So members, after you write the list of gifts and toys for christmas, can you show the list of presents that you want for christmas?
Max: "Meanwhile, I'm Heinrich's Secret Santa and I got him a nice journal! I also added a little surpi-"
Heinrich: "MAX! WHAT. IS. THIS?!"
Max: "Oh! You found the surprise! It's cute, isn't it?"
Heinrich: "I know but why would you draw me with THAT guy?!"
Max: "I mean... I see you follow him around and you look excited when sparring with him-"
Heinrich: "That's because he's my RIVAL!"
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April 1950. Years before Betty Kane or Barbara Gordon, the Robin solo strip in STAR SPANGLED COMICS briefly floated the idea of giving Robin a female counterpart: Roberta the Girl Wonder. The story begins at Dick Grayson's high school, where the girls are discussing their hopeless crush on Robin. One of them, redheaded Mary Wills, then has a brainstorm:
Mary is adorable in this story, although the assertion that Dick Grayson's peers are enamored with Robin (something that was repeated on and off into his college days in the 1970s) doesn't withstand close analysis. Even by the standards of the late '40s and early '50s, Robin is only a little less of a nerd than the young Clark Kent in the Superboy strip (who quickly established himself as the epitome of squaredom), and Dick Grayson at least as bad. However, Mary is determined:
A crime-compact! Obviously, Mary has already grasped the merchandising potential of being a Bat-adjacent crimefighter, but where did this teenage girl get smoke, gas, and explosive capsules? (Is that what we're supposed to assume she was making in panel 2 above?) Troubling …
As "Roberta the Girl Wonder," Mary quickly manages to introduce herself to Robin, even sneaking into the Batcave by hiding in the trunk of the Batmobile. However, to her dismay, Robin responds to her with irritation and disdain.
She asks a pretty reasonable question, honestly. Upon meeting her, Robin's immediate reaction is that "this is too dangerous a game for a girl" (but totally fine for a boy who doesn't even have any pants, apparently), and he subsequently becomes very critical of her ability to cover her tracks to protect her secret identity (much of which criticism seems unmerited or at least overblown), but even if you consider those reasonable arguments, his almost total disinterest in her (the above splash page not withstanding) does end up coming across as kind of gay. The comics were a little vague about how old Robin was supposed to be, but the beginning of this story indicates that he and Mary go to the same high school, so he's probably 15 or 16. That he reacts to a pretty girl his own age expressing obvious interest in him as if she were trying to sell him aluminum siding is thus a little odd unless, as Mary suggests, he just doesn't like girls.
To underscore the point, Robin deliberately sabotages her, arranging to douse her with chemicals (with which he's surreptitiously dosed the perfume shown below) to make her mask fall off in public:
Poor Mary.
Mary Wills is more than a little reminiscent of another STAR SPANGLED COMICS character: Merry, the Girl of a Thousand Gimmicks. First seen in STAR SPANGLED COMICS #81 in June 1948 (although she didn't adopt her costumed identity until the following issue), she was Merry Pemberton, adoptive sister of Sylvester Pemberton, the Star-Spangled Kid. Syl tried to discourage her from getting involved in crimefighting, but not only did she not listen to him, she soon took over his strip.
The above panels are from a story in STAR SPANGLED COMICS #86, which is still identified with the Star-Spangled Kid logo on the splash page even though Syl himself is nowhere in sight. With the following issue, the strip officially became Merry's in name as well as fact. However, with reader interest in superheroes fading rapidly, the strip lasted only through #90, in March 1949.
Roberta the GIrl Wonder may have originated an attempt to create a similar heroine for the Robin strip, but given how hard the ending of her story shuts down the possibility of her reappearing, one assumes editor Whitney Ellsworth decided that particular ship had sailed. National-DC was not very likely to replace Robin with a girl the way Merry had replaced her brother and Black Canary had superseded Johnny Thunder, and in any event, it had already become clear that it wasn't going to arrest the sales decline. Even Robin would soon lose the STAR SPANGLED cover slot to Tomahawk, and in 1952, the book became STAR-SPANGLED WAR STORIES.
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Merry Christmas!! Otto and Petunia are having themself a scilent night together enjoying cocoa and eachother company
So happy to be doing a Psychonauts secret santa for another fellow self insert shipper which I had been wanting to do art for already @meblody
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