Charlton VS Mighty MLJ

Friday, November 12, 2010

Pow-Girl Returns - Where is the Web?

In Archie and Friends #138, ramifications of a strange meteorite that crashed into the Pep Comics comic book store led to a portal from other dimensions into Archie's own! Notice in the 2nd panel two of the characters observed leaving the store is Pow Girl, aka Rose Raymond, suprisingly without her husband John aka the Web!

This was a character that could have had a great deal of potential had her subsequent appearances in Mighty Comics allowed Rose to develop this costumed persona. Instead, the editors and writers of the series (re: Jerry Siegel) apparently wanted to play up the "hen-pecked hero" angle of the Web.

Here Pow-Girl is accompanied by the one-shot character known as the Green Cobra. Tormented pulp collector Jerry Burton who's belief in the reality of the fictional character known as the Green Cobra tempts him into becoming the character himself! Dispensing justice in a very rigid fashion, his career is cut short by the loss of his wife, leading him to write himself out of the story...literally.

Apparently, the meteorite pulls individuals from another universe wherein they've languished in limbo for decades. Note that no Mighty Crusader is present on this occasion (they had previously traveled to this universe on two other cases). Nothing more is said of this pair though it should be worth noting that the Pow-Girl here is blonde and not a red-head as Rose was always displayed as. Could this be Jerry's wife, who was thought deceased? Or perhaps another woman adopting the Pow-Girl identity? When last we saw the Cobra, his life had ended however this event may've forstalled or erased that even, leaving him with a happy ending as a crime fighter aided by a woman who understands him well.

Meanwhile, Rose Raymond never returned to her one-shot alias, deciding to remain in marital bliss (or torment, for poor John who never heard the end about his career from her).

Alas, the portal didn't free any of Charlton's more obscurity oddities, such as the equally gun-wielding Masked Raider and his pal Talon the Eagle. It would've been interesting to see which won in a dual between the masked men, and between the Cobra and the Eagle.

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