Today I come to you to report on a much-maligned character who is in fact one of the best of her era. That's right folks, I'm here to sing the praises of Red Tornado... Ma Hunkel!
The original Red Tornado first made her appearance in All-American Comics #20 (November 1940, a whole year before Aquaman debuts!). The character who becomes Red Tornado was around for a bit earlier, in the Scribbly strips in All-American. When we join the story, Ma Hunkel's daughter Sisty, and her friend Dinky, have been kidnapped by racketeers who made the mistake of trying to collect protection money from the formidable Ma. When Ma goes to the police, she gets a wee bit disgusted with their inability to do anything.
On the way home after telling off the police, the title character, Scribbly (an artist), mentions Green Lantern, and Ma starts to get an idea.
In the last panel of the story, after Sisty and Dinky give the racketeers a serious runaround, in steps a new "mystery man" to save the day.
In the next issue's strip, the Mystery Man identifies "himself" as the Red Tornado (not the Red Tomato). S/he also threatens to tear up the police station if the chief doesn't stop wise-cracking, a threat she makes good on once the chief claims he rescued the kids single-handedly.
She made other appearances. The most famous would be her crashing the first JSA meeting. In those appearances she was much less than the character who started out being inspired by Green Lantern and finished by breaking up a mob's protection racket completely. In fact, her appearances in superhero stories were a strange sort of revenge. She started out as a character who made fun of superheroes in a comedy strip, so when she actually shows up in a superhero strip, she's made out to be goofy and ineffective... which is just the opposite of how she was in the Scribbly strips (Scribbly even comments about how many gangs she has taken out in one strip).
She's had two notable "modern age" appearances. One of them was in the JSA 80-Page giant, in which she teams up with some of the women of the Golden Age JSA to protect a factory where she happened to work at during the war. The second one was in the Christmas issue of JSA. In it we learn that Ma took off her mask to testify against mobsters, then had to go into witness protection. But every year, she got a visit from some JSA members... and in this one they have some good news for her... she can stop hiding. And the JSA wants her to hang out with them all year long. Yeah, that was a good story.
I don't mind the retcons of Ma Hunkel. She was a good character who has been unfairly mistreated over the years because no one had ever read her story in context. All that superhero fans ever saw of her was her appearance in JSA, which was practically an in-joke. So the modern writers who have decided to bring her back into the fold are all right with me.
Someday, at some convention, I fully intend to dress up as Ma Hunkel. I think I can manage the build alright, though finding the various bits and pieces might be more difficult. And I'll have to practice her accent. But she's one of the first female superheroes EVER, and I tend to admire her despite the jokes.
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