This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at Sun Girl, a Marvel character from back when the company was called Timely Comics.
SUN GIRL
Secret Identity: Mary Mitchell, secretary for the Daily Views newspaper
Origin: Never revealed. Her very first story made it apparent that she had already been active for years.
Powers: Sun Girl was much stronger than any adult male. She was extraordinarily skilled at unarmed combat and was more agile than an acrobat.
Sun Girl wielded a Sunbeam Ray Gun (also a Sunbeam Wristlet-Ray) which shot solar light and heat.
Her emergency pouch contained a “super-sensitized tracer” and the cable/ lariat which she used to swing around the city like Spider-Man or Daredevil.
Comment: Marvel still hasn’t clarified if Sun Girl was a human or was an alien using the name Mary Mitchell as an alias. I would have made it that she was a human granted her powers and weapons by the Master of the Sun, who decades later gave Peter Quill his powers and weapons to become Star-Lord.
SUN GIRL Vol 1 #1 (August 1948)
Title: Flying Fists and Glamour
Villains: Gangs of bank robbers
Synopsis: A gang of armed robbers arrive in their getaway car at their hideout with their latest robbery proceeds.
Sun Girl emerges from hiding and reveals that she was surreptitiously clinging to their vehicle.
Our heroine outfights and outshoots the entire gang and hauls them into a police station. Expository dialogue reveals this is the latest in a rash of bank robberies and Sun Girl vows to lure out the secret leader of the gangs.
That leader turns out to be the crooked police chief, and she takes down him and his underlings. Continue reading
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