Merry, Girl of 1000 Gimmicks
Profile image by Alex Garcia (Pen and inks) and David Stepp (Colors)
Personal information
Real Name: Merry Creamer Pemberton King
Residence: New York City, New York
Occupation: Adventurer
First Appearance (Golden Age): Star-Spangled Comics #81 (April 1948)
Character History
Merry Creamer was born in the 1930's, the daughter of "Fly-Foot" Creamer, a former circus performer who turned to crime and was sent to prison in the late 1930's. He placed his daughter in an orphanage to protect her from the knowledge that her father was a criminal. Her mother's identity is unknown.
In 1948, John Pemberton developed concerns that his son Sylvester was developing poorly and need another sibling. The Pembertons visit a local orphanage and adopt Merry, who becomes inseparable from Sylvester and his bodyguard Pat Dugan (secretly the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripsey). When former gang members discover the location of Merry, they blackmail the reformed Creamer to do one more job else they reveal the daughter's criminal connections to her adopted parents. Creamer relents and as they engage him to climb an 18-story building for a jewel theft. Partway up, Creamer turns on them for threatening his daughter and threatens to summon the police while they are stuck on a rope. In revenge, the criminals shoot Creamer and he falls several stories and is mortally injured. Attracted by the commotion, the patrolling Star-Spangled Kid and Stripsey happen onto the scene and hear Creamer's dying confession that Merry is his daughter and to protect her secret. Giving chase to the crooks, the heroes are brought up short by a live wire which they deflected with a monogrammed silk handkerchief provided by Merry. After overcoming the crooks, Sylvester confesses the reason for the handkerchief's destruction and asks Merry to keep the secret of his heroic life to herself (Star-Spangled Comics #81).
Weeks later, Star-Spangled Kid and Stripsey were struggling with a new criminal, Presto the Magician. Merry tries to come along but is dismissed. She skulks off but reveals she has been working on her own costume and set of gimmicks and takes off to join the fight. While the heroes deal with distractions created by Presto, Merry engages the villain directly. She is overcome by fumes and left bound while Presto heads to the roof. Encountering the Star-Spangled Kid, Presto aims to shoot but his gun has been replaced by a gimmick gun that only shoots flags, allowing him to be overcome and handed over to the police. The heroes are left wondering who their benefactor was (Star-Spangled Comics #82).
Shortly thereafter, a new criminal arrives on the scene - The Rope. Caught in the act of a crime, the Rope manages to cause Stripsey to fall and break a leg, leaving the Star=Spangled Kid without a partner. Merry volunteers but is again re-buffed. She follows along anyway when the Kid goes solo and manages to apprehend the criminal, revealing her costumed identity to her brother, who still objects to her involvement (Star-Spangled Comics #83). Merry gets the last laugh however as the Rope re-appears while Sylvester and their father are out boating and Merry captures him single-handedly (Star-Spangled Comics #84).
After this, Merry became much more independent. Sent out west for vacations, she thwarts a gang of thieves at a dude ranch (Star-Spangled Comics #85) and helps out an Indian tribe targeted by crooks after their oil reserves (Star-Spangled Comics #86). Returning to New York, she handle mainly modest criminals (Star-Spangled Comics #87-88) but in one case fended off a small force of aliens scouting Earth for conquest (Star=Spangled Comics #89). In her final recorded case, she battled the Gimmick Guy, a criminal using a similar modus operandi as herself but who was still sent off to jail by Merry (Star-Spangled Comics #90).
The subsequent activities of not recorded. It is known as some point that she abandoned the identity of The Girl of 1000 Gimmicks and married Henry King Sr., the super-criminal known as Brain Wave (first revealed in Infinity Inc #3). The circumstances of their marriage are not clear but they eventually they had a son who they named Henry King Jr. When the Brain Wave returned to crime, Merry fled with her son and raised him alone before dying of a broken heart sometime before 1980. Her son, who had inherited powers similar to his father, became the hero known as Brainwave Jr. and joined Infinity Inc (All-Star Squadron #24).
Powers and Abilities
Merry had no superhuman powers but was an excellent physical specimen for a young woman her age - fast, lithe and agile. She had an inventive mind, creating offensive and defensive accessories from a wide variety of ordinary products. Her access to the Pemberton fortune was likely a considerable asset in the creation of these devices. The full extent of her collection has not been fully described.
Weaknesses and Limitations
Merry was talented but otherwise normal mortal female who, separated from her gimmicks, could be injured or defeated as such.
Multiversity
Prior Earth-0
The Merry of Earth-0 is thought to have a similar early history as her Earth -Two counterpart. In this timeline, Merry did not doe but went into seclusion, allowing her son to believe she had died. Watching the new generation of young heroes arrive on the scene gave her concern after her own experiences and the lack of oversight of junior mystery-men in the 1940's. When the group Young Justice organized, she sought to lobby Congress to disband the group for it's own protection, organizing the group "Old Justice" from former Golden Age sidekicks (Young Justice #16-20). She eventually reconciled with the group when they were artificially aged by Klarion while de-aging the adult heroes (Young Justice: Sins of Youth #1-2).
This Merry also had a second child, a daughter Jacqueline, the paternity of whom is known. Jacqueline followed in her mother's footsteps to briefly become Gimmix of the new Seven Soldiers of Victory but was killed on this group's first foray against the mysterious Sheeda (Seven Solider of Victory #0). Merry was last seen caring for her son who had been corrupted by Mister Mind in Khandaq (Hawkman Vol. 4 #25).
Earth-22
A version of Merry who is presumably similar to her other counterparts exists on this world and was present in Washington DC when the Ultra-Humanite in the body of Tex Thompson attempted to control the world's super-heroes. Her participation in the battle that following and the outcome of thereof is not know. (The Golden Age LS).