Golden Age Origin Mirror Woman

[dans]

What would be a good reason for an American girl/woman to be in Tibet in the 1930s? She needs to be around 26 in 1940, and she is probably 14 or higher while she's in Tibet. While she's there she saves the life of a high lama and receives a mystical gift as a reward. In 1940 she is the Dean of a Girls' Finishing School, so that might figure into the reasons for her visit as well.

There are probably not any unique story lines around this that haven't been used before, but I'm hoping for some kind of twist... maybe she (or her folks) were servants to a rich global adventurer? Maybe she was kidnapped and forced into servitude by some bad person, who was traveling around the globe training to become a master criminal? And whoever was funding the global travels died in Tibet, leaving her wealthy enough to buy the finishing school?

Don't fee constrained by those ideas, please. As well, if one of them appeals to you, feel free to expand on it!

Thanks!

[dave]

Missionary? Daughter of Missionary? Red Cross Worker (China invaded around then)? Failed and stranded Vuadville performer?

[dans]

would any of the movie companies made movies in Tibet in the mid 30s? Perhaps on this particular Earth, the movie Lost Horizon was actually filmed in Tibet. I like that...

[redsycorax]

She's an OSS agent facilitating covert arms shipments to Chinese resistance to Japanese imperialism, through Tibet? Which could be interesting...

[dave]

In the 1930's it's Nationalist China trying to take control of Tibet

[redsycorax]

OTL, Tibet was a constituent state of Qing Dynasty China, but central authority was often hampered by regional warlords, so toward the end of the nineteenth century, any Chinese 'control' over Tibet was nominal at best. During the nineteenth century, Britain and Russia also took advantage of the weakness of the Ming Dynasty to encroach on Tibet's territorial autonomy. When the last Chinese Emperor was overthrown in 1912, Tibet's de facto independence became independence in fact. Thereafter, for the next forty years, the Nationalist and Communist factions, Japanese Empire and its Manchukuo puppet state and the aforementioned regional warlords were too busy fighting each other to worry much about remote Tibet, which enjoyed independence for that period- Imperial Japan never got that far inland. That is, until 1951, when the Peoples Republic of China invaded. During the period of independence, Tibetan forces fought within Chinese territories where there were strong concentrations of ethnic Tibetans, namely the provinces of Xikang and Qinghai along the Upper Yangtze River. So, it's entirely possible that there was some covert gun running going on: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet_(1912%E2%80%931951)

In effect, China during the first half of last century was balkanised and characterised by infighting- a lot like Afghanistan today until the Taliban took over again. 

[johnreiter902]

She's on vacation, and it's been her lifelong dream to hike in the Himalayas

Or

She was flying over Asia and her plane crashed

[dans]

I guess for a Golden Age origin, just "Oh, yeah, I was hanging out in a temple in Tibet and I saw a drunken white man about to shoot the high lama." is probably good enough, as if Tibet was someplace everyone went to hang out. I guess back then the kids were anxious to get to the good stuff!

[lee]

In the 40s, aliens were either completely human looking or completely weird. What if she is a novice sorceress from Venus who accidentally opens a portal to Earth? She appears in Tibet and saves the life of the lama. He senses her power and knows it is still being developed, so he gives her the item to help her focus and refine her powers. It also has abilities of its own that she can access.

[dans]

Well, shoot... here I was chugging along with a conventional origin story and now I gotta write another one... Thanks, Lee - I think I'll save that one, and change it to Mercury, for my upcoming Golden Age origin story about 'The Magician from Mercury'

for everyone else who gets this far in the thread, I'm going to go with working on a movie crew that is filming the 1937 blockbuster film Last Horizon, starring Buster Crabbe as Robert Conway and Constance Moore as Sondra. Thanks for all your suggestions!

[dans]

Thanks, everyone. I read them all, reviewed them, and tried them on for size and fit, so even if I didn't choose your suggestion, it went into shaping what I ended up with.

I wonder if I can weave 'The Magician from Mercury' into Lee's pending Mercury Man story somehow?

[dans]

So my new character is based on Mirror Man (Tip Top Comics, first appearance in #54; he has super hero adventures for a while, then the story turns to him being a soldier and he almost never uses his powers again. But new characters is going to be female. I suppose calling her 'Mirror Girl' would be appropriate to that era (as in Doll Girl, or even Moon Girl) but I'd prefer something more appropriate for today... but something easier to say than Mirror Woman. The name should clearly relate to mirrors, because that's how she gets her powers, although her actual powers are not really related to reflections...

any thoughts for a name?

[johnreiter902]

Reflecta?

[dans]

Her powers are granted by passing through a mirror but barely related to the qualities of a mirror. So maybe some other name with mirror in it? Mirrorabelle? Mirrorabella? I was thinking Mirrormodon but then I looked up the original word Myrmidon and it carries definite unheroic overtones.

[johnreiter902]

Lady Mirror?