Spitfire’s Second Transfusion
After World War II ended and the Invaders disbanded, Spitfire retired and resumed her normal life as Jacqueline Falsworth. Her super-speed powers slowly faded, and over time she became a wife, mother, and then a widow. She appeared in the occasional comic book, generally as an elderly woman recalling her lost hero days. Her most notable cameo was probably in Captain American #253-254 which introduced the third, and current, Union Jack. Then John Byrne’s Namor the Sub-Mariner series came along, and in it, he revisited some of the foes the Invaders fought.
In issues #11 and 12, Master Man and Warrior Woman (the Nazi versions of Captain America) were reborn using some of the Human Torch’s blood (good stuff, that android blood). Namor, who was visiting Germany at the time, tried to stop them but was captured. His cousin Namorita flew off to get help and, ending up in England, encountered Jacqueline Crichton (nee Falsworth). She recruited Union Jack and the three of them headed off to Germany to rescue Namor and the Human Torch.
In the end, Master Man, Warrior Woman, their neo-Nazi gang, and the German scientist who had resurrected them were all defeated, but Jacqueline was gravely wounded in the battle. To save her life, the Human Torch hooked her and himself up to the German transfusion machine, and once more, transfused his blood into Jacqueline. Just like before, the Torch’s blood saved her life and (re-)awakened her speed powers. But it did more this time: it de-aged her back to age 16. (I don’t know if Spitfire has continued to age from 16, as she certainly appears older than that in recent comics, or if the powers-that-be decided that a 16 year-old Spitfire was a little too Lolita, so decided she was just better off as a twenty-something). Some technobabble (courtesy of John Byrne and Hank Pym) was used to explain this all away, but it wasn’t even very good technobabble as the writer seems to give up halfway through.
July 11th, 2008 at 12:37 am
The de-aging might have been beyond technobabble’s power to explain, considering that Spitfire’s origin consisted of (vampire bite + robot blood transfusion = super-speed).
July 11th, 2008 at 7:29 am
I’m Assuming Byrne got an ‘A+’ in wavy hair classes in drawing school, and has been showing off ever since…
July 11th, 2008 at 9:44 am
???
Transfusion of Human Torch’s android “blood” = Superboy Prime punches???
July 12th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Hey, Golden Age(even pseudo Golden-Age) heroes got superspeed from weird things. Hard water fumes. Mongoose bites.
Course maybe she’s a latent mutant and any sort of trauma that might trigger powers will trigger a certain power.
July 13th, 2008 at 2:58 am
I always thought the latent mutancy explanation was one of the better ret cons. It takes all of the varied origin stories and ties them together with their one common element, trauma.
July 14th, 2008 at 8:31 am
Regarding the idea of latent abilities being brought out by stress, Green Ronin’s Mutants and Masterminds setting of Paragons did a good job of playing with that trope (and I realize that they may have lovingly stolen it from any number of comic books as they are prone to doing) in that not only do most people with super-powers have “origin events” where something traumatic kicks off their powers, but there are also “origin chasers” who participate in extreme sports or suicidal activities, hoping that it will trigger latent powers. There’s an absolutely chilling bit of artwork in the book with a young girl soaked from the gasoline can beside her, her eyes squiched shut as she summons the courage to strike the match…
July 14th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Not mongoose bites - transfused mongoose blood. Yeah, you heard me - in the Golden Age mongoose blood could give the Whizzer superspeed.
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