Damn Yankee Girl

For someone who only had two appearances, Yankee Girl surpassed her meager run to being one of the most identified good girls in comics. The superheroine first appeared in Dynamic Comics issue 23 from IW Publications in 1947, the series itself was an imprint from Canada's Superior Publishers. She didn't show up again until 1964 in Danger Comics issue 16 from Super Comics which was also an imprint of Comic Media and drawn by Miss Masque artist Ralph Mayo in the 50s but didn't see daylight until a decade later. There was a character labeled Yankee Girl that came out before this from 1941, but she was really an adventurer named Kitty Kelly who sometimes wore a superhero-themed outfit. The genuine Yankee Girl was Lauren Mason, a socialite who had the ability to gain superpowers whenever she said the phrase Yankee Doodle Dandy. How she gained these powers, which included super-strength, flight, and durability, is never revealed, although it's obvious to see that they copied Captain Marvel's motif of transforming by saying some magic words. We also never get an origin story for Lauren, but in the little comic book world she lives in the hero of Yankee Girl is already a well-established crimefighter. Lauren's first story involves the diminutive crook Nick who dresses up in drag to disguise himself as a little girl, and drugs rich people's cats so they would poison their owners allowing Nick and his crew to loot their house, although we learn in this that Yankee Girl is not as invulnerable as other superheroes since she gets knocked out from a bump on the noggin, so instead of an Achilles heel Yankee Girl has an Achilles skull. The second adventure has Yankee Girl taking on an actual supervillain whose genuine name was Les Worth who uses some magic he learned in India to fight against her, but he ultimately gets run over by a train after fortune hunting rich women and inheriting their wealth by killing them. Yankee Girl was a stock superhero with Superman-type powers and a patriotic theme who would have been lost to time if she hadn't been given a modern-day Power Girl makeover from publishers that reuse public domain characters.

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