Here is the latest in our year-long look at one cool comic (whether it be a self-contained work, an ongoing comic or a run on a long-running title that featured multiple creative teams on it over the years) a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the moments posted so far!

Today, let's finish out the look at the strong lead features from Star-Spangled War Stories, ending with where they began - the short-lived (but impressive) Mademoiselle Marie...

.

Enjoy!

Marie debuted in Star-Spangled War Stories #84, by Robert Kanigher and Jerry Grandenetti...











A little later on, we get to see how badass Marie can get...



Although the soldier returns the favor when she pauses to explode the bridge they are tasked to take out while he is too close. It is here that Kanigher establishes what later became Marie's catchphrase, only here the soldier says it first...



If you can get past the silly phonetic approach to a French accent, that was a well-told action story.

After the next issue, Mort Drucker would take over as the artist for the rest of the short Mlle. Marie run, and he REALLY excelled!

Here's the beginning of one story of his from #88...





Later in the story, a German soldier pretending to be an American is going on a "rescue" mission (really a trap) with Marie and her men...









Ross Andru and Mike Esposito drew her last featured appearance in Star-Spangled War Stories #91 (Andru and Esposito were then taking over the book as the main artists for its NEW feature, The War That Time Forgot).







Mlle. Marie was a strong female character in a time when comics really didn't have that many (these stories are all late 1959/early 1960), and she appeared in some good stories by Kanigher, with great art by Drucker.

Greg Rucka, who sure knows a thing or two about strong female characters, brought Mlle. Marie back into comics in a cool storyline in Checkmate (was Eric Trautmann co-writing the book by that point? I forget) where he establishes that Mademoiselle Marie is a CODE NAME for whichever French woman was tasked to the role of protecting the freedom of France at any given point in history. So in Checkmate he had the current Mademoiselle Marie show up. It was well done, and he really nailed the TONE of Marie, which you can see above is one of pretend detachment.

She's a cool character - I hope to see more of her. Heck, I hope we can see more of the World War II Marie, as well!