Sensation Comics - TV Tropes

Wonder Woman—beautiful as Aphrodite, wise as Athena, stronger than Hercules, and swifter than Mercury

Featuring the sensational new adventure strip character—Wonder Woman!

Sensation Comics was an Anthology Comic published by DC Comics from 1942 to 1953, with a name change to Sensation Mystery in 1952. Its claim to fame was as the first book to house Wonder Woman's stories, though she debuted in an All-Star Comics bonus first. The title was reused for a single issue in 1999 as part of the Justice Society Returns storyline. It was revived in 2014 as Sensation Comics Featuring Wonder Woman, a digital first title which was canceled in December of 2015.

Significant features in the original anthology:

• Wonder Woman (1 - 106)
• The Wildcat (1 - 90)
• Little Boy Blue (1 - 80)
• Mr. Terrific (1 - 63)
• The Black Pirate (1 - 51)
• The Gay Ghost (1 - 38)
• Sargon the Sorcerer (34 - 83)
• Lady Danger (84 - 93)
• Dr. Pat (94 - 106)
• Romance, Inc. (94 - 105)
• Astra, Girl of the Future (99 - 106)
• Johnny Peril (107 - 116)

Notable Stories:

• Sensation Comics #1 (Wonder Woman Arrives in Man's World) (1942): a continuation of Wonder Woman's origin story from All-Star Comics #8.

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Tropes in the Wonder Woman feature:

for the related character sheet see here

Wonder Woman (Charles Moulton)

• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: #8 sees Wonder Woman hypnotize Gloria Bullfinch into working at Bullfinch's own store and trying to survive on her own wages, so that Gloria will be convinced to treat her workers better.
• Ace Pilot: Steve Trevor and Di both pull off some truly impressive stunts in planes, and Steve is a skilled military pilot and intelligence officer.
• Adipose Rex: "In the Clutches of Nero" the ruler of the recently discovered civilization on a jungle island who calls himself Emperor Nero is a overweight man, though his slim wife seems to be to one actually running things behind his back.
• Affectionate Nickname: Steve calls Wonder Woman "Angel".
• Alpha Bitch: Zita Zanders, a high maintenance actress who bosses around her fiance, treats him horribly and leaves him any time he fails to land her a part she wants and manipulates him to try to kill whoever "stole" the part from her.
• Amoral Attorney: Simon Slikery is an American lawyer and white supremacist who helps disguise a Nazi invasion attempt.
• Art Evolution: Di's shorts go from flowing culottes to skintight bike-shorts, and then start getting shorter over the course of the series. Her boots also go through some changes, getting noticeably taller in front.
• Art Shift: With Harry Peter drawing pretty much all the Wonder Woman comics, any time he's not is noticeable, but Frank Godwin in particular doesn't imitate Peter's style as closely as Jack Burnley did in All-Star Comics.
• Artistic License – Biology: In issue #39, Leo the lion purrs like a house cat while showing his affection for Wonder Woman. Cats that roar are physically incapable of purring, and vice versa.
• Artistic License – Geography
  • Issue #17 features a slave taking Hindu Princess operating out of a palace staffed by Sikh warriors in Muslim majority British Egypt.
  • Issue #18 features "braves" in the Andes of South America, when "braves" specifically refers to warriors in what is now the central United States.
• Artistic License – Medicine
  • Jumps in blood pressure just mean the questioned person is stressed, not that they're lying. To be fair, this wasn't as well known at the time of publication.
  • Doctor Cue threatens to inoculate Diana White with bubonic plague bacilli unless Wonder Woman surrenders. Inoculation is a process that strengthens the immune system!
• Artistic License – Physics: It is a superhero tale, but this time travel bit stands out:

  The strangest criminal in the world begins his journey back to a new crime career—as he goes back one year in time and space, the Jasper Lang he was then will automatically disappear—so that two Jasper Langs will not occupy the same space at the same time, per the law of physics!

• Band Episode: Issue #7 sees Wonder Woman organize The Holliday Girls into a marching band for a demonstration against The International Milk Company
• Bitter Sweet Ending
  • Issue #29 ends with Mala saved, Mimi Mendez in custody, but victims doomed to be drowned in scandals as Mimi Mendez reveals all the dirt on victims out of spite for being caught for her crimes of espionage, gambling, extortion, kidnapping and attempted murder
  • Issue #30 ends with Steve Trevor returned to three dimensional space and Anton Unreal captured. The people he sold into slavery before Steve Trevor are still being exploited in the fourth dimension, however.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: When Nero's Legionaries are creeping up on the Holliday Girls from the dark forest they are first seen as frowning eyes in the darkness.
• Calling Your Attacks: In issue #11 Rebla sends Marya a letter to let the Planet Mother know of her plans to destroy the planet's central government and put Marya in prison in advance.
• Catch Phrase: "Suffering Sappho!"
• Chained to a Railway: In issue 26, Wonder Woman is tied to the railway tracks with what she thinks is her magic lasso. It isn't as her mother has stolen her lasso and replaced it with a copy. Once she realizes it is a fake, she is able to break loose and stop the train by lifting the locomotive off the tracks.
• Combat Stilettos: While Di's boots are the least consistent part of her Wonder Woman costume they are generally high heeled with a thin stiletto heel, as seen in the page image.
• Cool Plane: Wonder Woman's invisible mental radio equipped "Robot Plane".
• The Darkness Gazes Back: In "In the Clutches of Nero" Steve Trevor, Etta Candy, Bobby Strong and Glamora Treat's campsite gets surrounded in the dark which is shown as many sets of eyes gazing at them from the darkness as they grab whatever is nearby to act as weapons.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Even Wonder Woman, with her bondage kink, finds Marya's planetary wide prison economy to be too extreme. She still fights to preserve the system at Desira's request, to prevent a worse one from taking it's place, but refuses to participate any further than that.
• Disguised in Drag: Agent X seems to be a female axis spy with multiple disguises she can slip into to hide, but turns out to actually be male spy Togo Ku with multiple female disguises.
• Distressed Dude: Steve Trevor's natural state is being in need of rescue, though he is (usually) a competent military man he's not superhuman.
• Dodge the Bullet: In issue ten, Wonder Woman uncovers a cabal of spies, who discover her uncovering them, but stopping their plans is more important than physically catching then and there, so she just leaves without attempting to engage. They all open fire on her but Wonder Woman moves faster than their bullets.
• Duel of Seduction: Steve Trevor had been working on seducing Dolly Dancer, a Nazi spy who was dating him to get information and didn't realize he knew who she was really working for, before he'd ever met Diana. Dolly tries to keep Steve alive when her superiors plans finally come to fruition, and manages to escape Diana in the ensuing chaos.
• Deus ex Machina: Some helpful plot developments for Diana like Etta Candy and mental radio have no foreshadowing.
• Enemy Mine
  • Issue #17 features a Hindu Princess allying with the Nazis against their mutual enemy, The British Empire. The Princess's plans are complicated when the Nazis declare war on The United States and insist she help them with that effort as well, stating her plans were going perfectly before Nazis started abducting American children and "American Spies" got involved.
  • Issue #18 features an Incan priest allying with Imperial Japan for the purpose of retaking South America from the "pale faces" and enslaving the Spanish. His plans become complicated when Imperial Japan declares war on The United States and insists he assist them with this effort.
• Everything's Better with Rainbows: Wonder Woman's invisible robot plane can shoot "electronic mist beams", which are basically rainbows that aid in navigation.
• Fiery Cover-Up: In issue 75 Wonder Woman learns of an unscrupulous crime boss known only as "Shark" forcing boys to steal for him and he tries to burn down his hideout with his unwilling accomplices tied up inside to hide any evidence that he was tied to the thefts.
• Foreshadowing: Queen Hippolyte declared that whoever won her contest would have to leave Paradise Island and never return in All-Star Comics #8, yet Sensation Comics #6 opens with a splash page of Diana as contestant #7 lassoing Mala as contestant #12. While these are the same numbers they competed as prior, Diana is not wearing a mask and is wearing her Wonder Woman outfit, indicating this could not have been in the past and she will be returning to Paradise Island.
• Guess Who I'm Marrying?: Etta Candy invites Diana and Steve to her wedding to a man neither has had the opportunity to meet beforehand. When they get there Diana learns right away her fiance is lying when she spots him with another girlfriend before Etta even introduces them, and she and Steve are certain due his his mustache twirling ways he's not who he says he is at all. He turns out to be a Nazi spy who got engaged to Etta to better facilitate his sabotage of the oil fields near the Candy Farm.
• Have a Gay Old Time
  • In #19, Wonder Woman's bracelets are destroyed for the first time in what is described as "an orgy of unleashed power."
  • Issue #21 involves Paula von Gunther making "queer preparations" for Holliday College Band.
  • The Holliday College history teacher introduced in issue #39 is named "Professor Homo".
• He Knows Too Much
  • Mavis kidnaps Anne Pinky in #19 because Anne suspects her boyfriend Leon Dexter of being a Nazi sympathizer, which he is...[[spoiler not]].
  • Joel Heyday's affiliates can't tell his triplet nieces apart, so kidnap two of them while trying to nab Tillie, who Joel intends to have write up a will bequeathing him the majority of what his mother is leaving to her before murdering Tillie and his mother. As the other two have seen his accomplices he decides they have to kill the whole lot.
• Handy Cuffs: In Sensation Comics #6, Baroness Paula von Gunther tricks a prison guard into leaning towards her to light her cigarette. As he does so, she grabs his pistol from his holster with her manacled hands and shoots him.
• Historical Character's Fictional Relative: In #39, a lost Roman colony is ruled by a descendant of Emperor Nero.
• Hollywood Magnetism: In issue ten a group of spies attempt interrogate Wonder Woman with Electric Torture, but since the device is running direct current through her, she doesn't bother to fight it, since only alternating current can hurt human bodies...which isn't true at all. The comic book could have just gotten away with saying Amazons are immune to direct current but human beings like you can be killed by either. What is true is that it takes more direct current to kill a person than alternating current, as direct current merely paralyzes muscles while alternating current causes them to spasm. Further more DC pushes human bodies away while AC doesn't, but that's a non factor since Wonder Woman was chained up. What is also true is that while both currents can kill a human, voltage alone will not kill a person if the current it is pushing does not increase to lethal levels with it, and the villains weren't doing anything other than increase voltage as Wonder Woman taunted them. There were two ways the writer could have more plausibly explained the scene.
• Horse of a Different Color: Meet the kangas, horse sized monsters that are mostly shaped like kangaroos and are saddle ridden by Amazons.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: On planet Eros, the guards of Marya's prison make sport of literally fishing for male prisoners.
• I Know Madden Kombat: Wonder Woman imitates a defensive tackle while cutting off Imperial Japanese and Nazi spies fleeing from Army intelligence and The Holliday Girls in issue #10.
• Inter-Service Rivalry
  • Steve Trevor deliberately stays out of regional police cases to prevent causing friction between their departments and US Army intelligence. Diana Prince doesn't care about hurting the feelings of other law enforcers, however.
  • Colonell Darnell believes Admiral Funston takes joy in showing off how much more advanced the US navy is than the army
• Interrupted Suicide
  • #8 sees Helen arriving to worked two hours late after struggling to stop a woman from committing suicide. Diana Prince decides to investigate her story.
  • Diana overhears a young man at a club desperately asking his girlfriend for money. The despair in his voice convinces her to follow him, which allows her to get there just in time to grab the gun he's about to shoot himself in the temple with. He racked up debts he couldn't possibly afford to pay gambling that night and had thought killing himself was the best solution to his problems.
• Jungle Opera: "In the Clutches of Nero" is about an anthropologist from Holliday College going to a recently discovered jungle island with three of his students and trying to learn about the natives there, who prove to be quite hostile.
• Knife-Throwing Act: Mimi Mendez puts on impromptu knife throwing acts for her henchmen when she has prisoners she's angry at. After sinking knives in the walls all around them she'll throw the last few to kill.
• Lady Land: Paradise Island is the home to a peaceful society of women who enjoy the sciences and frequent competitions in archery and self defense. All the women on the island are immortal so long as they remain on there.
• Lost Tribe
  • Issue #18 centers around a lost tribe of Incas
  • An anthropologist from Holliday College goes on a mission to study the people on a newly discovered Island who still act and dress like they're an offshoot of the Roman Empire.
• Luck-Based Search Technique: In issue 38 Steve Trevor and the Holliday Girls arrive as backup for Wonder Woman only to discover she seems to have disappeared after entering a room with no other apparent exits and start searching for a hidden passageway. When Etta Candy gives up and sits down on a table it flips open the hidden door to some stairs which lead underground.
• Mammy: Nursemaid Dellie of issue #31, technically isn't the first in a Wonder Woman comic by chronological appearance, but she and Ephram are the first two black characters of any significance, and despite the not so flattering depictions are shown to be more sensible than their social climbing Florida Southern Belle employer, Selfa Modern. Dellie at least cares about the Selfa's kids, but it's up to Wonder Woman to make Selfa care.
• No-Sell: In issue #9, one of Doctor Cue's thugs sneaks up behind Wonder Woman and breaks a metal pipe over her head. He is alarmed at the fact this causes her no harm. Seeing he has nothing left for her, Wonder Woman throws him out a window. She "sells" a chair leg to the back of her head in issue #38, but she isn't hurt physically hurt. She's shocked someone could be mean enough to attack her while she filling stockings for Christmas.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: At one point Di is forced to leap from her jeep to catch an infant falling out of a 5th story window, the child is apparently unharmed and the only concern raised is that Di pulled off the save in her guise as WAC Lt. Diana Prince of military intelligence and may have threatened her secret identity.
• Oh, Crap!: In issue one some robbers try shooting bullets at Wondy only to exclaim "She's playin' with 'em! She's playing catch with 'em!" and get a brief moment of horror when she calmly replies' "And now I'm going to play catch with you!" before pummeling them and handing them over to the confused police.
• Oh, My Gods!: Di says "Suffering Sappho!" a lot. She also exclaims "Merciful Minerva!", "Hammers of Hephaestus!", "By Mercury's sandals!" and "Shades of Pluto!" at different points.
• One-Steve Limit: Marya, the judge and planetary mother of issue #11 is not the same as Marya the Mexican mountain girl lifeguard of issue #45
• Our Sirens Are Different: Parthenope is a siren who lured sailors to their deaths with her music in antiquity until Aphrodite turned her into a tree as punishment. The tree was later carved into a bangle through which she could extend her musical powers to the wearer.
• Outside Ride: Di climbs outside her commercial flight to climb over to her "robot plane" while they're both in flight in order to arrive at a set as Wonder Woman in the invisible aircraft, then back again to arrive later as Diana.
• Perfect Pacifist People: The Amazons of Paradise Island have a culture of peace and pacifism, essentially a culture wholly based on love for their fellows. They do enjoy archery, strength and fighting competitions but those are always friendly.
• Pet the Dog: In issue #12 LeRoy Fontaine, the producer who wanted Wonder Woman to star in America's Guardian Angel, learns that director Ben Black was a Nazi spy, apologizes to Wonder Woman, and triples her pay.
• Playing Sick: After Wonder Woman's fails to locate Doctor Cue's private hospital in issue #9 with her Play-Along Prisoner attempt, Etta Candy succeeds by pretending to be a sick tourist.
• Psycho Knife Nut: Mimi Mendez's weapon of choice is a massive number of throwing knives, which she enjoys tossing around her prisoners until she gets bored of them and lands on in their eye or heart.
• The Radio Dies First: When she hijacks the ocean liner Gigantic in #6, Baroness Paula von Gunther's first act is to shoot the radio operator and blow up the radio.
• Reformed Criminal: Diana's one time enemy Paula von Gunther becomes her stalwart ally. It probably helps that Paula was only helping the Nazis due to their threatening her daughter.
• Reinventing the Telephone: Amazons use "Mental Radio" instead of phones and Di has one in her plane, and has given Etta one to get in touch with her. She's not opposed to using an actual phone but she can't put one in her plane, they don't allow for images, cell phones weren't around yet, and she wouldn't be able to call home with one.
• Rogues Gallery Showcase: In "Battle Against Revenge" Bedwin Footh looks through a filing cabinet full of Wonder Woman villains, before selecting seven to ally with. It later turns out that his allies are actually actor friends disguised as the villains, but the role call of some of her most dangerous foes at the time still starts out the story and even she is tricked for a while.
• Saving Christmas: In "Racketeers Kidnap Miss Santa Claus" Di goes to a tenement to deliver presents to all the children living there after a boy tells her he and his sister didn't get any presents last year. While there she speaks with the boy's mother and learns his uncle is a criminal, who in a petty fit of rage broke the two toys she'd saved up for all year to give to her children and Wondy replaces the presents and takes down the uncle and everyone else involved in his racket. At the end she gives the message that:

  "Santa Claus is the spirit of love! Santa uses many forms—mothers, fathers, loving people everywhere so he can appear all over the world on Christmas eve!"

• Secret Identity: Wonder Woman is basically a mole in the United States to advance Aphrodite and Athena's agenda, but the Diana Prince guise was taken up specifically to serve her personal agenda of keeping close to Steve Trevor. Di's attempts to maintain her secret identity as Diana Prince are often a bigger hassle for her than defeating the villain of the story.
• Secret Path
  • Princess Yasmini has secret paths made out of reinforced steel to escape into should her palace ever be compromised. Wonder Woman simply smashes through them in pursuit of Yasmini before coming up with a plan to draw Yasmini out instead.
  • There are several secret pathways in the sun god's temple that only high priest Quito knows of. Wonder Woman lets herself be captured so that she can learn of them, or until Quito gathers the rest of his prisoners together, the latter happening first.
• Science Hero: Rebla creates weapons that overwhelm the armies of planet Eros's ruler, Marya, and threatens to destroy the central government, so Wonder Wonder invents defenses to counteract Rebla's guns and trains Marya's soldiers in their use.
• Skewed Priorities: One of the witnesses to Wonder Woman's first takedown of criminals is rather dumbfounded that everyone else is amazed she ran off without talking to the cops, or that she punched some guys, when she was just very publicly catching bullets.
• Ski-Resort Episode: The Holliday Girls go to a ski resort for some members to compete in a cross country ski race. While there a kidnapper sees them with Wondy and Steve and assumes they're there for her and attacks them, resulting in the capture of the kidnapping ring and the rescue of the little girl they'd taken.
• Some Nutty Publicity Stunt: Wonder Woman walking down the street in issue one gets a lot of comments due to her odd clothes and a boy says he bets it's a publicity stunt for a new film.
• Spotting the Thread: In issue #12 Diana Prince realizes LeRoy Fontaine's film starring Wonder Woman is really a trap by Baroness Paula Von Gunther when she notices one staff member is dressed far too warmly for Los Angeles. The FBI arrive on set soon after, also having found enemy agents among the staff of Supreme Pictures, though not as many as Diana did.
• Sub Story: #5 centers around the crew of a new submarine "The Octopus" and the hostile crew of an older one. In between there's a detour to focus on some scuffles in boats above the water.
• Superdickery: Diana pulls some unkind stunts on the covers, like surprising Steve with a bunch of identical duplicates and telling him to figure out which one she is on #96, or ruining a magic show on #69.
• Super-Speed: Wonder Woman proves she can casually take a run at 80 mph when Al Kale tries to catch up to her to propose he become her promoter, since that's the speed he's driving at alongside the indifferent "mile-a-minute-maiden". She's not winded or exerting herself at all. She's later able to run between two spots and to appear as Diana Prince and Wonder Woman at the same time.
• Super-Strength: It is issue #10 where Di becomes "stronger than Hercules", but she pulled off many incredible feats of strength even before this, like lifting a car and tearing apart submarines. While weight doesn't seem to hinder her at all, she's still conscious of how much things should weigh, which also allows her to save a submarine.

"This steel bends so easily!"

• Super-Reflexes: The "mile-a-minute-maiden" is fully capable of reacting with more speed than Mercury.
• Talking Down the Suicidal: Di saves Gay Frollik from a suicide attempt and when the woman is detected at having been rescued sits and talks with her and convinces her not to immediately try again. After getting Gay to Etta Candy to keep an eye on her Diana discovers that the murder Gay spent years of her life in prison for was actually committed by the fiance that abandoned her to cover up his own criminal activities (Gay had hit the man in the head and fled the scene, so didn't know how things had played out) and Gay is able to find new purpose in helping other people rejoin society.
• Two-Person Love Triangle: Di's love interest Steve Trevor is in love with Wonder Woman, but much to her dismay, doesn't seem to feel anything remotely romantic for her civilian identity Diana Prince.
• Weak Sauce Weakness: Issue #8 is when Wonder Woman discovers her back of the head weak point. She later tests and confirms she can literally still take whatever a man hits her with on the chin without flinching.
• Western Terrorists: The Green Shirts are a violent militia that lynches immigrants, legal or otherwise, and those who employ or try to stand up for them. They seem to have a particular dislike of POC and Jewish people trying to simply live their lives in the USA.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Steve Trevor's secretary Lila Brown makes a few appearances before disappearing without explanation. Later on in Wonder Woman #12 a villain named Nerva acts as his secretary for a single issue, still with no explanation for Lila's disappearance.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Simon Slikery covertly called the cops when Wonder Woman showed up to question him, then when he heard them entering his outer office smashed a bottle on his own face and accused her of being a crazed attacker when the cops came in.

Robert Kanigher's Run

• Heroic Seductress: Steve pretends to be enthralled by the beauty of a woman claiming to be the descendant of Helen of Troy who has taken multiple US military men prisoner to distract her while Wonder Woman rescues the prisoners. While his ploy works at first and "Helen" is taken in by his flirting he gives up the game when he thinks Wonder Woman has been injured, leaving him in need of rescue even though the other men are free.
• Identical Stranger: A woman who fell in love with Steve after seeing his picture in the news ended up marrying Steve's identical double Col. Bravo.
• Pendulum of Death: Don Enrago tries to kill Wonder Woman and Marcia, one of the Holliday Girls, by strapping them to a table under a slowly lowering swinging blade. Wonder Woman quickly escapes and rescues Marcia.
• Trojan Horse: Wonder Woman creates a wooden horse to trick Steve's current captors, who follow a woman claiming to be the descendant of Helen of Troy. They bring it in and set it alight thinking someone's hidden in it but Di was using it as a decoy while she broke the prisoners free.

Tropes in the Dr. Pat feature:

• Afraid of Doctors: Julie Huston's father is suspicious and wary of doctors and threatens to beat her when she gets the doctors to come when her baby sister appears to have drowned, especially since he's heartbroken but thinks his infant is dead. He changes his tune when Dr.s Pat and Michaels are able to revive the infant.
• Broken Ace: Dr. Stuart Stanton is a near prodigious doctor but by the time Dr. Pat goes to visit her old classmate he's become angry, harsh and disillusioned, turning away most of his patients and avoiding his office. When he learns Pat is in town he sends all his patients to her and goes fishing instead.
• The Case of...:
  • Dr. Pat: The Case of the Absent-Minded Doctor in issue 97
  • Dr. Pat: The Case of the Mechanical Brain in issue 101
• Dr. Jerk: Pat tends to be fairly brusque and cuts people off if she feels they're wasting her time, but overall she's usually kind. Dr. Stanton on the other hand is an outright jerk, even when he's mellowed out a bit after getting back together with his eventual fiance Mona Blue.
• Famed in Story: Pat hates it but she's become well known due to an article about her rescuing a fellow doctor from a fire that was accompanied by a picture of her carrying him out. She gains further fame after inventing a new compound which wasn't at all what she was trying to make but which she gave to the military since she realized it had it's uses.
• Frontier Doctor: The era is a bit off but this is what Dr. Michaels has been and what Pat joins him as the only doctor in a small isolated town where certain locals are trying to kick him out since he threatens their scams.
• Hospital Hottie: Dr. Pat gets a lot of attention for her looks, some of it by those who think she shouldn't be a doctor because of them and her gender.
• Instant Drama, Just Add Tracheotomy: Pat has to perform an emergency tracheotomy on a collapsed young mine worker, who also fell down a pit in the mine which is where she got stuck starting his treatment.
• Intrepid Reporter: Hank Lee is a reporter who just can't keep out of trouble while following stories.
• Kidnapped Doctor: Some smugglers kidnap Pat to get her to treat their leader's injury, which she does, and try to force her to perform plastic surgery on him by threatening to shoot Hank. She pretends to be getting ready to comply and druggs them all and hands them over to the coast guard.
• Perpetual Frowner: Dr. Stanton glowers at everyone constantly when separated from Mona Blue, and when he's together with her he still doesn't seem to know how to smile, though he doesn't glower at her and can sort of stop glowering at patients when she's around.
• Magic Plastic Surgery: Some smugglers who kidnap Dr. Pat seem to think she should be able to conveniently reconfigure their boss' face so he can't be recognized. She can't but she plays along long enough to drug them since they're holding her friend at gunpoint.
• Married to the Job: Dr. Pat very consciously placed her career above any romantic frivolities after her former fiance tried to get her to agree to become a housewife once they became married;

  But, Adam, I didn't swear an oath to help others just to forget it as soon as I was married. I intend to practice medicine just as you will!

  —

  I am in love! In love with someone who is very jealous and demands my attention twenty hours a day! I'm in love with my work!

• Meaningful Name: Mrs. Stout is a short, no nonsense muscle bound woman.
• Medical Drama: Dr. Pat's feature follows her work as a gifted medical doctor, her love life and the bizarre dangers she encounters.
• Once per Episode: Dr. Pat either reiterates to someone that she is not interested in romance and will not be participating in any having traded it in for her job or deflects someone's affections in almost every issue.
• Science Marches On: Dr. Pat once brings up the (racist) Lombroso Atavism Theory, to renounce it and soundly disprove it.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Dr. Pat left her fiance, decided work was better than boys anyway and swore off romance altogether when she realized he expected her to quit working and become his housewife once they were married so that she wouldn't overshadow his own work as a doctor.
• Tomboyish Name: Dr. Pat's full name is Patricia Windsor but she goes by Pat.
• Too Dumb to Live: Hank Lee, a friend of Dr. Pat's who is enamored with her, publishes a story about an experimental aircraft flight that he knows is supposed to be secret before he himself gets to go on the flight. The plane is then attacked by enemies who point out to the captured injured reporter,

  "You Americans are foolish! Publishing a story about your latest experimental weapon, informing us exactly where and when to take it away from you!"

• Women Drivers: When Dr. Pat brushes against Dr. Stanton's car while turning out of an oil slick to avoid hitting some kids Stanton cuts off her explanation by exclaiming that it only happened because she's a woman and women shouldn't be allowed to drive, despite the fact that he had plenty of room to avoid the collision himself if he'd been paying any attention.

Tropes in the Little Boy Blue feature:

• Bindle Stick: When the Blue Boys run away out of boredom they pack their belongings in handkerchiefs tied to sticks.
• Power Trio: The Blue Boys. Tommy "Little Boy Blue" Rogers acted as The Leader to the jovial Richard "Tubby" Mehlville and the hotheaded but logical Herbert "Toughy" Simms.
• Primary-Color Champion: Tommy Rogers wears a blue suit with yellow sleeves and a red hood as Little Boy Blue.
• The Smurfette Principle: The Blue Boys are occasionally aided on their adventures by the mysterious Little Miss Redhead, whose secret identity is Janie. This makes her their only named recurring female acquaintance both in and out of costume.
• Voice Changeling: Richard "Tubby" Mehlville can perfectly mimic the sound of a police siren with his voice.

Tropes in The Gay/Grim Ghost feature:

• Badass Normal: Charles Collins, a dissolute socialite, appears to Deborah to have become one of these when The Gay Ghost possesses his corpse.
• Death Equals Redemption: After modern-Deborah Wallace rejects his proposal for the umpteenth time, Charles Collins laments having been an "idiotic rake" his entire life and wishes he could make up for it. When three strange men turn up in her ancestral castle as he and she are touring it, he realizes one of the strangers has drawn a gun, tells Debbie to run for it, and lunges at the three of them, only to get shot. As he dies he says that it's the one thing he's done that he's ever been proud of.
• Demonic Possession: Ghostly Possession. The Ghost can inhabit any material object (and chills out inside a painting of himself for a couple hundred years), but to do this with a human corpse requires that the previous owner had had at least some good in them. Collins proved that with his Heroic Sacrifice.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight:
  • Keith Everet's beloved Deborah Wallace was out riding with her guards when they heard the pistol shot that killed him, and they raced to investigate just in time for him to do this.
  • Everet also props Collins up as he dies.
• Exact Words: His ancestors told him that they could help him return to the land of the living but he had to wait until "Debora Wallace" returned to Ireland before he could begin his new life on Earth. Upon seeing that she died, he wondered how they could possibly be reunited, until over 240 years later, when young American Deborah Wallace came to see the castle where her great-great-grand aunt had lived until she died of a broken heart...
• The Eyes Have It: The painting he inhabits for a couple of centuries betrays his presence with its glittering eyes (not that people realize the truth).
• Faux Death: Charles Collins's body really is a corpse whenever Everet isn't possessing it—fortunately it doesn't appear to rot or develop rigor mortis. Ghost magic at work?
• Fights Like a Normal: While possessing Collins's body the Ghost obviously can't use any super-powers without breaking his cover. Fortunately, Keith was a highly skilled and agile battler of all sorts in life, and "fights like an infuriated demon".
• Fish out of Temporal Water: Keith is bemused to hear that Deborah Wallace's descendant came to Castle Connaught from America—that wild place with Indians? Fortunately, "new" Deborah brushes his odd new mannerisms off, though she isn't very happy when he nearly kills her trying to figure out how to drive a car.
• Flight: Ever met a ghost who couldn't? Apparently, The Gay Ghost can fly at the speed of thought. Somehow anyone he's carrying doesn't get ripped to shreds.
• Ghostly Chill: After Keith's ghost rose from his body, he tried to get Deborah's attention by touching her arm, but this was all she felt.
• Handicapped Badass: Three footpads set a trap for Everet which led to him being thrown from his horse and smashing his right shoulder. He was still able to use his untrained left arm to hold off two of them at once with his rapier, before the third grabbed one of the pistols from Everet's saddlebag and shot him.
• Have a Gay Old Time: Yeeaah. Reprints of Gay Ghost comics in the 70's would change his name to The Grim Ghost. He'd also show up in the comic book afterlife in Grant Morrison's Animal Man saying he didn't want to be brought back since the meaning of the word "gay" had changed and he didn't want to be misrepresented.
• Heroes Prefer Swords: The Gay Ghost can manifest a rapier.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Charles Collins dies trying to stop the Nazi spies from going after Deborah.
• Heroic Vow: The Gay Ghost makes two:
  • He promises his ancestors that when he returns to Earth, he'll take up the cause of right and use the secrets they tell him to fight for justice.
  • As Charles Collins is dying, he wishes that he could have died with Deborah thinking well of him, and Keith swears to make her fall in love with both of them. This oath is convenient for the writers since it justifies his keeping Charles as a secret identity.
• How Do I Shot Web?: Discussed. Keith's ancestors explain the secrets of the dead to him, allowing him to use his ghostly powers without any problems.
• Intangibility: As a ghost this is his natural state, but he can manipulate his ectoplasm to become tangible at will. This can also be used on other people.
• Invisibility: Ditto.
• Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Keith hadn't planned to try, but while he was holding off two bandits with his swordwork, another took one of Keith's pistols from his fallen horse and shot him. It works a lot better when bullets pass through you, it later turns out.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Modern-Deborah certainly gets a thrill when The Gay Ghost comes out of one of the walls in her castle and joyously greets her, just not the kind he'd hoped for.
  • The Nazi spy who shot Charles Collins gives a justified one when Collins, possessed by The Ghost, gets back up. He has an extended panic attack when The Ghost incarnates in his old form and ignores being shot multiple times.

  Spy: You-You're dead! Lie down and die! Hey, this isn't FAIR!!

• Psychic Radar: He's also to drag a Nazi spy and the plans he stole directly to where a bunch of British generals are meeting, some 240-ish years after he was killed, so he implicitly has some sort of divination sense.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Keith Everet was/is an earl, so a Peer Who Does Something, rather.
• Socialite: Modern day Deborah Wallace is one of these, and famous enough to be a crime magnet.
• Vengeful Ghost: Of course, since the people who killed him are long deceased themselves, Keith Everet has to content himself with fighting criminals in general.
• Vigilante Execution: In 1700 Ireland, "We didn't mean to kill him, we just wanted to rob him!" doesn't exactly hold up as an excuse to avoid one of these, as the footpads who killed Keith Everet found out.
• Year Outside, Hour Inside: Keith is startled to learn that the lecture from his ancestors about the secrets of the dead actually lasted for eighty years of living-world time, and his Deborah is long dead.

Tropes in other features:

• 20 Minutes into the Future: Astra, Girl of the Future takes place in the far flung future year of 2150, where humans have colonized most of the solar system and posses personal voice activated jets capable of spaceflight instead of cars. Regular news seems to have been superseded by live vlogs, as the main character does her newscasts by just leaving her camera like device worn about her neck on and broadcasting while investigating things and going on adventures.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: Wildcat
• Based on a True Story: The Headline Heroines and Wonder Women of History features.
• Bittersweet Ending: A distressing number of the Headline Heroines stories, which are dramatizations of real events, end with girls and women rescuing others but dying themselves due to their selflessness. Often after days or weeks of painful suffering due to burns.
• The Case of...: A bit muddled, but maintaining "The" and an adjective before "Case" is the title of Wildcat's "The Strange Gibson Case" in issue 83.
• Have a Gay Old Time: The Gay Ghost is not homosexual nor is his name meant to conjure up an association with homosexuality.
• Heroic Dog: Streak the Wonder dog had a feature for a handful of issues.
• Intrepid Reporter: Oh so many, Astra is an intrepid reporter 200 years in the future, and Dr. Pat's love interest is a handsome man who just so happens to be a reporter that follows her and stories into trouble frequently. Reporter Valerie Vaughn has acquired the nickname "Lady Danger" due to her own exploits.
• The Matchmaker: Romance, Inc. is a relationship therapy based company and the main character often helps her clients with their love lives. Amusingly Constance, one of her clients who dreams of being able to travel the world, ends up befriending a the lonely kind Mrs. Mayburn only to later discover that the elderly matron is exceedingly rich right before Mrs. Mayburn introduces Constance to her handsome nephew who is the same age and loves traveling. Then cheerfully manipulates things so the three of them end up on a trip to Europe together.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Unlike Dr. Pat the therapist main character from Romance, Inc. encourages girls to drop their life plans and careers by the wayside if their fiance wants a housewife.