Merry
Merry

Name: Merry
Universe: Earth-2
Alter Ego: Merry Pemberton
Occupation: High School Student
Marital Status: Single during active career; later married
Group Affiliation: None
Base of Operations: Civic City
Known Relatives: "Fly-Foot" Creamer (real father, deceased), Sylvester Pemberton Sr. (adoptive father, deceased), Mrs. Pemberton (adoptive mother, deceased), Sylvester Pemberton Jr. (adoptive brother), another adoptive brother (name unknown), Arthur Pemberton (nephew), Henry King (husband, deceased), Henry King Jr. (son)
Height: 5 ft. 3 in.
Weight: 105 lbs.
Hair Color: Red
Eye Color: Green
First Appearance: Star Spangled Comics #81

History:
Born Merry Creamer, the future Gimmick Girl was the daughter of "Fly-Foot" Creamer, an acrobat who used "human fly" methods to commit robberies. When he was finally apprehended, he had his daughter placed in an orphanage, stipulating that she must never know her father was a criminal. She remained there for ten years.

And there she might have grown up had it not been for a mishap that occurred while the Star-Spangled Kid and his partner Stripesy were battling a criminal gang. A bullet creased the Kid's head, and while the injury was not serious, it meant that, in his other identity of Sylvester Pemberton Jr. he had to wear a bandage, and since his parents were unaware of his dual-ID, he had a hard time explaining.

The elder Pemberton insisted his son see a psychiatrist, who, noting that young Syl had no close friends or siblings (his older brother had apparently been a black sheep who left home while still quite young), suggested the Pembertons adopt someone to be his companion. They chose Merry.

With his new sister hanging around, Syl and the family chauffeur, Pat Dugan (Stripesy), found it difficult to operate as a crime-fighting team. Meanwhile, learning of the adoption, two hoods called Klinker and Buggsy went to Creamer, now out of prison and going straight as a circus performer, threatening to reveal to the Pembertons who Merry's real father was unless he helped them pull a job. "Fly-Foot" agreed, but he double-crossed the hoods. They shot him--but just then the Kid and Stripesy showed up. Fending off a live wire with a monogrammed handkerchief Merry had given him, the Kid got to Creamer just before he died. His last words: "They wanted to hurt my girl--she's with nice family...Pembertons! I'm ex-con--don't tell her--help her." The Kid and Stripesy agreed not to tell Merry about her dad, and as far as is known, she never did learn. The killers died in a shootout with the police.

But she did hear of the hankie the Kid had used--and so learned his ID. She kept his secret and even made a costume for herself, in red, white, and blue, like those of the Kid and Stripesy. But while the Kid's outfit was largely blue and Stripesy's red, hers was mainly white.

Merry secretly aided the Kid in the capture of Presto the Magician, and it seems his gimmicks inspired her, for afterward she was never without surprising gimmicks she created to use against criminals.

When Pat broke his leg battling a crook called The Rope, Merry first used her gimmicks, capturing The Rope when he had kayoed the Kid.

Merry continued to fight crime for a while as the Gimmick Girl. It may have been during one of her exploits that she met Henry King. He was much older than she, but they fell in love and married. They had a son, Henry Jr., who had some of his father's mutant mental powers. But then the Brain Wave was arrested and spent many years in prison, so Merry had to raise her son alone. The boy was still in his early teens when Merry succumbed to the strain she had been under for years and died.

Powers:
Lacking any super-powers, Merry depended on her quick wits, her athletic and gymnastic abilities (undoubtedly inherited from her father), and the ingenious gimmicks she invented. In every adventure, she unveiled more of these devices, which she kept in a special pocket of her cape--until she faced a crook called the Gimmick Guy. She allowed him to get her cape, filled with booby-trapped gadgets, while she was ready to capture him with the gimmicks concealed in her sleeves.


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