It was that appearance in Old Justice which first introduced me to Merry! And, as she's pretty much the only DC Golden Ager NOT in the JSA or All-Star Squad, I just guessed her randomly!
Alas, her descendant died in Morrison's series, right? Man...
There was a slew of female characters introduced into male strips circa 1947-48. The most successful was Black Canary, introduced in Johnny Thunder before pushing him out of both his own strip and the JSA.
Merry is kind of cool as an early example of the feisty teen girl superhero, which is pretty common these days, but apparently didn't take off in the late 40s. She definitely deserves better treatment than she's gotten, though.
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Which Justice Leaguer's given name caused him embarrassment when he tried to flirt with an Australian woman?
Lardy has it! Wally-as-Flash introduced himself as Wally, and the Australians laughed caused Wally means "idiot, clown, or clumsy person" in Australian slang
It was a total guess! I looked at a list of JLI members (because I figured it had to be from that era), and his name looked like "wallaby" which I seem to recall from dialogue involving Aussies--possibly Outback Steakhouse commercials? Otherwise, I've never heard of "wally" as a slang term!
Yeah guys being named "Bruce" has been thrown off at a few times. Can't say that it has any meaning. "Don't be a Wally" or "He's a bit of a Wally" were terms to describe someone being a bit of a fool. The other one I was thinking of was Ralph. When someone has had a bit too much to drink and ends up "worshipping at the ceramic throne" (i.e. throwing up in the toilet, loo, dunny) he is said to be meeting Ralph, a bit from the sound I guess.
A lot of slang like these used to be more common but are becoming less so as our culture becomes more internationalised thanks to communication technology today. An example of this was when Virgin Airlines set up an Australian branch they called it "Virgin Blue" because a redhead used to be nicknamed "Blue" and Branson thought that was too hilarious to pass up but it has now been renamed to Virgin Australia probably because too many Australians didn't understand it any more.
A common one I still hear is "being crook" which means feeling sick or ill. A very local slang originating in Melbourne but somewhat more spread now is if something is extremely unlikely to occur it is said to have "two chances, Buckley's or none". Buckley was an early convict in the Melbourne area who escaped by swimming across the entrance to Port Phillip Bay, an extremely dangerous stretch of water. He was presumed to have drowned until he was discovered years later living with a local native tribe.
Kangaroos and wallabies are both members of the same family with the kangaroos being the larger more well known variety of about half a dozen species while there are many more species of wallabies which tend to be smaller and a bit rounder compared to the stretched out kangaroos. There are also pademelons and quokkas which are even smaller. The characteristic they share in common is the large rear feet and only being able to move their rear legs together as one, so they can't walk like other mammals and can only hop/jump on their hind legs or slowly do a kind of slow crawl balancing on their smaller front legs while dragging their back legs forward. This is how they move while grazing. It also means that they can't go backwards. We have the Red Kangaroo (the largest) and the Emu on our Australian coat of arms because neither animal can go backwards, they can only move forwards as I guess our founders hoped our country would. There is also another variety known as tree-kangaroos living mostly in New Guinea and far northern Australia, so named because they spend most of their time living in trees in the rainforests very rarely coming down to the ground.
Thanks for sharing these interesting tidbits, stile. I have a few Australian friends, and they certainly also don't talk like how Australians depicted in media decades ago do. And of course, a look into Australia's very interesting and unique fauna.
LOL that image is so funny when you know the animals themselves. I once met a young man from Korea who wanted to know if the video of a kangaroo boxing was real. At the time I hadn't seen it but I have now seen one with the 'roo wearing boxing gloves against a human (who doesn't fare too well) and can't say that I enjoyed it as I'm sure the 'roo didn't either. Animal cruelty comes to mind.There is however a good Attenborough video of how males do fight each other for dominance and it can be impressive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCcLMNcWZOc
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