I really can't wait for Phil Hester and Carlos Paul's Masquerade. If you're not familiar with the concept, it's part of Jim Kreuger and Alex Ross' Project Superpowers series that updates a bunch of public domain Golden Age superheroes. I don't know any of those characters and haven't been that interested in seeing them updated, but Miss Masque has a cool look and Hester's involvement makes me immediately interested.
While Hester acknowledges Miss Masque's origins as "cheesecake-with-a-gun," he's got some great ideas on how to make her cool.
Unlike all those big guns, she has no powers. Nothing. She must rely on her wits because even her pistols are pretty small potatoes when faced with something like The Claw. I tried to make her special by describing her intellect as almost super human in that she's able, due to a childhood trauma, to imagine herself outside her body. This perspective allows her to observe any dilemma dispassionately and solve problems that go beyond linear logic. She's the brains of the outfit!It also doesn't hurt that the preview art (in the link above) has her fighting a giant Nazi robot.
