'Stargirl' Episode 10: Who is Merry Pemberton, the Girl of 1000 Gimmicks and sister to Starman?
Spoilers for 'Stargirl' Season 1, Episode 10 'Brainwave Jr.'
There were some major revelations on this week's episode of 'Stargirl,' after Brainwave (Christopher James Baker) woke up from his coma and revealed a closer connection to Stargirl (Brec Bassinger) than anyone expected. The show confirms that, like the comics, Brainwave married Starman's (Joel McHale) sister, Merry Pemberton, also known as "The Girl with 1000 Gimmicks."
Merry was introduced in 'Star Spangled Comics' #81, created by Otto Binder and Win Mortimer. She was the sister of Sylvester Pemberton, who on 'Stargirl,' grew up to be Starman. Before he was Starman, though, Sylvester adventured as the Star-Spangled Kid, along with Stripsey (played by Luke Wilson on the show). Sylvester's parents adopted Merry to give Sylvester a "playmate," unaware that Sylvester had plenty of people to "play" with in his very active life as a superhero. Merry was a lot more intuitive than her parents and quickly deduced Sylvester's secret identity.
It wasn't long before Merry donned a costume of her own and though she had no powers of her own, she had a variety of props, tricks and gags that earned her the name of "The Girl with 1000 Gimmicks." She was popular enough to replace the Star-Spangled Kid in his own feature, taking up his spot in 'Star-Spangled Comics' until the series ended. After that, her appearances in the comics were brief.
It would later be revealed that she married Brainwave and gave birth to a son, Henry King Jr. (played by Jake Austin Walker on the show), who would grow up to become Brainwave Jr. Merry herself was believed to have died somewhere around the 'Crisis on Infinite Earths' in 1980. In 'Young Justice,' however, it was revealed that rumors of her death were false and she joined a team of Golden Age superheroes who called themselves "Old Justice."
In the show, of course, her fate was a lot grimmer. Brainwave makes a reference to her superhero persona when he reveals that they met when she stopped him from robbing a bank. Merry's purity eventually convinced Brainwave to try and become a better person. However, after killing the Justice Society, Brainwave realized that Merry had been holding him back and he killed her in order to avoid being tempted into being a good person.
She hasn't been seen in the new, rebooted DC Universe, although with the popularity of the show, it's only a matter of time before she and the rest of the characters peripheral to the Starman legacy are featured more prominently.
The next episode of 'Stargirl' airs July 27 on DC Universe and July 28 on The CW.