MISS LIBERTY: REVOLUTIONARY WAR SUPERHEROINE

This weekend’s escapist, light-hearted superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at DC’s Revolutionary War superheroine Miss Liberty since the 4th of July is coming up.

MISS LIBERTY

Secret Identity: Bess Lynn

First Appearance: Tomahawk #81 (August 1962)

Origin: Nurse Bess Lynn decided she could further help the American Rebel cause in Massachusetts and its department of Maine by employing her other skills in the costumed identity of Miss Liberty. Bess was a blonde but wore a black wig in her costumed form.

Powers: Miss Liberty had secretly trained herself to be the equal of any man in armed or unarmed combat. She was a dead shot with her pistols and often used lit powder horns as makeshift grenades to hurl at Redcoats, their Native American allies and Hessians.

This heroine was also very skilled with a sword and had mastered trick riding on her horses.

Comments: Bess Lynn kept her identity as Miss Liberty a secret because her brother was a Colonial Army POW in British hands and she didn’t want to risk the Brits harming or killing him to get at her.

Miss Liberty had also organized what she called the Women’s Underground. They would often help her by providing distractions when she needed them – like setting bales of hay on fire and similar diversions.

If our heroine was being closely pursued by Redcoats over a bridge members of the Women’s Underground would dump butter on the bridge to make the surface too slippery for the Brits or their horses.

In the end, Miss Liberty’s final adventure came when she gave her life while preventing a troop of Hessians from stealing the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.