Earliest female knockoffs to get their own titles?

[Lorendiac]

A question suddenly occurred to me.

Mary Marvel, Billy Batson's long-lost twin sister, was basically a case, in the Golden Age, of "let's create an obvious female knockoff of a popular male superhero concept, and see how it goes!" I think she may have been the first such character to get to star in her own adventures. First as a feature within the pages of "Wow Comics," and later in her very own regular comic book series (with the catchy title of "Mary Marvel").

My question is: Were there any other female knockoff characters, in the Golden or Silver Ages, who also had that much success in the old days? Not just guest-starring in the adventures of the hero they were mimicking; not just appearing as the protagonist of a small feature within a larger anthology title; but making the big leap to being The Title Character of a brand new comic book series devoted exclusively to that young lady's solo adventures?

(Frankly, the next such example I can remember, off the top of my head, is Superman's cousin Kara Zor-El, who debuted as Supergirl in the late 1950s, but didn't get promoted to be the star of her own comic book series until the 1970s -- and I think her first regular title only lasted ten issues before DC pulled the plug.)

Anybody remember anyone else who went all the way from "female imitator of a popular male hero" to "star of her own regular title" before Kara Zor-El made that leap in the 1970s?

[ish kabbible]

Sheena, along with 100s of others both male and female, were Tarzan knockoffs

[Rob Allen]

Some Timely examples:

Miss America, 1944 - http://www.comics.org/series/365/
Namora, August 1948 - http://www.comics.org/series/573/

[Jim Kelly]

Sheena, along with 100s of others both male and female, were Tarzan knockoffs

You would think so, but Tarzan wasn't the first male or female child of the jungle. So it's hard to argue that the others were knock-offs of Tarzan if Tarzan himself was a knock-off--although I'm sure it was the popularity of Tarzan that encouraged publishers to get in the loin cloth trade.

To quote myself, from "SOME R 'n' R IN EDEN":

In the Golden Age of Comics (late ’30s to early ’50s), in addition to all the super-heroes, there were other adventure heroes–and a staggering number of jungle adventure heroes. I know that Africa is a large continent, but it’s a wonder that all these jungle lords and ladies didn’t trip over each other. This proliferation of Tarzan-like characters–male and female, adult and child–is attributed to the popularity of Burroughs’ Apeman. That might be so, but Tarzan couldn’t claim to be the first–not even close to being the first feral child of the forest. Legends of children growing up in the wild go way back in time. Even the storied builders of Rome–Romulus and Remus–were raised by a she-wolf. There have been many reported cases of wild children in history, such as the Wild Chid of Aveyron, in France, or the Wolf-Girl of Devil’s River, in Texas, both from the 19th century. In all likelihood, Burroughs had heard some of these legends, which may have inspired his TARZAN OF THE APES–published as a novel in 1914, having appeared first in the October 1912 issue of ALL STORY MAGAZINE.

Twenty-five years earlier, H. Rider Haggard’s SHE [A HISTORY OF ADVENTURE] had been serialized in THE GRAPHIC magazine between October 1886 and January 1887. Not exactly a feral child story, but still this tale of a white queen in the “dark continent” would extend its influence over many jungle adventures to come. Then Rudyard Kipling’s Indian stories of Mowgli the Jungle Boy appeared in magazine form between 1893 and 1894–before being collected in THE JUNGLE BOOK. A decade later, Rima the Jungle Girl appeared in W. H. Hudson’s 1904 novel, set in the rain forest of Guayana: GREEN MANSIONS. Those other white authors had lived in close proximity to the places they set their fiction–Haggard in Africa, Kipling in India and Hudson in South America–but Burroughs had never been to Africa. Which is all the difference in the world, since Burroughs was liberated completely from fact and could create a jungle world that does not exist in any gazetteer or guide book. He had no business to tell the story, but he told it anyway. Which was a good rule of thumb going forward in creating other sons and daughters of the wild. Given Tarzan was not the first pioneer in the territory, those that followed had just as much claim to be in the jungle as the Apeman. And readers, given the choice between a man in a loin cloth or a woman, often chose the woman.

[Lorendiac]

Sheena, along with 100s of others both male and female, were Tarzan knockoffs

I admit I did not anticipate that line of argument, and I probably should have!

Perhaps it's because I don't usually think of Tarzan and his ilk as being true "superheroes." Just "scantily clad action heroes who spend most of their time out in the jungle."

But in this case, what I really want is cases where the "male original" and the "female knockoff" coexisted in the same fictional universe, so that the characters themselves were keenly aware that the girl was deliberately following in the guy's footsteps. The same way that Mary Marvel knew perfectly well that her costume and powers were modeled on those of her long-lost brother, Billy. I very much doubt that anybody ever wrote a Golden Age comic book story in which someone said to Sheena, "Gee, are you Tarzan's sister or daughter or something like that?", and I doubt she ever said: "I've never met Tarzan, but it's true that I consider him a role model."

[Lorendiac]

Some Timely examples:

Miss America, 1944 - http://www.comics.org/series/365/

Should I take it that your position is that Timely's "Miss America" qualified as nothing more than a blatant knockoff of the "Captain America" concept? I have my doubts about that logic, but first I want to be sure I understand where you're coming from.

(I can't argue with "Namora," though -- I either never knew, or had long since forgotten, that she actually had her own solo title, way back when!)

[Rob Allen]

Should I take it that your position is that Timely's "Miss America" qualified as nothing more than a blatant knockoff of the "Captain America" concept? I have my doubts about that logic, but first I want to be sure I understand where you're coming from.

Yes, she's a patriotically-themed superheroine with "America" in her name.

[Lorendiac]

Yes, she's a patriotically-themed superheroine with "America" in her name.

That's a little thin. There were plenty of other red-white-and-blue-wearing patriotic superheroes in the Golden Age, at one company or another. Her costume was not a blatant knockoff of the design of Cap's flagsuit. Her powers were different from, and started out considerably greater than, the abilities he received from the Super-Soldier Serum. Did Madeline Joyce ever claim, in her old stories, that she was deliberately imitating Captain America as her primary role model?

[ish kabbible]

Rob and I answered your question from your original post. Nothing mentioned that it had to be super-heroes or that the female character acknowledged a male model. From a publisher's point of view, exploiting the popularity of an existing product (the whole purpose of a knock-off) than yes-Miss America was a knockoff of Cap and Sheena was a knockoff of Tarzan. Its not a question of characters predating Tarzan.Sheena existed due to the world wide poularity that Tarzan engendered

[md62]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merry_Pemberton

Merry, Girl of 1000 Gimmicks: Born Merry Creamer, she is adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Sylvester Pemberton, Sr., the parents of the original Star-Spangled Kid. She soon adopts a crime-fighting persona and works with her brother and Stripesy, ultimately supplanting them in their own feature.

[ish kabbible]

Merry never got her own title which is what the OP is looking for