WHIZZER & MISS AMERICA
Real Names: Robert L. Frank, Sr. & Madeline Joyce-Frank
First Appearances: U.S.A. Comics (Vol. 1) #1, August 1941 (Whizzer, Timely Comics); Marvel Mystery Comics (Vol. 1) #49, November 1943 (Ms. America, Timely Comics); Giant-Size Avengers (Vol. 1) #1, August 1974 (first modern appearance for both)
Powers: Robert Frank was bitten by a poisonous snake and received a transfusion of mongoose blood that saved his life. His wife, Madeline, was struck by an electrical discharge. These separate incidences affected their physiologies to activate their apparently latent mutant powers.
The Whizzer possessed the ability to move at superhuman rates of speed. He possessed superhuman strength primarily in his lower body as part of his body's adaptations for running. With his upper body he could lift slightly more than a normal human being of his age, height, and build who engaged in intensive regular exercise could. In his prime, the Whizzer could leg press approximately 1500 pounds under optimal conditions and could run at speeds of up to 100 miles an hour for up to an hour before fatigue impaired his performance. With middle age, however, the Whizzer's ability to move at superhuman speed was diminished considerably.
The Whizzer's entire body was adapted for the rigors of high speed running. His cardiovascular and respiratory systems were many times more efficient than those of a normal human being's. He metabolized an estimated 75% of the caloric energy content of foodstuffs (normal human use is about 25%). The chemical processes of the Whizzer's metabolism were so highly enhanced that his body generated unusually low amounts of fatigue poisons, the normal by-products of locomotion which force the body to rest. His joints were smoother and were lubricated more efficiently than those of an ordinary human being's. His tendons had the tensile strength of spring steel. His bones contained unknown materials significantly more durable than calcium to withstand the dynamic shocks of his feet touching the ground at speeds of up to 100 miles per hour.
The Whizzer's practical reaction time was about four times faster than an ordinary human being's when the Whizzer was in his prime, and the speed at which his brain processed information was heightened to a level commensurate with his bodily speed, enabling him to perceive his surroundings while traveling at high velocities. The Whizzer's lachrymose was more viscous than a normal human being's, thus preventing rapid evaporation and replenishment of surface fluids on his eyeballs under the influence of high wind velocity to occlude his vision.
Miss America had the ability to psionically negate the effect of gravity around herself, allowing her to levitate into the air. In coordination with planned jumps, she could simulate the power of flight. She could attain any height at which she could still breathe (approximately 20,000 feet). She could use her power for up to two hours before mental fatigue would force her to rest. Also, fatigue poisons accumulated in her body much slower than that of a normal human, giving her a heightened vitality. Prior to her modern* appearance, she demonstrated superhuman strength, endurance, invulnerability, x-ray vision, and flight.
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*There's lots of confusion between their early appearances and what was depicted of them (particularly Miss America) during the modern era. To clear it up, let me fill you in on the loose relationship between Timely Comics and Marvel Comics:
In the 1940s, super-heroes were a very off-the-cuff phenomena, without a lot of consistency in what they could do, or the pseudo-science to explain it. It's how they made stories where the original Human Torch could fly to another planet under his own power, and similar super-fantastical elements.
When Roy Thomas started revisiting the '40's in the 1970's, he made it clear in Giant-Size Invaders #1 what Marvel's policy was: Timely Comics were not in continuity with Marvel Comics unless Marvel specifically said so. And even then, the stories may not have happened exactly the way Timely told them. For instance, GSI #1 reprinted Sub-Mariner Comics #1, reporting those events as having occurred in Marvel continuity. However, SMC #1 had the death of Atlantis's ruler, so Roy Thomas included a new footnote in the reprint saying, "Actually, King Thakorr only fell into suspended animation for a time, leaving Namor in charge of Atlantis, but Thakorr's true death was correctly depicted in the modern Sub-Mariner #1." So it happened, but it actually happened this way.
Future Invaders issues in the '70s (along Namor issues in the '90s and the Marvel Boy/Uranian issues of the 2000s) reinforced the idea by showing the Timely Comics as in-universe comic books published about the heroes from pre-1960 at the time, comics which frequently got the details wrong.
Madeline Joyce was struck by lightning in the ‘40's and gained superhuman powers. In the Timely Comics era, she demonstrated superhuman strength, endurance, invulnerability, x-ray vision, and flight.
When she was revived for the modern era, however, Marvel initially chose to limit her powers to merely flight. This was the only ability she demonstrated in her early modern retcon appearances during the Invaders series, and the 1980s OHOTMU (Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe) listed it as her only super power. Her other abilities were written off (in-universe) as fabrications by the people writing at Timely about the true adventures of Miss America in the Marvel Universe. They did establish, though, that Joyce was a latent mutant whose powers were triggered by the lightning.
The era of Roy Thomas, Mark Gruenwald, and John Byrne directing policy at Marvel has passed, however. Since then, modern Marvel historians (particularly the team responsible for reviving the OHOTMU in the 2000s) have been increasingly inclusive of all aspects of Marvel continuity. Their OHOTMUs try to include everything they can in 616 history, from Marvel prose novels, to Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books, to promotional comic book tie-ins by Hardees or Pizza Hut back in the ‘90s, to video games. This also includes a greater emphasis on previously discarded bits of Timely continuity. And so, some modern flashbacks to Miss America in action have once again shown her with super strength, durability, and so on.
As for their connection to Quicksilver & The Scarlet Witch:
Robert and Madeline were in Europe when she went into labor, and went to Mount Wundagore for help. Maddie had already given birth to the radioactive unstable mutant Nuklo, so they expected trouble with this birth. Bova (the cow lady created by the High Evolutionary) assisted as midwife, but both Maddie and the baby died in childbirth. Meanwhile, Magda had just given birth to Wanda and Pietro on Wundagore as well, and vanished into the night.
Bova decided to console Robert Frank by telling him while his wife was dead, the twins were Maddie's babies. She told him Maddie wanted them named Wanda and Pietro, although that had actually been Magda's final request. Instead, Frank freaked out over his wife's death, and ran off abandoning "his" children.
In modern times, while dealing with the return of Nuklo, Whizzer related his story to the Scarlet Witch and the Avengers. Hearing the names intended for the children, Wanda realized she and Pietro were those children, and everyone believed the lie Bova told Bob Frank, that the twins were his. This all happened in Giant-Size Avengers #1, 1974.
Years later, the twins actually met Bova and learned the truth (Or, at least, the truth at the time).
As you can probably tell, this story hasn't been updated with the new info about the twins being neither mutants nor Magneto's/Magda's children either. How the Franks and Magda fit into Natalya Maximoff's timeline is unknown.
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