MOON GIRL (1947-1949)

This weekend’s escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at the Golden Age superheroine Moon Girl from E.C. Comics.

MOON GIRL

First Appearance: Moon Girl #1 (Fall 1947). Her origin story was also printed in The Happy Houlihans #1 (Fall 1947) and Animal Fables #7 (Nov 1947).  

Secret Identity: Clare Lune, high school teacher

Origin: Moon Girl was a princess of Samarkand, but not the real Samarkand in Uzbekistan, but rather the mythic Samarkand of ancient legends. Women ruled in our heroine’s Samarkand, and once she reached marriageable age in 1947, Prince Mengu from a land 1,000 miles away came to woo her.

Her mother the Queen of Samarkand gave her a family heirloom – the Magic Moonstone which the first princess of Samarkand – a woman warrior – took on the battlefield from the evil wizard Ka-Zhan in the 1200s A.D.. The moonstone granted her super-powers, but even before she possessed the stone she had been able to defeat all men who desired her in combat.

That had established the custom that a princess of Samarkand could never marry a man unless he could defeat her in battle. Our heroine wore the Magic Moonstone in her fight with her suitor Prince Mengu. Though he was a descendant of Hercules himself he fell to Moon Girl, so they could not wed.

Mengu wandered the world for a few years, and Moon Girl never forgot him. At last, the queen gave our heroine permission to search for Mengu to tell him how she felt. She found him in America, coaching college sports under the name Lionel Manning. She adopted the secret identity Clare Lune and began teaching at nearby Rawley Junior High School to be near him but fought the forces of evil as Moon Girl.

Powers: Her Magic Moonstone gave this heroine super-strength, the power to fly and run at incredible speed, and possess a high degree of invulnerability. Moon Girl’s moonstone (worn around her neck) would glow red to warn her of danger and enabled her to form force fields around foes or objects to contain them for a time. She also had a telepathically controlled Moonship aircraft. 

MOON GIRL Vol 1 #1 (Fall 1947) 

Story 1: Introducing Moon Girl

This story presents the origin story covered above. She and Prince Mengu agree to stay in America with him serving as her sidekick.

Story 2: Invaders from Venus

On Venus, generations of female rule have caused most of the men to grow weak. They are dying off. The Queen sends a spaceship crewed by women to Earth on a mission to abduct strong and virile men to keep life going on Venus. The ladies use guns that shoot green paralyzing rays to round up over 40 men, including Lionel when he tries to stop them as the Prince.

        Moon Girl single-handedly defeats the Venusian invaders, frees the captive men and warns the aliens never to return.

Story 3: Satana, Queen of the Underworld

Moon Girl and her sidekick the Prince beat down a gang of fur thieves and turn them over to the cops. They are one of the gangs under a costumed woman calling herself Satana. Our heroes thwart Satana’s attempted diamond heist and corral her gunmen when they try to kill a cop, but Satana escapes, vowing to meet Moon Girl again some day.

Story 4: Smuggler’s Cove

Moon Girl saves the sunken U.S. submarine Excelsior, which had been damaged by an army of smugglers using a remote island as their secret base. She helps the sub resurface, defeats all the smugglers and seizes all their contraband.

MOON GIRL Vol 1 #2 (Winter 1947)

Story 1: The Battle of the Congo

Deep in the Congo lives a 1940s stereotyped Arab tribe called the Shalimi. Their ruler died, so they send agents to America to bring back their late ruler’s offspring who supposedly lives there. The agents abduct the heir, a teen named Raku, as well as Moon Girl, whom they knock out with concentrated gas.

        The Shalimi take away her Magic Moonstone while she is unconscious and want her to become their new ruler. Raku steals back the Magic Moonstone for Moon Girl, who uses her restored powers to subdue a leopard and lead the Shalimi to victory against the invading Nahili tribe’s stereotypical spear-wielding army. She has the Shalimi accept Raku as their new ruler and Moon Girl flies back to America. 

Story 2: Future Man

In the year 3000 A.D. a man gets the hots for Moon Girl while watching ancient footage of her. He steals a timeship and travels to the 1940s armed with futuristic rayguns and the like. He fails to abduct her when he attacks her alone, so he joins forces with Rawley gangsters led by Big Mike and tries again. In the end Future Man is defeated and goes back to the year 3000.

Story 3: The Rustlers of Ransom Gap

Moon Girl is named Queen of the Harvest Festival in a town out west. She travels there but, on the side, gets caught up in taking down a gang of rustlers secretly led by the Mayor.

Story 4: The Most Daring Man in the World

Moon Girl thwarts criminals who try fixing the Most Daring Man in the World Contest. She also restores the lost courage of stuntman Fearless Frazier and gets money for his wheelchair-bound wife to get an operation so she can walk again.

MOON GIRL Vol 1 #3 (Spring 1948)

Story 1: Rockets for Riches 

When Moon Girl stops a rocket from hitting a town out west, she learns that her old foe Satana is back in action with a new gang of thugs and a new racket. She charges tycoons a million dollars a month not to destroy their buildings, factories, dams, etc. If they refuse or miss a payment, she sends a rocket to destroy her targets.

        Moon Girl struggles to save the cruise ships, skyscrapers, etc from Satana’s rockets. The villainess has new tech this time like a teleportation device, an acid gun and more. Our heroine saves countless lives, defeats Satana’s thugs and captures the woman herself this time. NOTE: First appearance of the Moonship.

Story 2: Sky Sabotage

A trucking company owner – P.X. Bentley – uses armed men, fighter planes and sabotage to ruin the small airline company owned by a World War 2 veteran. He wants to take over the vet’s land. Moon Girl becomes involved, stops the sabotage, beats up the gunmen and destroys the fighter planes. She also helps the airline get medicine to a town suffering a diphtheria outbreak and proves P.X. Bentley’s guilt.

Story 3: The Spirit of Kokama

Back in Samarkand, a sorcerer called Ka-Zhan (the writers obviously forgot that was the name of the villain in the very first Moon Girl story) has been manipulating the volcano atop Moon Mountain to make it seem overly active. He has been sowing dissent by telling the people the volcano – Kokama – is displeased with the rule of the Queen.

        Soon, he launches his uprising and imprisons the Queen, but the Moon Maiden Zhala escapes to America and tells Moon Girl what is going on. She and Zhala take the Moonship back to Samarkand and ultimately the uprising is defeated, the Queen is saved from being sacrificed to the volcano and Ka-Zhan falls into the volcano to his death.

Story 4: Moon Girl – Wanted for Murder

A supervillain called Make-Up Man is a master of disguise. He impersonates a millionaire’s doctor and does up a female accomplice to pose as Moon Girl. They steal the millionaire’s large diamond and kill him, framing Moon Girl for both crimes, making our heroine a wanted woman. The next night Make-Up Man poses as a bank owner with the fake Moon Girl at his side and they rob the bank.

        Next, Moon Girl catches them in the act as they try stealing radium from a hospital. The criminals go to prison.

INTERNATIONAL CRIME PATROL Vol 1 #6 (Spring 1948)

Moon Girl Story: Beauty and the Beast

In nearby Dorrance City, Clare Lune is approached by a man named Scotty Wilkins who invites Clare to enter his Beauty and Talent Contest a few days away. There’s a $100 entry fee and a grand prize of $10,000. Clare distrusts Wilkins and plays along.

The night of the contest, Moon Girl learns that the woman who won the $10,000 prize is secretly Scotty’s girlfriend. They play this con in various towns, with her always winning and them making off with the money. Moon Girl takes down the crooks thanks to her strength and bullet-proof nature. 

MOON GIRL Vol 1 #4 (Summer 1948)

Story 1: The Challenge of the Cyclops

In Sicily, a lightning strike frees a long-dormant cyclops. The Godzilla-sized monster goes on a rampage. Weeks later in America, a supervillain called the Professor leads his gunmen in trying to kill Moon Girl. She drives them off and that leads to the Professor meeting the Cyclops as it rises from the Atlantic Ocean near Rawley.

        The monster speaks an ancient tongue which the Professor also understands, so he recruits the Cyclops as an ally. In the days ahead he and the Cyclops rob banks and jewelry stores. Moon Girl loses her first clash with the monster but then tracks down the seaside lair of the Professor, the Cyclops and 6 gunmen. Afte a colossal battle, Moon Girl wins and imprisons the Cyclops in a force field at the bottom of the Ocean.

Story 2: Vampire of the Bayous

Clare Lune arrives in Louisiana for a summer position tutoring Mary Malden, granddaughter of John Malden, owner of Malden Manor. The manor is in the heart of the swampland and is surrounded by alligators. John Malden’s manservant Jacques takes Clare to the mansion in a boat. Over the next few nights, a vampire strikes, killing one of the maids and then failing to kill Clare when she becomes Moon Girl.

        The following night, Moon Girl stops the vampire from preying on the Malden granddaughter but is then led into a trap which plunges her into the middle of several alligators. She subdues the gators. then outfights and stakes the vampire, who reverts to his human form of Jacques.

Story 3: Peace for the Old Countries

In the city of Rawley is a neighborhood called the Old Countries, which combines concepts like Little Italy, Chinatown, etc. Satana is back with a new gang and uses torture, sabotage and instigated ethnic and racial riots in the Old Countries. She’s pitting black against yellow against white and causing massive damage.

        Satana is plotting to leave the area so devasted that she can buy it cheap and make a fortune reselling it later. Moon Girl clashes with rioting mobs and Satana’s thugs, but falls prey to a high-tech death trap by the villainess. She survives, exposes Satana’s machinations and sends her and her thugs to jail. Moon Girl is honored at a multi-racial party in the Old Countries.

GUNFIGHTER Vol 1 #5 (Summer 1948)

Moon Girl Story: Moon Girl Meets the Hangman

Clare Lune learns from one of her students that the western town of Silver Gulch has become deserted and the gold mine (in Silver Gulch) his father has shares in is no longer being operated. Tales of hauntings have driven everyone away. Soon, Moon Girl flies out to Silver Gulch and learns from the departing Sheriff Peters that a murderous criminal called the Hangman was himself killed on the gallows six months ago.

Since then the ghost of the Hangman and other dead members of his gang have been running rampant at night, driving everyone away. Moon Girl probes further and clashes with the Hangman and company, but they escape. Later, she trails them to the shut down gold mine, where the Hangman – who was cut down by his men before dying that day – and his gang have been secretly working the mine. Moon Girl survives the villain’s dynamite throws at her, rounds them all up for the law and Silver Gulch is saved.  

MOON GIRL Vol 1 #5 (Fall 1948)

Story 1: Slaves to the Sun

Female mad scientist Sola masters harnessing solar energy. She uses it to power her aircraft and her weapons and sets out to liberate all women on Earth so they can rule the world together with men as nothing but workhorse slaves. She and her army of women raid ships at sea, defeat the men onboard and enslave them. They then obliterate the ship to leave no traces.

Moon Girl in her Moonship finds Sola’s island fortress, where she converts her vessel to a submarine to hide underwater. She then attacks Sola’s base, destroys her solar energy collection device, defeats all of Sola’s troops with the help of the male captives and captures Sola.

Story 2: The Ranch at Barren Acres

Clare Lune is in Arizona, furthering her doctoral research by studying old Zuni relics. As Moon Girl she saves a rancher from a rockslide and learns about the severe drought in the area. Crooked real estate men tricked easterners into buying the seemingly worthless land. Moon Girl forces her way underground, finds a subterranean river and diverts its path to the surface, turning Barren Acres green.

        The real estate racketeers now want the land back and raid the ranches with guns aplenty to force the owners to sell. Moon Girl beats down all the bad guys and the ranchers go on to thrive. A statue of Moon Girl is erected in the area.

Story 3: The Corpse with Willpower

Professor Rudolph, a colleague of Clare Lune, is murdered by his cheating wife and her lover. Moon Girl solves the slaying, but Professor Rudolph, proving his theory of mental control over the body, animates his corpse long enough to kill his murderers before our heroine can turn them over to the police.

GUNFIGHTER Vol 1 #6 (Fall 1948)

Moon Girl Story: The Cave of  a Thousand Winds

Clare Lune arrives by train in the western town of Prairie Gulf to stay with her friend Nancy, her parents and her younger sister Betty. During her stay, Betty goes missing in Echo Canyon, where powerful winds have been killing anyone who is in the canyon when those winds strike. As Moon Girl, our heroine rescues Betty just before she can be crushed under falling rocks.

        That night, Moon Girl investigates Echo Canyon more thoroughly. Her strength and invulnerability let her withstand the winds and she probes all the way to the Cave of a Thousand Winds, from which the canyon’s gales emerge. Once inside she destroys a massive airplane testing wind machine which has been used to augment the canyon’s natural winds. The culprits are armed robbers who use the cave as a hideout after pulling off jobs for miles around. Moon Girl defeats them and imprisons them in a force field til the cops pick them up. 

MOON GIRL Vol 1 #6 (Mar-Apr 1949)

Story 1: The Day the World Trembled

Once again, the Queen of Venus sends Erica and several other ray-gun wielding beauties in a spaceship to Earth to collect men for breeding stock. For just plain no reason (you know comic book writing), Moon Girl’s hometown is called Delta City instead of Rawley and she works for a Junior College instead of a Junior High School.

        The women from Venus now use a device that causes earthquakes to distract Moon Girl while they round up men. While she is busy saving lives, stopping skyscrapers from toppling and more, Erica and her troops abduct several men. Our heroine gets wise in time to defeat the Venusians, free their male captives and drive their ship off into space again.

Story 2: Moon Girl Meets the Buffoon

Moon Girl catches the supervillain called the Buffoon (a Joker imitation) and his men robbing the payroll from a toy factory. She corrals them all, but the Buffoon escapes. Soon he and his new gang are stealing police cars each time they distract the cops with a different type of crime, making them and Moon Girl look foolish each time. In the end our heroine’s might overcomes the Buffoon’s tricks and he is captured with his gang.

Story 3: The Plunderers from the Past

A former Nazi U-Boat commander named Von Krupp has been lying low for years by hiding out in cave systems under Antarctica. One day he discovers a cavern filled with frozen mariners who got lost trying to cross the Strait of Magellan – Vikings, Romans, Phoenicians, Chinese, Pirates of all lands, etc. He thaws them out, works through the language barrier and takes to the Atlantic Ocean with the defrosted mariners as his new crew of plunderers.

Eventually, they surface near Moon Girl’s home city and raid a museum, defeating her when she tries stopping them. When they try another robbery in her town she beats and captures them all, including Kapitan Von Krupp. 

MOON GIRL Vol 1 #7 (May-Jun 1949)

Story 1: The Fiends Who Fight with Fire

Moon Girl clashes with Boss Hart and his gang, who are forcing building owners to sell to them cheap, then later commit arson to collect on the insurance. During one fight, Hart steals our heroine’s Magic Moonstone from around her throat. Even without her powers she is able to outfight some of the gang while the rest die in a James Cagney standoff with the cops from atop one of the burning buildings. Moon Girl gets her moonstone back from Hart’s pocket.

Story 2: The Man Who Played with the Stars

Make-Up Man is back in town after escaping prison. He disguises himself as Professor Moonbeam, a lecturer on astrology at the college where Clare Lune works. The real professor had predicted a disater for Rawley based on the stars.

Once Make-Up Man kidnapped Moonbeam and took his place, he predicted a fierce fire in the city. His men covertly started such a fire, making people believe his predictions were real. Next, he predicted two of Rawley’s bridges would collapse on the same day and while the officials were distracted he led his men in a bank robbery at the other side of town. Moon Girl got wise and captured him and his gang.

Story 3: The Menace from the Moon

Newspaper reports about a super-strong and super-fast girl in another state prompt Moon Girl to investigate. She discovers the girl is really her long lost cousin Selena Brown, who was believed dead in the same car accident that killed her parents years ago. She found a family heirloom – a smaller Magic Moonstone which gives her lesser versions of Moon Girl’s powers. Selena is being used by gangsters to commit crimes with them or they will kill her adopted parents. Moon Girl takes down the crooks and makes Selena her kid sidekick Starlet.

MOON GIRL Vol 1 #8 (Summer 1949)

Story 1: The Man without a Face

Shrimpo Harrist (not Harris) was a short gangster with big brains but crime boss Bloody Mike didn’t take him seriously. One day Harrist adopted a mask that made him look like he had no face. As No-Face he killed Big Mike, took over his gang and launched a crime spree, pulling off several capers planned with his genius. Moon Girl and Starlet battled No-Face and his gang a few times, finally nabbing all of them during a high-rise jewelry store robbery. No-Face jumped to his death rather than go to prison.

Story 2: The Witch of the Haunted Hills

Vacationing in the town of Seaside Knoll in New England, Clare Lune must become Moon Girl to spend a few nights fighting supernatural menaces which are doing the bidding of the blonde witch Lurani. First she fights Undina, a mermaid who plunders boats and ships for the witch.

Moon Girl also goes up against Lurani’s other lackeys – a female werewolf named Mabelene, an unnamed lady vampire and three living corpses in monk’s robes. She kills the werewolf in their second battle, prompting Lurani to escape underwater with Undina. The witch’s other monsters are “cured” with Lurani’s defeat.   

NOTE: If you care about such things, this story is apparently set just before Moon Girl met Starlet, because in that story our heroine refers to having just got done dealing with the Witch of the Haunted Hills.

A MOON, A GIRL … ROMANCE Vol 1 #9 (Sep-Oct 1949)

NOTE: Most superhero series’ were getting canceled from plummeting sales by this point in the Golden Age, so publishers were moving on to try monster, sci-fi and romance comic books. For this 9th issue, Moon Girl’s series was renamed A Moon, A Girl … Romance and she appeared in one last story for EC.

Title: I was a Heart Pirate

One of Clare Lune’s students – Mary Lou – earns a reputation for moving in on other young ladies’ men. She gets tagged “a heart pirate” by the other girls. One day a womanizing young rich punk plays her own game against her, dating her just to make his main girlfriend jealous.

Jack, a nice but poor aspiring artist that Mary Lou often cheated on, helps her out of an emergency when she needs cash in a hurry. The police think he stole the money and arrest him, but Moon Girl investigates and proves who the real thief is. Jack and Mary Lou plan to marry.

*** A rather dull story to end the saga of this great superheroine.