SILK SPECTRE

Sally Jupiter changed her last name from Juspeczyk to hide her Polish ancestry and took up crimefighting as the Silk Spectre in order to gain notoriety to promote her modeling career. She was a West Coast member of the Minutemen, the original vigilante justice league formed in mid-1939.

Silk Spectre, 1939

More celebrity than vigilante, Silk Spectre provided a cover for Hooded Justice's homosexuality by being his glamorous girlfriend. She eventually married Laurence Schexnayder, her agent and impressario behind the Minutemen. The marriage eventually failed. She had a brief affair with the Comedian (Edward Blake), bearing their child, Laurel ("Laurie") Jane Juspeczyk, whom she more or less forced into a crimefighting career as the second Silk Spectre.

Silk Spectre had various seedy moments of celebrity, including a sexploitation movie about her called Silk Swingers of Suburbia during the drive-in movie era. She eventually retired to Nepenthe Gardens Rest Resort where she nurses her secrets and memories, in particular, her ill-fated love for the Comedian.
Silk Spectre, despite the seemingly sordid sadness of her story, is a spirited woman, not prone to self-pity. She is and was willful, wanting the best for Laurie and herself. In her time, she was a sex symbol who could and did take care of herself and her daughter all on her own. She was basically an action heroine version of a pin-up girl.

Sally Jupiter, 1985

QUOTATION:
"Every day the future looks a little bit darker. But the past, even the grimy parts of it.... Well, it just keeps on getting brighter all the time."