It’s rare that you find a historical hero who is instantly anachronistic, but Miss Liberty is that hero. Count the stars on her top (which, at the time, would have probably only have been suitable for a really, really weird prostitute, but never mind that now). At a bare minimum she has sewn 24 into the fabric. This, at a time when there were thirteen states. Presumably Miss Liberty was either innumerate or very, very optimistic.
But she can’t be optimistic, because her reasons for wearing the ridiculous costume in the first place are inherently pessimistic – she was worried that if she openly opposed the British, that the British would retaliate by doing bad stuff to her brother who was captive in Britain. Given the even-then large population of the colonies and the multiple-week travel time, this seems terribly unlikely; given the general lack of anything resembling a census or organized databases of geneological information it seems nearly impossible. Perhaps this was merely an excuse; Ms. Lynn decided that, by gum, she was going to put on her ridiculous costume better suited to the mid-18th century (at least in terms of state count) and fight the British with a sword and whip.
Also note that Miss Liberty was eventually crushed to death by the Liberty Bell, which definitely earns her a spot on the Stupidest Superhero Deaths Of All Time roster. I mean, at least Batman was shot with magic death eyebeams rather than, say, being smothered by bats. Miss Liberty’s Liberty-Bell-themed death is worthy of The Puzzler. “You called yourself Miss Liberty and your real name is Bell! Now you’re dead because of the Liberty Bell! PUZZLER!”
Although she is quite sad, she is a patriotic-type hero, and the bar is set lower for them. I didn’t make the rules. Well, I did, but in this case it’s more of a societal trend re: comical books.
Related Articles
22 users responded in this post
If Puzzler got revived as the new Onomatopoeia, I would be pleased.
Count the stars on her top … At a bare minimum she has sewn 24 into the fabric. This, at a time when there were thirteen states. Presumably Miss Liberty was either innumerate or very, very optimistic.
Hey it could be worse. She could be wearing a shirt with a snake in the middle of it and “Don’t Tread on Me” plastered over her chest…
Look for this costume to get relaunched in a new Geoff Johns mini series when a descendant of Miss Liberty joins a JSA spin-off team of all patriot themed characters who don’t do much. It opens with a hero vs hero whip fight between Mr America and Miss Liberty!
Christ, she debued in an issue of Tomahawk! TOMAHAWK! I don’t think there has ever been a good issue of Tomahawk. I can only hope that the person that dropped the Liberty Bell on her (Looney Tunes stlye) was Lord Shilling!
My question is if she’s this heroic traveling nurse/patriot freedom fighter who was single and died near the end of the war, how does she have descendants?
“Miss Liberty’s Liberty-Bell-themed death is worthy of The Puzzler. ‘You called yourself Miss Liberty and your real name is Bell! Now you’re dead because of the Liberty Bell! PUZZLER!'”
Hurm.
But it says up there, in that picture at the top of the page, that her real name was Bess.
On second thought, that may be perfectly in keeping for the Puzzler. He’s good at homonyms, not reading for content.
I count 25 stars.
Exar: They don’t have to be direct descendants. They could be her brother’s kids.
Wait… wait… she was worried about her brother in England? So she has no other siblings? Her parents are dead? And if Liberty Belle is a descendant of hers then Miss Liberty (despite her marital status being “single”) must have had at least one child…
Actually that could explain it. She got pregnant, had to give the baby up for adoption, and the rest of her family disowned her aside from that one brother.
But… that origin just needed a few words changed to make some sense at least. Make Liberty Belle a descendant of her brother rather than her. And give her a better reason for the disguise…
“During the American Revolutionary War the Lynn family were firmly on the side of those seeking independence. However most of their neighbours were loyalists and so welcomed the British forces arriving to restore order against what they saw as dangerous anarchy. Bess Lynn realised that openly opposing the British would cause retaliation against her family, either by the British seizing their property to give to loyalists (in the same way as revolutionaries had seized loyalist property) or direct reprisals from their neighbours.
Therefore she decided on a dangerous ploy. The majority of people might be loyalist but there was a strong minority who would support the Revolution if they could be organised covertly. To do this though she would need to be able to travel more freely and be regarded as being above suspicion.
Bess publicly denounced the Revolution and her family’s support of it before volunteering to serve as a nurse with the British forces. Her family was horrified and disowned her, but the loyalists praised her good sense and the British accepted her as a volunteer. This was only the first stage of her plan though, now she would be travelling from place to place with the British Army, and in a position to eavesdrop within their camp and on the dying or wounded soldiers she was tending, she needed some way of approaching revolutionaries with her ideas and information without being tarred and feathered.
Thus the identity of Miss Liberty was born. Where Bess Lynn was now a symbol of the loyalist cause so would Miss Liberty be an even stronger symbol of the revolutionary one. Over the years of the American Revolutionary War she was able to organise a “women’s underground” and was a frequent ally of the legendary freedom fighter and frontiersman Tomahawk when she chose to exchange sabotage for espionage.
Miss Liberty died shortly before the end of the American Revolutionary War when the great bell that would later be called the Liberty Bell fell on her and crushed her. The revelation of her true identity was a great shock to her family who had been cursing her as a traitor and it was not until many years after her death, when passions had cooled a little, that it became more widely known.”
New Frontier had Pooch with the Losers, the Crisis special had Pooch with the Losers, the Vertigo Losers had a Pooch, every internet source says Pooch joined the Losers, BUT NOT ONE STORY FROM THE ORIGINAL RUN HAD POOCH WORK ALONGSIDE THE LOSERS.
I’m sorry, carry on.
Frontier nurse? Frontier nurse?? Frontier nurse???
Look, I’m not asking for much effort at versimilitude, but how about reading _Last of the Mohicans_?
Or she could *BE* Liberty Belle. The wording in the old Liberty Belle comics a little hinky, but it seems to imply that Libby was given some powers because, as a physically and mentally fit woman, she was best suited to deal with the problems of WW2. Maybe the spirit of Miss Liberty, trapped in the Nth metal impurities of the Liberty Belle (that’s added by me), chose Libby to carry on her tradition. Therefore, she’s a direct descendant of Miss Liberty, not in blood but in destiny.
Exar: “My question is if she’s this heroic traveling nurse/patriot freedom fighter who was single and died near the end of the war, how does she have descendants?”
Clearly she was a trollop and a wanton floozy. Her child (or children!) were taken away from her because of her low moral character. Other evidence of this is that she dresses like a “really, really weird prostitute”.
America, founded by tax evaders, smugglers, slavers and floozies.
Actually, you mean the mid-19th century, not 18th. It’s that old trick where the 18th century means the 1700’s. The Revolutionary War of course took place in the mid-to-late 18th century.
Wow. So not good.
Just as an innocent question (I hope), is there a reason you’re only focusing on characters from DC’s attempted character encyclopedia? I enjoy them, but I was wondering if you had a specific reason you didn’t want to do Marvel characters, or if it’s more about being too busy to do two weekly series of character spotlights.
Because that’s what I gotz. If I had scans of the old “Complete Guide To The Marvel Universe,” I might switch it up every so often.
Wow, I didn’t even consider that as a reason. I was just assuming you had both available.
DC Who’s Who was far better than the Guide to the Marvel Universe.
Man, it looks like Peggy Hill is gonna kick some ass this July fourth.
Seriously, something that DC rarely, if ever, acknowledges is that, as far as I can tell, Miss Liberty was that universe’s first costumed/masked hero, beating out Crimson Avenger (in the DCU timeline, not ours) by a good 150+ years.
One can make a case for the Silent Knight preceding her, but since his costume was a regular for the time suit of armor that by default would include a masking helm, I give credit to Miss Liberty for the costume/mask as a separate outfit bit.
The number of stars on a patriotic hero does not necessarily have to correlate to the number of stars on the flag. If the image sought after is one of instant iconography, merely having stars and stripes should be instantly recognizable.
For example, I doubt she only had 13 stripes on her tights. But I don’t see any reason for her not to have more for the sake of convenience.
And crushed by a bell. Wow. My mind keeps going back to 2001 Maniacs and how they missed the obvious “belle of the ball” line.
So… Let me get this straight. Miss Liberty served as an actual inspiration for the WWII Liberty Belle, so she honors her ancestor, not by taking her name, but by taking the name of the mcguffin that killed her? Sure, why not.