Comic Title: Secret Origins #26
Publisher: DC
Cover Date: May 1988
On Sale Date: January 19, 1988 Shipping Date January 19, 1988
Source: DC Releases, #48

Shipping Date January 19, 1988
Source: Amazing Heroes, #134
Misnumbered #24

Newsstand Date February 11, 1988
Source: Amazing Heroes, #134
Misnumbered #24

Copyright Date January 19, 1988
Source: Library of Congress, Copyright Office 1988

Cover Price: $1.25
Page Count: 48
Editor: Mark Waid

Title: "The Secret Origin of Miss America"
Pages: 19

Feature(s):
Miss America (Post-Crisis)

Writer: Roy Thomas
Writer: Danette Thomas
Artist: Grant Miehm
Letterer: Jean Simek (Izzo)
Colorist: Carl Gafford

Feature Character(s)

• Miss America (Joan Dale; earliest chronological appearance; post-Crisis origin revealed; next appearance in Young All-Stars #12)

Villain(s)

• Ramon and his band (saboteurs; no further appearances)
• Various Japanese pilots (no further appearances)
• Two Nazi sympathizers (no further appearances)

Guest Appearance(s)

• Uncle Sam (last appearance in Secret Origins #19; no further appearances)
• Hourman (last appearance in All-Star Squadron #67; next appearance in All-Star Squadron #60)
• Neon the Unknown (first post-Crisis appearance; no further appearances)
• Magno (first post-Crisis appearance; no further appearances)
• Red Torpedo (first post-Crisis appearance; no further appearances)
• Invisible Hood (first post-Crisis appearance; no further appearances)

Other Character(s)

• Jeff Healy (an FBI agent; no further appearances)
• An unnamed old man (no further appearances)
• Professor Mazursky (next appearance in Young All-Stars #12)
• Agent X (no further appearances)

Comments:
This story begins in May 1941 and continues through December of that year.

This story adapts stories from the eighth story of Military Comics #1 and All-Star Squadron #32 and continues in part in Young All-Stars #12.

Synopsis:
Daily Star reporter Joan Dale follows a mysterious tip to Bedloe Island where she drifts to sleep on a park bench. She then dreams that the Statue of Liberty comes to life and grants her powers of transmutation. When Joan wakes up she discovers that she really does have super powers.

Joan uses the powers secretly. When she helps an old man who is being attacked by Nazi sympathizers, the man dubs her Miss America. She soon begins wearing a costume to conceal her identity.

In December 1941, she is recruited by Uncle Sam to help thwart a Japanese invasion alongside Hourman and several lesser known heroes. While the group stops a small group of Japanese planes, they do not stop the main attack force which ambushes Pearl Harbor. The heroes are then brought down by a Japanese plane on a suicide run.

Hourman, Uncle Sam, and Miss America all survive the crash. Hourman is captured by a Nazi submarine, Uncle Sam and Miss America are rescued by American forces. Sam is held captive, while the comatose Miss America is taken back to Bedloe Island by a secret agent.

Located underneath Bedloe Island is a secret facility where Project M is being conducted. Agent X recalls that he kidnapped Joan from the island and took her below months earlier. Professor Mazursky then experimented on her. The experiment is responsible for her powers which she does not remember because she was drugged. Now the scientist and secret agent have brought her back to the island to discover how their experiment granted her transmutation powers.