing the original Human (android) Torch’s sidekick Toro with Sun Girl and Captain America’s sidekick Bucky with Golden Girl. Sub-Mariner got a female sidekick in the form of his cousin Namora, not to be confused with Namorita, who came along in 1972.

Synopsis: Cap and Bucky fight female supervillain Lavender and her gang when they break into a perfume factory to steal ambergris. After a prolonged fight Lavender and her gang escape, with Bucky left near death after being shot by the villainess.

Bucky (in the 60s retcon the 2nd Bucky – real name Fred Davis) survives but will be laid up for a very long time. Federal agent Betsy Ross, who has shared countless adventures with Cap and Bucky, dons a costume and replaces Bucky as Golden Girl.

Golden Girl and Captain America next clash with Lavender and her gang when they break into a fur coat warehouse, but once again the villains pull off their robbery and escape.

Golden Girl investigates over the next few days and tracks down Lavender’s hideout. She and Cap raid the place and capture all the bad guys for the cops.

CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS Vol 1 #67 (July 1948)

Title: Secret Behind the Mirror

Villain: Mister Zrr

Synopsis: Mister Zrr, a superpowered villain from another dimension, comes to Earth through a mirror in an old man’s shop. (Like Daredevil’s much later foe Tagak emerged from his dimension via a mirror.) He allies himself with Earth criminals while pulling off diamond robberies.

Golden Girl and Captain America investigate, trace the stolen diamonds to the old man’s shop and wind up pursuing Mr. Zrr and the crooks through the mirror into Dimension Zee. Zrr and the criminals turn the dimension into a crime-ridden dystopia but Golden Girl and Cap ultimately defeat them. They take the crooks back to Earth and destroy the mirror, shutting off access to Dimension Zee.

Title: The Singer Who Wanted to Fight

Villains: Killer Casey and Hawk Martin

Synopsis: Golden Girl and Cap take on two gangsters called Killer Casey and Hawk Martin. Their organized crime mob fixes various boxing matches and kill anyone who gets in their way. Our heroes help an honest boxer named Scott Warren who would rather be a singer. With Scott’s help they bring down Casey and Martin’s operations. 

MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS Vol 1 #87 (August 1948)

Title: The Boy Who Couldn’t Study

Villains: The Rand Gang

Synopsis: Betsy Ross and Jeff Mace, who teach at the Lee Academy, notice that promising student Joey Milton has lost focus and his grades are dropping.

Becoming Golden Girl and Captain America they investigate and learn that Joey has gotten caught up with the Rand Gang, a bunch of jewel robbers.

It turns out Joey did it to raise money for his grandmother’s medication. With his help our heroes battle and defeat the entire Rand Gang and the reward money buys plenty of medicine for grandma, now and for the foreseeable future.

CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS Vol 1 #68 (September 1948)

Title: The Riddle of the Living Dolls

Villains: Horatio and His Living Dolls

Synopsis: A crime spree seems to be committed by a gang of living dolls. Golden Girl and Captain America investigate and clash with the living dolls a few times when they are robbing banks and jewelers. At last our heroes trace them to Horatio’s Doll Shop and take on Horatio plus the “dolls” who turn out to be acrobatic midgets in doll masks. 

Title: From the Personal Files of Captain America

Villain: Joey “Scarface” Arnold

Synopsis: A man named Joey Arnold uses his uncanny resemblance to Al Capone as his excuse for pursuing a life as a crime boss. Superheroics bring down him and his empire.

MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS Vol 1 #88 (October 1948)

Title: The Wound No Man Could See

Synopsis: Golden Girl and Captain America are called in to try helping a wheelchair-bound World War Two veteran named Jerry Malcolm.

The vet has given up on himself because he thinks he failed to save the life of a fellow soldier during a battle.

Our heroes undertake a massive quest to find that other soldier by checking Veterans Hospitals and War Department records. They overcome all obstacles to do so and Jerry Malcolm is reunited with the man, showing he didn’t let him die. Jerry begins his emotional healing. NOTE: Golden Girl’s costume was erroneously colored red in this tale.

CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS Vol 1 #70 (January 1949)

Title: Worlds at War

Villains: Warlord Oog and his Martian Armies

Synopsis: At the Lee Academy, teachers Betsy Ross and Jeff Mace are among the attendees at a lecture by touring astrophysicist Professor Kendall Kulto. It turns out Kulto is a madman and he aids hostile lifeforms who dwell underground on Mars to invade the Earth.

Golden Girl and Captain America lead the world’s armies in battles against Warlord Oog and his troops during the weeks-long global conflict. In the final battle, Cap fights Oog in his flagship while Golden Girl fights his bodyguard. Our heroes win and the Martians give up, flying off in their spaceships.

Title: The Man Who Knew Everything

Villain: Oliver Olliphont

Synopsis: Superheroics break up a radio quiz show racket long before the television quiz show scandals of the 1950s.

MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS Vol 1 #91 (April 1949)

Title: Death Waits a Million Years

Villain: Tyranno

Synopsis: Teachers Betsy Ross and Jeff Mace are hanging out at her apartment one night listening to a radio drama. They must don their costumes and go into action as Golden Girl and Captain America when a dinosaur preserved in a tar pit is brought back to life by a Professor Rangley and goes on a rampage through New York City.

Golden Girl and Cap engage in a running battle with the kaiju-sized creature, slowing it down as much as they can and saving the lives of bystanders. They even supervise the efforts of the army to contain the beast. In the end Tyranno (as the media calls it) dies from its accumulated wounds.

CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS Vol 1 #71 (March 1949)

Title: Trapped by the Trickster

Villain: The Trickster

Synopsis: A telegram leads to our heroes being gassed unconscious by a wily villain calling himself the Trickster.

This is the very first appearance of this recurring foe.

Back at his hideout, before the Trickster and his men can complete their plan to cash in on their haul our good guys turn the tables and defeat them.

Title: Terror is Blind

Villain: Dr. Teague

Synopsis: Dr. Teague, an astrophysicist, is developing a new kind of telescope. He grows jealous of his assistant’s romance with a young lady and sets out to kill the assistant with help from his tycoon friend and his own (Teague’s) sword-cane. Superheroics save the younger man’s life, but he is left blinded by the mad doctor. The young lady still marries him. 

CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS Vol 1 #72 (May 1949)

Title: Murder in the Mind

Villains: Mind Mutants

Synopsis: Golden Girl and Captain America nab criminal John Dolan, whose mental illness has fueled his life of crime. Our heroes volunteer to help Dr. Sigmund Adler, who claims his new invention can cure mental problems that make people commit crimes.

Adler transfers his, Golden Girl’s and Cap’s minds inside Dolan’s own, but it leaves the trio at the mercy of mind monsters formed by John’s various psychiatric issues. Those mutants are evil versions of John in different shapes and sizes and disfigurements. Our heroes and Dr. Adler survive, cure Dolan and return to their own bodies. 

Title: Tricks of the Trickster

Villain: The Trickster

Synopsis: The escaped Trickster forms a new gang. His latest crime spree involves his usual gadgets plus a catapult truck, an autogyro and a blimp disguised as a cloud. In the end he’s defeated once again.

MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS Vol 1 #92 (June 1949)

Title: The Man Who Wouldn’t Give Up

Villain: John Harrington

Synopsis: Golden Girl and Captain America get caught up in a multi-party search for a fortune in diamonds hidden by a returned African explorer.

The other parties involved in the quest are an aspiring private detective named Andy Opp (a Continental Op reference I guess) and an actor named John Harrington who is part of a diamond smuggling ring.

A murder brings to light that the diamonds were stolen and the explorer was killed by Harrington and his accomplices. 

CAPTAIN AMERICA COMICS Vol 1 #73 (July 1949)

Title: The Outcast of Time

Villain: Wolf Turber

Synopsis: Costumed heroics are called for when Wolf Turber, a war criminal from the 26th Century, time travels to 1949. He is soon pursued by San, a law enforcement officer of that same century who gets help from our heroes. They battle Wolf and his future technology in 1949, 1780, 1649, 3550 and the year 200,000 AD.   

Title: The Deadly Dreams

Villain: Dream Master

Synopsis: Golden Girl and Captain America clash with a supervillain called the Dream Master. That costumed figure and his cult have a vast compound where people pay him to put them into lengthy dreams in which they get to live their ideal lives. They sign over all of their money, etc to Dream Master, who keeps them asleep permanently.

On top of that, the “ideal” dream lives only last temporarily, replaced with horrific nightmares for the villain’s victims. Golden Girl and Cap bring down the Dream Master and his cult.   

*** And that marked Golden Girl’s last appearance during the Golden Age. Captain America himself only lasted one more issue in the 1940s – a final battle with the Red Skull – then was canceled. He and Bucky were brought back in the 1950s for a time, then canceled again. Cap’s next appearance was in Avengers #4 (March 1964), when he was found frozen in ice. 

FOR MY LOOK AT THE BLONDE PHANTOM’S 1946-1949 STORIES CLICK HERE.

FOR MY LOOK AT SUN GIRL (1948-1950) CLICK HERE.

FOR MY LOOK AT THE SUPERHEROINE MISS AMERICA (1943-1948) CLICK HERE.