Miss America is a DC Comics superhero. She was first created by Quality Comics in Military Comics #1 (1941), and was carried over to DC Comics when they purchased Quality in the 1950s.
Miss America was originally Joan Dale, a courageous reporter who had a dream in which the Statue of Liberty appeared to her and, giving her the power to transmute elements, instructed her to battle evil. Joan awoke and found that she now had these powers, and became the crimefighter Miss America. She adopted a patriotically-themed costume and fought evil as Miss America. She had a brief run in Military Comics #1-7, then faded into obscurity to a degree that Timely (later Marvel) Comics soon felt free to create an unrelated character with the same name.
Initially Miss America did not have a super-hero costume, largely using her powers surruptitiously. In later stories she wore a costume comprising a sleeveless red blouse, a red and white striped skirt, and a blue cape. This costume contunually changed in appearance, possibly because she used her powers to create it. Following her initial run, later appearances of the character added a red domino mask.
In the 1980s, writer Roy Thomas revived the character. She was briefly referenced in the first appearance of the Freedom Fighters in the pages of All-Star Squadron, when she was said to have been a member of that group who was thought to have had been killed when Uncle Sam attempted to prevent the attack on Pearl Harbor from occurring on Earth-X.
It was revealed in Young All-Stars and Secret Origins that "Project M", a secret government project involved in the creation of superhuman soldiers such as the Creature Commandos and G.I. Robot , had given Miss America her powers via an experimental machine. The dream had occurred when this organization had gassed her to kidnap her for this procedure, but they believed the experiment to be a failure and had returned her to whence she had been taken, leaving her none the wiser.
In the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity, Miss America and her husband, Admiral Derek Trevor, are the adoptive parents of the modern-day Fury (Hippolyta "Lyta" Trevor Hall), formerly of Infinity, Inc. In early post-Crisis stories, Miss America and the original Fury (Lyta's biological mother) were portrayed to have replaced Wonder Woman in several adventures of the Justice Society that Wonder Woman had originally been involved in. In pre-Crisis continuity, Wonder Woman had become a member of the Justice Society in 1942, and with Steve Trevor was the mother of the Fury; the "original" Fury was created via retcon to explain the modern Fury's parentage. In post-Crisis continuity, Wonder Woman had not debuted until the relatively recently, leaving several stories and origins in chaos. Miss America was said to have taken Wonder Woman's place as recording secretary of the JSA.
In more recent stories, Wonder Woman's mother Hippolyta assumed the Wonder Woman identity and travelled back in time to join the JSA. This has brought Miss America's involvement in the JSA into question. A definitive answer has never been given as to whether Miss America is considered ever to have been a member of the JSA or not.
Miss America was last seen in a flashback in JSA, where she was once more working with the Freedom Fighters.
