Little Miss Redhead
Context
Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys was one of the features of DC’s Sensation Comics during the 1940s. The lead feature was Wonder Woman.
They were a trio of young teenagers who, of course, put on costumes and somehow fight crimes in Big City. I’d assume that it was a Tuesday.
Ginger hail
In 1947, a mysterious ally appeared to shake things up a bit. It was a girl (gasp) improbably going by Little Miss Redhead.
She just popped up, for great justice.
We never learned much about her, and we have no notion of what she became once the Golden AgeSuper-hero comics from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. was over.
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Background
- Real Name: Janie (family name unrevealed).
- Known Relatives: None.
- Group Affiliation: Ally of the Blue Boys.
- Base of Operations: Big City, of course.
- Height: 4’10” (1.47m). Weight: 90 lbs. (41 Kg.).
- Eyes: Blue. Hair: Black.
Powers & Abilities
Janie is… about 13, I guess ? Roughly the same age as Little Boy Blue and his wingmen.
But as Robin (Richard Grayson) will happily tell you, wee bairns in 1940s comics could have fantastic skills.
In the Little Miss’ case, she has an uncanny talent with rope-based weaponry. Whips, lariats, bolas and the like. She particularly excels at disarming gunmen.
Curiously, Janie is as clumsy as Little Miss Redhead is accurate. This doesn’t seem to be an act.
Rope a dope
She always carries her skipping rope with her. This is such a common sight for a girl her age back then that nobody notices that it’s a good six metres long, with weights at one end and a lasso-like loop on the other.
It’s made of “a plastic that softens under heat”.
There’s also what seems to be a bola wrapped around her waist.
She once invented a trick bola with hollow heads filled with a special paint. This was flung at a motorcar’s tyre, coating it in paint. It thus left a clear trail over several miles.
Another trick rope has a microphone hidden in a ball weight at the end. Sound is picked up and conducted using a transmission cable within the rope, with a hearing piece at the end. The ball weight also includes a sound recorder.
Her belt is a utility belt. Its gadgets include, err, a small flute. Well, a willow whistle. But I’m sure there are other things.
Other assets
Little Miss Redhead is intelligent, tricky, observant and a resourceful planner.
She possesses steely determination to fight crime, obey the law and protect the innocent !
She displayed :
- Artistic talents, including painting and playing the flute.
- Scientific and technical skills, which she used to design and build minor gadgets.
- Basic sleuthing skills.
History
Janie is a girl of about the same age as Tommy Rogers (Little Boy Blue) and his buddies.
They live in the same neighbourhood and know each other. But they’re not on particularly good terms – the boys consider that she’s pesky. And Janie is always seen playing alone, so she might be socially isolated.
Since Rogers’ dad is the District Attorney, Janie is presumably upper middle class or upper class. 1940s comics heroes tended to be upper class, with exceptions such as the Newsboy Legion.
A sudden and dramatic debut !
In 1947, a criminal named Clipper placed supersonic whistles near a bank. These mind-controlled people into wanting to commit crimes. The bank owner thus robbed his own establishment.
When the Blue Boys came in, they decided to commit crimes too. This left a nearby little girl with no choice. She had to turn into Little Miss Redhead and stop the Blue Boys !
But when she intervened, the Blue Boys had shaken the effect. Attempting to stop them as they fought the bandits resulted in all the kids getting captured. Drat !
The Blue Boys were apparently killed. But Little Miss Redhead realised that they had escaped.
As the bandits drove away to dispose of her, she played the Little Boy Blue jingle on a flute, allowing the pint-size heroes to follow and intercept the car.
Teaming up, the kids defeated the criminals.
Adνеrtisеmеnt
The further adventures
Little Miss Redhead continued to pop up every three issues or so, teaming up with the Blue Boys to foil the improbable criminal scheme du jour.
- A gang that used a cannon (disguised as a smokestack above their hideout) to shoot operatives onto the top of buildings (!). They’d invade from the less-protected roof, then a plane with a skyhook would evacuate them and the loot.
- A gang led by a crooked beauty parlour owner. She’d have her rich customers gossip about where the valuables were hidden, to set up flawless robbery.
Redhead discovered the plot, was captured, called the Blue Boys to the rescue with her hidden whistle, was recaptured along with the Boys, and escaped again to stop the gang’s newest heist. - A gang that had captured a reclusive engineer, forcing him to come up with strange contraptions for them to use in their crimes.
The Little Miss and the Blue Boys were captured, and she pretended to bargain for her freedom by telling them where to steal unprotected money. It was a trick – the kids promptly escaped and laid an ambush there for the gangsters.
And that was it. After this adventure, Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys vanished from the pages of Sensation Comics.
Yes, Virginia
In 2001, the reminiscing Wildcat (Ted Grant) confirmed that Little Boy Blue, the Blue Boys and Little Miss Redhead had indeed been active during the 1940s on New Earth.
Description
Janie usually wears an upper-middle-class red dress, with a black sash wrapped around her abdomen. Plus the usual white socks and sandals of the day.
She can quick-change into a sort of ice-skating costume. It features a golden silk top with short bouffant sleeves and a wide floating bottom, plus tight short shorts and boots.
And a small bra filled with cotton balls, I assume. Super-hero comics gonna super-hero comics.
The “redhead” bit
The main costume piece — and the reason for her code name — is a lush red wig.
The one in Who’s Who has a side part, and heavy side swept locks above her right eyes. It evokes a Veronica Lake -style peek-a-boo (in the 1940s hairstyling sense, not the modern one), but lacking the signature waves.
In the actual comics the wig instead had bangs, plus a bouffant effect where the hair meets her shoulders.
Janie could carry her costume everywhere, even when that plainly wasn’t possible.
Furthermore, nobody could recognise her once she had her red wig on. Beat that, Clark Kent !
Personality
Janie seems to be something of a lonely pest, playing little tricks against the neighbourhood boys.
Little Miss Redhead is a stalwart, tricky and cunning crimefighter.
DC Heroes RPG
Tell me more about the game stats
Little Miss Redhead
| Dex: 03 | Str: 01 | Bod: 02 |
| Int: 05 | Wil: 05 | Min: 04 |
| Inf: 03 | Aur: 03 | Spi: 04 |
| Init: 011 | HP: 035 |
Powers:
Shrinking: 01
Bonuses and Limitations:
Shrinking is Always On (until she grows up) and Already Factored In.
Skills:
Artist (Flautist, Painter): 03, Gadgetry: 03, Weaponry (Rope-like weapons): 05
Advantages:
Luck, Schtick (Disarmer (Rope-like weapons)), Misc.: even thugs are highly reluctant to execute a little girl in cold blood.
Connections:
None, since she has no special way to contact Little Boy Blue.
Drawbacks:
Age (Young), Secret Identity, Misc.: body mass is 1 AP.
Motivation:
Justice.
Occupation:
Schoolgirl.
Wealth:
002
Equipment:
- Weighted lasso/whip [BODY 04, Enhance (EV): 01 (cap is 04), Enhance (STR): 01 (cap is 05), Stretching: 00, Descriptor: Slashing, Drawback: Partial Attack Vulnerability (-1CS RV vs. heat), Limitations :
- Enhance (STR) only when performing a Grappling, Disarm or Wrestling Manoeuvre.
- Stretching has No Fine Manipulation and no lifting power].
- Bola [BODY 03, Snare: 04, Grenade Drawback].
- Rope microphone [BODY 02, Data storage: 00, Remote sensing: 01, Limitations: all Powers are audial only, Remote Sensing can only penetrate obstacles insofar as a rope with a ball weight at the end can.]
- Paint bola [BODY 01, Colour: 04, Grenade Drawback].
- Willow whistle [BODY 01, Super-ventriloquism: 02, Limitation: Super-ventriloquism only to increase volume.]
- Omni-Gadget AC x1 (4 APs). The paint bola likely was an Omni-Gadget.
Little Miss Design Notes
Her numbers are markedly below common values for WWII sidekicks. Such as Wing, Sandy or the Golden Age version of Robin.
This is because the Little Boy Blue stories are a smidgen more realistic. When the kids attempt to directly attack common thugs, they usually gang up two apiece on one. And this routinely fails, even though it looks like a Team Attack, because they’re too small.
Luck and the solid Hero Points totals are because the gang routinely escapes death through an odd lucky break. Like, once every four pages.
I strongly suspect there are Genre Rules that give significant costs breaks for Altering the Environment. But can’t be sure since I’ve almost solely reviewed Little Miss Redhead appearances.
Stats for the bolas are arbitrary, she never actually uses those in the material.
Age (Young) is debatable. The kids in these stories aren’t hampered much by their youth. But leaving it out entirely looked weird.
Source of Character: Sensation Comics.
Writeup completed on the little 25th of little May, 2021.