“The truth about Sun Girl was never discovered.” That’s how I ended my OMW: Sun Girl profile many years ago, but even so I’ve remained curious about this extremely obscure superheroine. Now, after a close examination of the stories in which she appeared during the twilight years of Marvel’s first superhero boom, commonly referred to as the Golden Age of Comics, I’ve decided to give her the full chronology treatment. As these are Golden Age stories, I treat them as even less reliable sources than the stories published after 1961, as no effort was made at that time to maintain any kind of consistent continuity. This frees me up to get a little more speculative than I’m normally comfortable with and to answer some of the unanswerable questions raised about who Sun Girl was, where she came from, and where she disappeared to.
Her debut in Sun Girl #1, cover-dated August 1948, shows “the Mysterious Beauty” to have enhanced strength and agility as well as superhuman resistance to injury, not to mention dynamite fighting skills. Curiously, it also suggests that she has not visibly aged in a couple of decades. Subsequently, in Sun Girl #2 and Human Torch Comics #33, Sun Girl refers to other people as “mortals,” suggesting that she may in fact be a goddess. Taking into account other events that occurred in the Original Marvel Universe around this time, one particular (and little-known) goddess struck me as the most likely candidate.
Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding backward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale.) Much of the information presented on this timeline is highly speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.
Prepare to bask in… The True History of Sun Girl, the Mysterious Beauty!
1928 – Concerned about the precarious state of affairs on Earth a decade after the Great War, Odin, king of Asgard, decides to send an agent to infiltrate human society. Not wanting a brash warrior who would draw too much attention to himself, Odin selects instead the sun-goddess Sól, daughter of Mundilfari and a member of the elite Ásynjur. Having an adventurous nature, Sól is eager to undertake such a mission. She bids farewell to her father and her brother Máni, then crosses the Rainbow Bridge to the realm of mortals. Materializing in New York City, the largest metropolis in the world, Sól adopts the alias “Sunny Monday” in an attempt to blend in. Sunny soon befriends a young couple, the Murphys, who help her settle in to life in America.
1930 – With the onset of the Great Depression, Sunny worries that the situation on Earth is deteriorating rapidly. She decides to intervene directly when a mad scientist known as Doctor Drearr tries to conquer the world using his bizarre inventions. The Murphys assist Sunny against Doctor Drearr, only to be killed in the conflict. Determined to avenge their deaths, Sunny apprehends Drearr, who is then sentenced to many years in prison. However, Drearr vows to one day get revenge on the woman who foiled his plans.
A few months later, Sunny learns that the Murphys’ teenage son Johnny, who was placed in foster care following the deaths of his parents, has run afoul of the law. Arranging for Johnny to be released into her custody, Sunny is dismayed to learn that the boy idolizes the notorious gangster Nails Nelson. Thus, she takes Johnny to the pool hall where Nelson and his gang hang out. She tricks Nelson into confessing to a robbery and goads him into a fight. His henchmen flee after she hits them all in the head with pool balls using her infallible aim and starts whipping the cue sticks around like quarterstaffs. Johnny is astonished that this gorgeous lady has defeated a gang of mobsters single-handedly, and when Nelson pulls out a gun and tries to shoot her, the boy throws himself in front of Sunny, catching the bullet in his shoulder. Sunny then punches Nelson through the front window, knocking him out. Nelson is taken into custody as Johnny is rushed to the hospital. Unfortunately, his injured arm must be amputated, but he’s learned his lesson and is determined to finish high school and make a positive contribution to society. Nails Nelson is sent to prison for his many crimes.
1931–1941 – Throughout the Depression, Sunny Monday tries to keep a relatively low profile as she helps the people of New York City out of difficult situations and takes various stands against injustice. She gradually becomes frustrated that she can’t take a more active role in fighting the rampant crime she sees plaguing the city.
1942–1945 – When the United States becomes involved in World War II, Sól abandons her Sunny Monday identity and joins the Women’s Army Corps under the name “Mary Mitchell.” She becomes fascinated by the costumed superheroes who begin to emerge on the scene, such as the Human Torch, Captain America, the Angel, the Blue Diamond, the Patriot, the Whizzer, and particularly Miss America. Mary follows the exploits of the Invaders and the Liberty Legion with great interest.
1946–1947 – With the post-war emphasis on domesticity, Mary Mitchell has a hard time readjusting to civilian life, as she has no intention of becoming involved with a mortal man. Seeing that crime and corruption remain a scourge on society, she eventually decides to create a new persona for herself.
July 1948 – All but abandoning her life as Mary Mitchell, Sól designs a black-and-gold superhero costume and assumes the identity of “Sun Girl.” She straps a focusing crystal to her wrist, which enables her to channel the dazzling golden light she can generate within her body. Not wanting to reveal her godly nature, though, she claims the light emanates from the crystal itself, calling the device her “sunbeam ray.” Her initial crime-fighting exploits cause her to become a media sensation as she patrols the city in her brand-new black Studebaker Champion convertible, prompting the press to dub her “the Mysterious Beauty.”
When New York’s Chief of Police goes on vacation towards the end of the month, a sudden rash of well-coordinated bank robberies hits the city. The police are frustrated that the criminals easily escape every time. Sun Girl takes an interest in the case, seeing an opportunity to establish a reputation as an enemy of organized crime.
August 1948 – Sun Girl suspects someone in the police force is organizing the crime spree, since the robberies always take place in areas no patrol cars have been assigned to. After delivering some bank robbers to police headquarters, she meets with the vacationing chief’s assistant, Glenn Darwin, and informs him of her plan to smoke out the ringleader by announcing on the radio that she has discovered his identity. She mentions that she plans to enter the radio station through a back alley in case any assassins are lurking out front. Thus, when a gunman is waiting for her in the alley, she realizes that Darwin must be her man. She overpowers the gunman and forces him to confess that Darwin sent him there to kill her. Sun Girl then confronts Darwin in his apartment, disarms him, and threatens to break his arm unless he confesses as well. Darwin is taken into custody, and Sun Girl is relieved when the police chief reports back to work a few days later.
Learning that her old enemy Doctor Drearr is up for parole, Sun Girl goes to Glenrock Prison to try to dissuade the warden from releasing him. She is too late, however, as Drearr has already been sent home. A few days later, Sun Girl finds a 100-foot-tall humanoid monster climbing out of the harbor, causing widespread panic. The creature proves impervious to the weaponry of hastily summoned Army and National Guard units, but Sun Girl is able to force it to retreat back to the ocean depths by shining her sunbeam ray into its one good eye. She then tracks Doctor Drearr to the penthouse apartment where he has set up his laboratory. She finds him operating a device to summon more such monsters from the deep. She easily disarms Drearr and forces him to reverse the polarity of his energy beam so the creatures will be driven away from the city. The vengeful scientist tries to shove Sun Girl into the path of the beam, but she punches him in the face. Drearr stumbles into the beam and is shot out into the ocean like a human cannonball, where he drowns. Sun Girl then smashes up Drearr’s equipment with a fireman’s ax. The next day, she returns to the prison to inform the warden of Drearr’s death and the catastrophe he nearly caused.
Sun Girl pays a visit to the one-armed Judge John Murphy to inform him that the man who killed his parents has paid for his crimes with his life. Murphy is astonished that the woman who saved him from becoming a juvenile delinquent almost twenty years ago doesn’t seem to have aged a single day in all that time.
September 1948 – Sun Girl makes the acquaintance of the world-famous android crime-fighter known as the Human Torch. His junior partner, Toro, has taken a leave of absence, leaving him feeling unusually lonely, and he is happy to have the company of a beautiful woman who does not fear his flame. The Torch and Sun Girl team up to clear the name of Robert Dammer, who was framed for murder by the mob boss Joe Esterban. Acting on information from Dammer’s girlfriend, the two heroes witness Esterban murdering notorious stool pigeon Morty Vance, whose fraudulent testimony ensured Dammer’s conviction. Thanks to the heroes’ timely intervention, Vance is able to confess to the police before he dies, exonerating Dammer. Esterban is then taken into custody and charged with Vance’s murder, while Dammer is cleared of the charges against him and released from prison.
Following this success, Sun Girl agrees to help the Torch investigate a case of insurance fraud involving a charity called the National Jazz Foundation, which has been linked to two suspicious deaths. They go to question the noted jazz trumpeter “Scorch” Liddel, who has been promoting the charity from the nightclub he manages. When the heroes arrive, they overhear Liddel arguing with his girlfriend Linda, who has recently made the charity the sole beneficiary of her life insurance policy. Before storming out, Linda reveals that the charity is actually run by Liddel’s boss, nightclub owner Timmy Jordan. The Torch suspects that Jordan is responsible for the deaths when Jordan phones Liddel to say that his lost trumpet has been found and Linda is there waiting for him. The Torch flies on ahead to Jordan’s home while Sun Girl drives Liddel there in her sportscar. When they arrive, they find the Torch has caught Jordan attempting to bludgeon Linda to death with the trumpet, intending to frame Liddel. Jordan is taken into custody while Liddel proposes to Linda. Sun Girl realizes that she finds the Human Torch strangely attractive.
October 1948 – Sun Girl and the Human Torch stumble upon a scheme to smuggle diamonds into the country concealed inside lollipops. The surgeon behind the plot redeems himself when he saves a young girl who ingested one of the hidden diamonds, and the Torch decides to treat him with leniency. Shortly afterward, Sun Girl travels to a small city in Appalachia which is crumbling as the mine shafts underneath it collapse. The owner of the mine, Mr. Grimes, at first refuses to take responsibility, claiming that the measures he took when the mine was closed at the start of the Great Depression were satisfactory. This forces Sun Girl to undertake a perilous investigation of the mine, and she barely escapes a cave-in. When Grimes continues to frustrate her efforts to evacuate the city, Sun Girl barges into his mansion outside of town and confronts him. Grimes’s attitude quickly changes when the tunnels under his estate give way, wrecking his mansion and endangering his granddaughter. He then oversees a speedy evacuation of the city, which is utterly destroyed that night by a final, catastrophic collapse. Grimes assures Sun Girl that the insurance settlement will allow him to rebuild the community. Satisfied, she returns to New York.
Sun Girl joins in the manhunt for the mad scientist George Fredericks, who has escaped from the mental institution where he was committed after apparently murdering his research assistant. She tracks him to his abandoned laboratory and finds him about to smash up his complex array of electrical equipment with a lead pipe. Fearing Fredericks will be electrocuted, Sun Girl stops him, but he raves about needing to destroy the entities that killed his assistant. In order to prove his bizarre story, Fredericks activates his machines, which tear open a rift in the spacetime continuum, allowing weirdly translucent green aliens to materialize in the lab. One of the aliens immediately grabs Sun Girl by the throat and tries to strangle her, lending credence to Fredericks’s story, but the alien backs off when she shines her sunbeam ray in its face. Sun Girl then watches in horror as Fredericks sacrifices himself to close the rift, sealing the murderous aliens out of Earth’s dimension forever. The intense heat and vibrations emanating from the destabilized rift drive Sun Girl out of the building just seconds before it is annihilated by an implosion. When the police arrive on the scene, she tells them only that Fredericks was inside the building when it was destroyed, knowing they would never believe the truth. Sun Girl is struck by the irony that Fredericks gave his life to save humanity but will be remembered only as a homicidal maniac.
Sun Girl is giving an interview to newspaper reporter Ches Bradwyck in a coffee shop when their conversation is interrupted by two brothers fighting over their inheritance. Sun Girl breaks up the fight, but the disinherited brother, Dick Worth, and his shrewish wife Laura insult her and storm out. Curious, Sun Girl follows the other brother, John, home, learning that he is a medical doctor. After a large safe is delivered to the house, Sun Girl slips in through a window to check it out, finding herself in a private laboratory. However, John discovers her and warns her away from some radioactive materials he’s using for research. He dismisses her concern that Dick and Laura will try to steal the contents of the safe, so she leaves. After dinner, though, Sun Girl decides she’d better keep a discreet eye on the property in any case. She returns in time to see the greedy couple sneaking into the house and breaking open the safe. They then fight over a small package they find inside. When John surprises them, Dick shoots him in the chest, prompting Sun Girl to charge into the room and disarm him. She then informs the would-be thieves that the package they took from the lead-lined safe contains more radioactive materials, and by handling it without proper protection, they’ve given themselves fatal radiation poisoning. John is then rushed to the hospital, where he recovers from his gunshot wound, while Dick and Laura are sent to prison. They soon succumb to radiation sickness, but Sun Girl is satisfied that they’ve gotten their just deserts.
Sun Girl is enjoying the fall colors at the Quartz Lake recreation area when she saves a lovesick loser named Ferd Farrel from drowning. No sooner has she dragged him to safety than a gigantic humanoid shape made of crystal shards emerges from the water and wanders into the woods, where any living thing it touches is instantly petrified. To get help, Ferd leads Sun Girl to the chemical research laboratory where he works, about half a mile away. Unfortunately, Ferd’s boss, Professor Weaver, has already fallen victim to the monster’s touch. Leaving the scientist’s distraught daughter Elsie behind, Sun Girl and Ferd race to warn the residents of the nearest town. As the evacuation begins, Sun Girl sees more crystal monsters emerging from the lake and realizes they will likely reach New York City in a week if they can’t be stopped. When the military’s attempt to bomb the monsters ends in failure, Ferd admits that he is responsible for their rampage—after getting into an argument with Professor Weaver while attempting to impress Elsie with his assertiveness, Ferd stole the chemical mixture they were working on in a fit of pique and threw it into the lake, just moments before Sun Girl rescued him. Assuming that the chemical somehow interacted with the minerals in the lake water to produce the crystal monsters, Sun Girl takes Ferd back to the laboratory, where he works with Elsie to recreate the experiment. There, Sun Girl discovers the monsters’ weakness—dry ice breaks down their crystalline lattice, causing them to disintegrate. She quickly informs the military, which then uses bombers to drop packages of dry ice onto the shambling monsters, destroying them. Over the following week, the military neutralizes the chemicals in the lake after making a thorough study of the contaminated water. Meanwhile, Sun Girl plays matchmaker and convinces Elsie to pursue a romantic relationship with Ferd. She decides to keep the young couple’s role in the crisis a secret to protect their privacy.
November 1948 – Inspired by her own advice to Elsie Weaver, Sun Girl initiates a romance with the Human Torch. He proves to be very receptive to her advances, and although he is a synthetic man created in a laboratory only a decade ago, she finds him to be a very sensuous lover. The fact that he does not age also appeals to her. Shortly afterward, thousands of household pets and other domesticated animals suddenly start attacking and killing their owners, prompting the nation’s scientists to convene to analyze the strange phenomenon. Sun Girl and the Torch meet up with Captain America, a teammate in the All-Winners Squad, at a research institute in Manhattan where a Professor Jefferson reveals that the violence is being caused by energy rays emanating from another dimension. Jefferson speculates that the effect will soon spread to people, causing the human race to destroy itself in a paroxysm of murderous madness. However, he believes the Human Torch could use his dimensional-rift generator to travel to the other world and cut the rays off at the source. Sun Girl and Captain America are willing to accompany him, but since he alone possesses the power of flight, the Torch realizes he must undertake the dangerous mission alone. As Jefferson needs many hours to make the proper preparations, Sun Girl and the Torch spend a passionate night together, knowing it may be his last.
The next morning, they all meet up again on the tarmac at LaGuardia Airport in Queens, where Professor Jefferson has set up his dimensional-rift generator. As the Torch says his farewells, Sun Girl is surprised to find herself getting really emotional about it. A crowd of spectators watches in awe as the Torch flies through Jefferson’s dimensional gateway. Sun Girl and Captain America then join Jefferson in his control room to anxiously await the Torch’s return. Several hours later, Jefferson announces that the energy rays have ceased, meaning the Torch succeeded in that phase of his mission, but it remains to be seen if he’ll make it back to Earth safely. Soon after, the Torch comes hurtling out of the dimensional gateway with his flame extinguished. Captain America leaps into action and breaks his teammate’s fall, though both men are stunned by the impact. Sun Girl fears they’ve been killed, but they quickly revive. The Torch then reports that he encountered a race of demonic-looking creatures that inhabited a hellish landscape. They nearly overwhelmed him as he traced the energy rays back to their source, a huge boiling pool of fluid inside a cave. Several of the creatures were killed by a sudden meteor bombardment, he reveals, and the rest were drowned when he melted the basin that contained the unearthly fluid, flooding the cavern. After sealing the cave, he made the perilous journey back to Earth. Sun Girl is thrilled by her lover’s victory, and Captain America commends his bravery.
After entertaining the kids at a children’s hospital in Manhattan, Sun Girl playfully challenges the Human Torch to solve his next case without using his flame powers. The Torch accepts, adding that if he is forced to use his powers, he’ll donate $1,000 to the hospital for each time he flames on. A new case soon presents itself as the Torch is summoned to the state penitentiary to discuss a situation involving Dan Patcher, an armed robber whom the Torch apprehended back in 1940. There, Patcher reveals that the rest of his gang, who escaped capture, has been threatening his wife and nine-year-old son to force him to reveal the location of the loot from his last job. The Torch decides to disguise himself as Patcher to infiltrate the gang while Sun Girl guards his family. The next day, after getting tipped off by the Torch, Sun Girl leads the police to an abandoned building where the gang is holed up. Hearing machine gun fire, they storm in and find the Torch has been badly beaten by the gang after they discovered his deception. The criminals are quickly apprehended, and the Torch is rushed to the hospital for treatment. Sun Girl is very impressed that he took a beating without resorting to his flame powers. When the Torch also donates the $20,000 reward to the children’s hospital, Sun Girl decides to reward him with some tender loving.
While the Torch recuperates, Sun Girl pays a visit to Appalachia to check on the progress of the community devastated by the mine collapse. Mr. Grimes and his granddaughter drive her out to a new housing development to be named Suntown in her honor. Sun Girl agrees to come back for the dedication ceremony when the first phase of the planned 700 units is complete.
December 1948 – Sun Girl and the Human Torch face a diabolical death trap while assisting the police with tracking down a bank robber known in the media as “the Granite Bandit” for his use of quick-hardening liquid stone to immobilize his victims. The crook, a failed sculptor named Corelli, invites the heroic couple to his studio, where a trap door sends them into a deep shaft that quickly fills up with the liquid stone compound. Luckily, Corelli lowers breathing tubes to them before the sludge hardens, hoping to prolong their agony. This enables the Torch to use his flame to melt away the stone over the course of several hours. When Corelli and his gang return from another robbery that evening, Sun Girl and the Torch take them by surprise and confiscate the sludge-spraying “granite gun.” Though the gang is apprehended, Corelli manages to slip away in the confusion. Several days later, he takes Sun Girl by surprise and encases her in his liquid stone, having recreated his strange weapon. Unable to break free, she remains trapped for several hours before being rescued again by the Torch, who has finally captured Corelli. When the Torch asks Sun Girl how she’s doing after her grueling ordeal, she admits only to feeling hungry.
The appearance of an army of extraterrestrial phantoms in New York City causes a general panic, prompting Sun Girl to investigate. This leads her to the Westchester County estate of an elderly physicist named Professor Blair, whose adventurous son Arthur captured one of the aliens and confiscated its interdimensional transport device. Unfortunately, Arthur was fatally wounded while scouting out the alien dimension and has died. Having learned from his son that the phantoms are the spearhead of an invasion force, Professor Blair offers the transport device to Sun Girl. She agrees to travel to the aliens’ realm to try to head off the invasion. Once there, she is soon captured by the aliens’ ruthless dictator, Kain, and taken back to his palace, where she convinces Kain’s lover, Princess Cara, to aid her. Sun Girl then uses her sunbeam ray like a laser to destroy the armament factory where the transport devices are manufactured along with other weaponry. Following Kain and his troops into the interdimensional vortex, Sun Girl uses her sunbeam ray to destroy the transport devices on their belts. The resulting explosions tear apart Kain’s army and blast their bodies into Upper New York Bay, where they are soon washed into the ocean. Materializing in the harbor, Sun Girl swims to Battery Park and learns from Professor Blair that the aliens’ advance preparations caused only very limited damage. She is confident that Princess Cara will not pursue Kain’s dreams of conquest.
After intervening in a gangland killing and helping the authorities stop a large gorilla that escaped from a circus, Sun Girl rescues a scientist who is drifting through the sky after an anti-gravity experiment goes awry. The scientist explains that he inadvertently recruited the small-time crook “Peanuts” McCoy as a test subject. The experiment granted McCoy the ability to leap high into the air and land without injury, like a human grasshopper. McCoy then used the anti-gravity device to render the scientist weightless and made good his escape. However, while pursuing McCoy, Sun Girl and the crook are both abducted by aliens and taken to their distant planet, Zarko. There, the Zarkovian Council of Elders informs the pair that they are to be indoctrinated in Zarkovian philosophy and returned to Earth as their emissaries. Balking at the prospect, McCoy produces a gun and shoots a couple of the councilors before Sun Girl can tackle him. The disgusted Zarkovians immediately gas their two prisoners into unconsciousness.
January 1949 – When Sun Girl comes to, she finds herself and “Peanuts” McCoy lying in a field on Earth. To his chagrin, McCoy discovers that he has lost his superhuman leaping ability, the effects of the anti-gravity experiment having worn off while he was in space. Sun Girl easily apprehends the crook and delivers him to the nearest police station, where she learns a month has passed since their abduction. She assumes the Zarkovians canceled their plans after witnessing human brutality firsthand.
Sun Girl contacts the Human Torch, who has been frantic with worry since she vanished four weeks ago, and they resume their torrid love affair. After having sex in his apartment, they are watching television coverage of a hockey game when the broadcast is interrupted by a news bulletin. The heroes are shocked to learn that U.S. President Harry S. Truman has vanished into thin air outside the White House. They race to Washington, D.C. to offer their help to the investigation. When various random people and objects continue to disappear throughout the day, the Torch, acting on a hunch, takes Sun Girl to Independence Hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There, they manage to grab onto the Liberty Bell as it begins to disappear and find themselves transported to another dimension, where everything appears strangely distorted. They quickly rescue President Truman from a museum where he has been put on display with the other loot from Earth. The aliens are not prepared for the Torch’s flame powers, and he is thus able to force them to surrender. All the kidnapped people and stolen objects are then returned to their point of origin, and Sun Girl and the Human Torch head back to New York City.
Sun Girl and the Human Torch investigate the crime spree of a down-on-his-luck comedian known as Mark Funny, who has developed a hypnotic ability that causes people to laugh uncontrollably. When Funny forces three elderly millionaires to laugh themselves to death, the heroes realize he has moved beyond armed robbery and is now a murderer. They track Funny to his hideout in the basement of his mentor’s mansion and take him into custody. Funny is subsequently sentenced to die in the electric chair.
Sun Girl takes a train out to the Hopi Reservation in Arizona when she is invited to participate in their Festival of the Sun. She is met by a tribal delegation and is treated to a traditional Hopi feast that evening, followed by a meet-and-greet event for local VIPs. Afterwards, while relaxing in her hotel room, Sun Girl hears a news bulletin on the radio reporting that a nearby jewelry store has been robbed by “unearthly beings.” Tired out by her busy day, she decides to let the local police handle it. Over breakfast the next morning, she reads more about the robbery and subsequent crimes, which seem to have been committed by a trio of small robots who are only interested in gold, ignoring all other valuables. Though intrigued by the strange case, she heads off to the Hopi festival, where she is greeted with much pomp and circumstance. She gives a speech expressing her deep appreciation for Hopi culture, but when the Hopi hail her as “the golden goddess,” she begins to worry that they have somehow divined her true identity. She leaves the festival without stopping to sign autographs, only to be ambushed by the three robots, who shock her into unconsciousness.
When she comes to, Sun Girl discovers she has again been kidnapped by aliens and is en route to their home planet, Autan. The robots reveal that they were sent to Earth to get gold, for which their “brain-master” has an insatiable appetite. For some reason, the robots believe Sun Girl to be “all gold.” When the ship lands on the gloomy, barren world, the robots shackle Sun Girl’s wrists behind her back and chain her ankles together. She is then led into the presence of the brain-master, a hideous cyborg creature composed of a gigantic organic brain with a sort of face beneath it and various mechanical appendages. Communicating telepathically, the brain-master tells Sun Girl of its plan to strip-mine Earth for all its gold. She finds the telepathic touch of its thoughts loathsome in the extreme. Another robot then enters and reports that the humanoid slaves who labor in the brain-master’s gold mines are refusing to work. Unwilling to stand by while the slaves are summarily executed, Sun Girl offers to intercede on the brain-master’s behalf. The monster relents and orders the robots to take Sun Girl out to the gold mines, though she is to remain shackled at all times.
Arriving at the labor camp, Sun Girl finds a ragtag group of half-naked slaves with their leader, Grail, a tall, well-built man. She convinces Grail not to offer any resistance until he hears her proposals. They are then joined by Grail’s blind wife, Mara, whereupon Sun Girl quietly outlines her plan to destroy the brain-master and free the slaves. Thus, Grail announces that the revolt is over and that his people will return to work while he is taken hostage. The robots shackle Grail in the same manner as Sun Girl and transport the two prisoners back to the brain-master’s lair. When he sees the brain-master for the first time, Grail recoils in exaggerated horror and purposefully backs into Sun Girl. She activates her sunbeam ray and disintegrates Grail’s shackles. While he keeps the monster busy, Sun Girl frees herself, then fires a searing energy beam at the gigantic brain, burning through its quivering tissues. As the brain-master dies, its robots cease to function and collapse. Sun Girl and Grail then hike back to the gold mines to liberate the slaves. Subsequently, Grail and Mara take Sun Girl back to Earth in the robots’ spaceship and drop her off. Sun Girl feels pretty proud of herself for literally saving an entire civilization with both hands tied behind her back.
February 1949 – Sun Girl and the Human Torch take a romantic vacation to a ski resort in the Swiss Alps. While there, they discover that a mad scientist called Professor Grimm has kidnapped a toddler from a hospital in Geneva and turned him into a giant he refers to as “Borkor.” The giant toddler begins terrorizing the resort and the nearby village as Grimm steals resources to continue his experiments. The heroes track Borkor to Grimm’s hidden laboratory in a cave high up on the mountain. When Grimm heads down to the village for supplies, Sun Girl and the Human Torch slip into the cave. Using Grimm’s notes, they create a serum to reverse the effects of the experiment and inject it into Borkor’s body. He immediately goes berserk and charges down the mountain to the village, where he accidentally crushes Grimm to death with a broken tree trunk. The serum then finally takes effect, changing Borkor back to his normal size. After contacting the authorities in Geneva, Sun Girl and the Torch reunite Borkor, whose real name turns out to be Felix, with his parents. The grateful couple insists that the heroes join them for a home-cooked meal and a cozy evening in front of the fireplace. After enjoying the rest of their lovers’ getaway, Sun Girl and the Human Torch head home to New York City.
Sun Girl arranges to interview a young astronomer, Elmo Vandal, who is doing some interesting research on cosmic rays. When she arrives at the observatory, though, she finds Vandal and his senior colleague, Professor Lowe, frantically trying to track a strange metallic sphere with their telescope. Vandal explains that the sphere seems to be giving off a rhythmic signal, such as might be produced by an alien intelligence. Professor Lowe takes a moment to introduce Sun Girl to his daughter Inez and his research assistant Roger Reed. Suddenly, the telescope’s scanner screen explodes in Vandal’s face, dazzling him with an intense burst of light. Vandal refuses to seek medical attention and orders everyone except Reed to vacate the premises. Outside, Lowe apologizes to Sun Girl for the cancellation of the interview. Noting an abrupt change in Vandal’s demeanor following the explosion, Sun Girl returns home. Not long after, she meets with newspaper reporter Ches Bradwyck again and tells him all about her encounter with the Worth family, revealing that John Worth has returned to his medical research while Dick and Laura are dying of radiation poisoning in jail. Breswyck admits that it’s a crackerjack story.
March 1949 – Sun Girl is surprised when Inez Lowe turns up on her doorstep, clearly despondent over recent events at the observatory. Concerned by the situation, Sun Girl returns to the scene and arrives in time to watch as the strange metallic sphere comes in for a gentle landing near the building. Vandal and Reed run outside to meet it, only to be menaced by slimy tentacles that emerge from portholes on the sphere’s surface. Sun Girl charges in, but one of the tentacles whips around and slams her into a tree branch, knocking her out. When she comes to, Sun Girl sees Vandal, apparently under the mental domination of the creature within the sphere, shoot Reed in the back. She tackles Vandal and disarms him just as Professor Lowe and Inez arrive in their car. Though grievously wounded, Reed tells Inez to get inside the observatory and shut off Vandal’s machine. Sun Girl keeps the tentacles busy to allow Inez to succeed. The sphere immediately lifts off, but a tentacle shoots out and grabs Vandal, carrying him up into the sky. Sun Girl is content to let Vandal die in the upper atmosphere, but Professor Lowe insists they try to save him by reactivating the machine. They enter the observatory but find that Inez has wrecked the machine with a fireman’s ax and set it on fire. Inez regrets her rash action, though, when she realizes that Reed’s wounds are not fatal. Reed is taken to the hospital, where he makes a full recovery. He confirms that the creature within the sphere was bent on world conquest and was using Vandal like a puppet. Having looked through the telescope, Sun Girl knows that Vandal was hauled inside the sphere as it rose through the air, and she wonders what horrors the hapless scientist will face in outer space.
Sun Girl and the Human Torch take a transcontinental flight aboard a DC-3 from New York City to Los Angeles. Somewhere over the Grand Canyon, a dazzling beam of light shoots up from the ground and disables the plane’s systems. The Human Torch exits the aircraft and enables it to make a safe landing at the nearest airstrip. Upon investigation, the two heroes discover a plot to drive the airline into bankruptcy so it can be taken over by the Eastern Star corporation. The treacherous executive is exposed, and his energy beam is destroyed by the Torch. With the situation resolved, Sun Girl and the Human Torch continue on their way to California.
April 1949 – Back in New York City, Sun Girl and the Human Torch are frustrated by the ingenious crime spree of Dizzy Daze, a goofy-looking crook in a clownish outfit. His latest heist, committed the previous day, was stealing the world’s largest emerald from Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue, right out from under the nose of the store’s security team. The heroes head out to locate Daze, and they soon find him and his partner-in-crime, Monk Mayhem, flying around high above the city in a single-engine plane trailing a banner emblazoned with a challenge to the Torch. The heroes approach somewhat overconfidently and are captured by Daze’s elaborate gizmos. Dangling Sun Girl beneath the plane, Daze demands that the Torch sell the stolen emerald back to Tiffany’s for a million dollars. Worried for his lover’s safety, the Torch agrees. He takes the emerald and flies off through the clouds. Sometime later, he returns carrying a check, and Sun Girl is irritated that Daze has gotten the better of them. A moment later, things go from bad to worse when Daze suddenly sends her plummeting toward the ground. The Torch comes blazing out of the plane and saves her, setting her safely down on terra firma before streaking off after their foes again. A few hours later, Sun Girl rendezvouses with the Human Torch, and she is gratified to learn that both Daze and Mayhem are in police custody. She commends the Torch for remaining undefeated.
Soon after, the Human Torch’s regular partner, the 20-year-old Toro, returns from his leave of absence. He is not happy to find he’s been replaced by a woman and is clearly jealous of the Torch’s relationship with the blond bombshell. Sun Girl quickly grows annoyed with the Torch’s inability to resolve his divided loyalties, and as tensions escalate, the couple decides to take a break from each other. Sun Girl elects to leave New York for a while and travel the world. She soon convinces herself that her relationship with the Human Torch was only tying her down, though she hopes their estrangement will ultimately convince the Torch to choose her over Toro.
May 1949 – Hearing tales of a lost tribe of Aztecs who still worship the sun, Sun Girl hooks up with a scientific expedition in that region of Mexico that is setting up to photograph a total solar eclipse. She hits it off with the handsome Professor Leary and is disturbed several days later when Leary is kidnapped by the lost tribe while off with a scouting party in the jungle. Unwilling to wait for government troops to handle the situation, Sun Girl sets off into the jungle to rescue Leary on her own. She soon discovers the Aztecs in a remote valley and is horrified to see that they are literally cooking Leary to death using large lenses to focus the sun’s rays on him while he is tied to a post atop their temple. She tries to convince the high priest that she is a messenger from their sun god, Huitzilopochtli, but the priest is not fooled since he was educated out in the civilized world. He orders the temple guards to chain Sun Girl to a post next to Leary, who is mumbling deliriously about the impending solar eclipse. Realizing it’s about to start, Sun Girl calls out to the Aztecs, warning them that the wrath of Huitzilopochtli will darken the sky. When this comes to pass, the terrified Aztecs turn on their high priest and, ignoring his attempts to explain the phenomenon, hurl him from the top of the temple. He is killed instantly when his body hits the ground. After the eclipse passes, the grateful Aztecs escort Sun Girl and Leary out of the valley. Back at their base camp, Sun Girl decides not to pursue a relationship with Leary, feeling ready to return to the United States. She does consider writing their experience up as an adventure novel, though.
June 1949 – Back in New York City, Sun Girl is reluctant to contact the Human Torch, hoping he’ll make the first move. She regrets her stratagem, though, when it is reported that both the Torch and Toro have vanished without a trace. She immediately begins an investigation into their disappearances, but the few clues she finds all lead to dead ends. She worries that the Torch’s winning streak against organized crime has finally come to an ignominious end. Despite her own efforts and a full-scale police investigation, no sign of the two flaming crime-fighters can be found. Sun Girl is emotionally devastated. Soon after, the remaining members of the All-Winners Squad decide to disband.
July 1949 – Sun Girl realizes that the age of superheroes has come to a close. She acknowledges that her own war on crime has fizzled out due to her obsessive search for her android lover, and so she decides to hang up her black-and-gold costume once and for all.
August 1949 – Odin contacts Sun Girl and commands her to return to Asgard and resume her true identity as Sól, goddess of the sun. The All-Father reveals that he has banished his headstrong son Thor to Earth in the form of a mortal medical student and doesn’t want to risk him encountering any other Asgardians. Sól dutifully obeys and abandons her life on Earth, soon reuniting with Mundilfari and Máni in Odin’s kingdom.
October 1949 – Sól joins the rest of the Ásynjur as they begin their scheduled 20-year shift watching over the nine Young Gods that have been gathered over the last millennium and kept in suspended animation in anticipation of the coming of the Fourth Host of the Celestials. In their hidden underground temple, which is unwittingly guarded by Fafnir the Dragon, Sól regales the other goddesses with stories of her two decades of adventure on Midgard.
Notes:
1928–1930 – Sun Girl’s history with Doctor Drearr and Johnny Murphy is revealed in the second and third stories in Sun Girl #1. At the end of Johnny’s tale, he appears with Sun Girl as an adult judge in his courtroom, indicating that the bulk of the story took place many years previously. I believe it was long before she adopted her superhero identity, and so the depiction of her as Sun Girl in the story is inaccurate. Interestingly, this is about the only story in which she appears in civilian clothes. I derived the alias “Sunny Monday” from her real name (Sól, daughter of Mundilfari) with the presumption that her first attempt at creating a human identity would not be entirely convincing. As far as I know, the Norse goddess Sól has never appeared in a Marvel comic.
1931–1947 – The name “Mary Mitchell” comes from Roy Thomas’s non-canonical Saga of the Original Human Torch #3, where, true to form, he made Sun Girl a simpering secretary with no superpowers.
July–August 1948 – Sun Girl roots out corruption in the police department in the first story in Sun Girl #1, in which her reputation as a crime-fighter is already established. She never received a proper origin story during her original run. Doctor Drearr seeks revenge on her in the second story in the same issue. Presumably, the monsters from the deep that Doctor Drearr summons are the result of the Deviants’ genetic experiments. As mentioned above, Sun Girl makes a one-panel cameo in the present day with Judge John Murphy at the end of the third story. She does not appear to have aged at all since he was a teenager.
September 1948 – Sun Girl first joins forces with the original Human Torch in two stories in Human Torch Comics #32. This issue also features the first appearance of Sun Girl’s black sportscar, which looks like a bullet-nosed Studebaker Champion to me.
October 1948 – Sun Girl assists the Human Torch with the case of the deadly lollipops in Marvel Mystery Comics #88. Later in the same issue, she goes solo to Appalachia. The collapsing city is fictionalized as “Largetown” but may be in the vicinity of ill-fated Clairton, West Virginia. Sun Girl then meets George Fredericks, the Worth family, and Ferd Farrel in the three stories in Sun Girl #2.
November 1948 – The Captain America who appears in Human Torch Comics #33 is Jeff Mace, the third man to wear the costume. He served in the Liberty Legion during the war as the Patriot. In the story as written, the Human Torch flies to the planet Jupiter under his own power. This is, of course, impossible, so I decided the aliens must inhabit some hellish other dimension instead. It seems likely, in fact, that the demonic creatures seen in this story are actually the N’Garai. Their boiling pool of fluid that emits some kind of energy that drives mortal beings into murderous madness is similar in many ways to the Sa’arpools used by the N’Garai. This may reveal what sort of thing lies on the other side of the three Sa’arpools on Earth. I would speculate that the Torch’s description of his experience convinced Professor Jefferson that he’d created a portal to hell, and he then destroyed his dimensional-rift generator out of religious conviction. Sun Girl and the Human Torch then team up to help the Patcher family in Captain America Comics #69. Sun Girl returns to Appalachia in the last four panels of the second story in Marvel Mystery Comics #88.
December 1948 – Sun Girl and the Human Torch defeat the Granite Bandit in the first story in Marvel Mystery Comics #89. Sun Girl’s hours-long imprisonment inside a shell of stone suggests that she cannot die from suffocation. In the second story in the same issue, Sun Girl works alone to stop Kain’s invasion of Earth. It is here revealed that her “sunbeam ray” is a devastating weapon rather than just a powerful flashlight. Sun Girl and the Human Torch get involved when two old-school gangsters try to kill each other in Sub-Mariner Comics #29. Sun Girl then stops the rampaging gorilla (I believe the King Kong elements of the story are exaggerated) and captures the obnoxious “Peanuts” McCoy in the two stories in Sun Girl #3, the last issue of her solo series.
January 1949 – Sun Girl and the Human Torch rescue President Truman from a dimension with the unlikely name of “Flatula,” they stop the murderous crime spree of a comedian with the unlikely name of “Mark Funny,” and she goes it alone (while in bondage) against the unlikely threat of the gold-eating alien brain-master in the three rather crude tales presented in Human Torch Comics #34. The location of the Hopi Reservation is misidentified in the story as New Mexico rather than Arizona.
February 1949 – Sun Girl and the Human Torch take a ski trip to Europe and fight a big baby in the first story in Marvel Mystery Comics #90. She then visits Professor Lowe’s observatory in the first part of the second story in the same issue. Her visit with Ches Bradwyck occurs in the last panel of the second story in Sun Girl #2.
March 1949 – The adventure at Professor Lowe’s observatory picks up a month later in the second part of the second story in Marvel Mystery Comics #90. Sun Girl and the Human Torch then travel to Los Angeles for some reason (and foil some corporate shenanigans along the way) in Human Torch Comics #35, at which point that series was cancelled.
April 1949 – Sun Girl and the Human Torch have their last adventure together in Marvel Mystery Comics #91, taking on the clownish Dizzy Daze.
May 1949 – We next see Sun Girl in an odd little two-page featurette published a year and half later in Marvel Tales #97. (Marvel Mystery Comics was re-christened after it was converted into a horror anthology book). It may well have been pieced together using panels from a leftover story. The Aztecs are misidentified as Incas, and they are said to worship the Egyptian god Ra for some unfathomable reason. Clearly, the writer of this tale didn’t do any research at all, so I fixed it. This would prove to be the character’s final appearance.
June 1949 – The disappearance of the Human Torch and Toro is revealed a few years later in Young Men #24.
July 1949 – Captain America Comics also came to an end at this time, drawing the curtain down on Marvel’s Golden Age of Superheroes.
August 1949 – Thor’s banishment to Earth is first shown in Thor #159 and revisited much later in Thor #415. I place it at this point in the chronology to have enough time for Donald Blake to complete his medical education and establish his own private practice before regaining his godly identity in 1962. For more details, see my Thor chronology.
October 1949 – The Ásynjur are seen returning to Asgard in Thor #274, which takes place in 1969. It’s possible that Sól is one of the unidentified blond goddesses appearing in that scene. Their role in the plan to stop the Fourth Host of the Celestials from destroying the world is explained in Thor #301.
To view these events in a wider context, see OMU: Ancient History 4.
Next Issue: Ant-Man – Year Five
