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MASKED MAIDEN

Real Name: Unrevealed

Identity/Class: Unrevealed (1940s era)

Occupation: Unrevealed

Group Membership: Unrevealed

Affiliations: Unrevealed

Enemies: Unrevealed

Known Relatives: Unrevealed

Aliases: Unrevealed

Base of Operations: Unrevealed

First Appearance: All-Winners Squad: Band of Heroes#1 (August, 2011)

Powers/Abilities: Unrevealed (if any)

Height: Unrevealed
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Blond

History:
(All-Winners Squad: Band of Heroes#1 (fb) - BTS) - The origin and past exploits of the Masked Maiden (or the fact if she was even "real") are completely unrevealed (see comments).

(All-Winners Squad: Band of Heroes#2 (fb) - BTS) - By the outbreak of World War II, the U.S. military commissioned Timely Comics to begin publishing the fictional adventures of various costumed heroes (some of whom had been inducted into the military)--these comic books were basically intended to be used as propaganda, to convince Americans to support the war-effort and increase enlistment. One of the comic books Timely produced was Super Hero Comics#1, which featured a Captain Flame story and prominently depicted him on the cover--the Masked Maiden was also one of the other heroes featured on this issue's cover, where she appeared in one of the cover vignettes (see comments).

   The print-run of Super Hero Comics#1 had just been completed; at some point under unrevealed circumstances, the Young Avenger (Bill Bryon) secretly grabbed a copy of it fresh off the presses--Bryon would keep this issue in his possession during the intervening years until modern times.

(All-Winners Squad: Band of Heroes#2 (fb) ) - On May 13th, 1942, Colonel Nevins of the U.S. military went to the offices of Timely Comics and spoke privately with publisher Martin Goodman; although he praised Timely's comic books featuring the fictional exploits of some of the heroes, Nevins requested that Goodman hold off on publishing any comic book adventures of Captain Flame for reasons of national security.

(All-Winner Squad: Band of Heroes#2 (fb) - BTS) - Per Colonel Nevin's request, Goodman complied and ordered the entire print-run of Super Hero Comics#1 destroyed before it could be distributed to the public (...although the Department of Defense was in possession of at least one copy).

Comments: Created by Paul Jenkins (writer) and Carmine Di Giandomenico (artist).

All-Winners Squad: Band of Heroes was supposed to be an 8-issue mini-series, but it was cancelled with the fifth issue due to low sales, so unfortunately the story was never completed.

The Masked Maiden wasn't an actual 1940s Timely Comics character in our world--much like Captain Flame, she was only a retcon addition created for this series.

What you see in the Main Image is the extent of her one and only appearance: A small vignette she shared with Transisto-Mech the Robot (presumably this was supposed to be "Taxi" Taylor's T-Mech), which was on a comic book cover that only existed in the Marvel Universe (For an image of the full cover of Super Hero Comics#1, see the Comments section of the Captain Flame profile).

So why am I doing a profile on a character who wasn't even "real"?

Well, maybe Masked Maiden was a real heroine, rather than just a meta-fictional character created by the Earth-616 version of Timely Comics--the other heroes who appeared with her on the cover of Super Hero Comics#1 (Captain Flame, Captain America and Bucky, Transisto-Mech) were actual heroes who were active in the Marvel Universe in the 1940s, so maybe she had existed as well, but she ended her crime-fighting career early before she was that well known.

(Although Masked Maiden missed her big chance to appear in the first issue of Super Hero Comics when the print-run was destroyed, there was shown to be an issue #2 of that series (featuring Young Avenger on the cover); however, it's unrevealed if Masked Maiden appeared in that one, or any other comic books prior to or following the Captain Flame debacle).

It seems kind of odd that the creators of this series came up with Masked Maiden in the first place--if they just wanted to have a super-heroine of the 1940s appear on that comic book cover, there were others already in that time-period they could have used--Miss America, Silver Scorpion, Black Widow (Claire Voyant)--so it's not like they didn't have any existing characters to choose from. Maybe Masked Maiden was created because she would have played a more significant role later in the Band of Heroes storyline--maybe she (like Captain Flame) was somehow tied in with the mysterious Operation: Firefly. But sadly, because of the premature ending of this series, I guess we'll never know.

The Masked Maiden may be a nod to the first appearance of DC Comics' Wonder Woman in All Star Comics#8 (December 1941-January 1942). During her origin story, Princess Diana was forbidden by her mother Queen Hippolyta to enter a contest to determine which Amazon would represent Paradise Island. So Diana wore a mask and won the contest, becoming Wonder Woman. During the contest, she was referred to as the Masked Maiden three times.
--Wolfram Bane

And a Big Thank You to MarvellousLuke for providing me with the Main Image!

Profile by Ron Fredricks.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Masked Maiden has no known connections to:


images: (without ads)
All-Winners Squad: Band of Heroes#1, p11, pan5 (Masked Maiden, as depicted on the cover of Timely Comics' Super Hero Comics#1 (Transisto-Mech in foreground))


Appearances:
All-Winners Squad: Band of Heroes#1 (August, 2011) - Paul Jenkins (writer), Carmine Di Giandomenico (artist), Bill Rosemann & Alejandro Arbona (editors)


First Posted: 06/14/2017
Last updated: 06/12/2017

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

Non-Marvel Copyright info
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