Inspired by "Strong Man", a character created by comics legend Bob Powell in the 1950's. Strong Man was a circus performer whose travels often landed him in colorful adventures, righting wrongs and helping the helpless. Some of these stories were reprinted by Bill Black in AC Comics a few years ago; I got to read some of them while making color separations for the books, and got to thinking (as I often do), "Why couldn't this concept be done with a woman as the lead character?" Thus was planted the seed for "Muscle Girl", a character I believe has great potential that I so far have not been able to realize (due to my limitations as a writer, not to any inherent fault in the concept).
Muscle Girl is a circus strongwoman, the star attraction of the world's largest circus still performing under the Big Top. Her origins are a mystery, even to herself: she was discovered, naked but for a necklace around her throat and suffering from an amnesia she still has not recovered from, by some of the circus folk in a field where the tents were being erected for an engagement. She was allowed to work as a roustabout, helping put up tents and such, and her incredible strength soon made her the talk of the circus... and incurred the ire of the circus' then-current strongman, Drago. Their animosity would soon come to a head, and M.G. (as she was called, after the initials on the necklace she was wearing when she was found) found herself having to fight Drago for her very life! Drago was finally beaten into submission by M.G., whereupon he left, humiliated at having been beaten by a "mere woman"! The "job" of circus strongwoman was offered to M.G., and a stage name created to fit her "initials"... Muscle Girl! She travels with the circus, hoping to find a clue to her true identity, her family, anything she can use to discover the life she had before. And, as can be expected, her travels often land her in inexplicable mysteries and dangerous adventures.
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©1998 David C. Matthews
