White Flower (we never learn her real name) is a latter day pirate villainess in a Sub-Mariner backup story in the Human Torch comic.
Appears in -
The Human Torch no. 29 (Cornell Publishing.1947)
Story - Sub-Mariner - "The Pirates of the China Sea"
Writer - Bill Woolfolk
Art - Possibly Mike Sekowsky/Chic Stone
Story -
Visiting an old friend, the silk merchant Sun Yat in Shanghai, Namor, the Sub-Mariner and Namora recall an adventure which took place 2 years before.
A Caucasian female pirate calling herself "White Flower" and her gang were hijacking very valuable cargo shipments and sinking the vessels in the China Sea. White Flower uses a traditional Chinese junk for her raiding ship, but it is powered by modern engines for fast chases and getaways.
Namor and Namora come across a ship which is sinking, having been attacked by White Flower. They rescue some of the crew from drowning - Namor then sets off after White Flower. He climbs aboard the villainess's vessel and confronts her, fighting with White Flower's pirates. The pirates are losing when the treacherous White Flower clubs Namor from behind. Thinking he's finished, the villainess throws Namor into the sea - but he survives.
Back at Sun Yat's office Namor and Namora check the firm's records and find shipments of silk from Sun Yat have been aboard all the ships robbed by White Flower. Sun Yat is facing bankruptcy because of the activities of the pirates, and he sends his son, Li Po, on the next ship carrying his silk, in the hope that the young man can be of some help if the raiders strike again. Li Po wears "western" clothes, unlike his father, hangs out with western friends and has no interest in the family business, but thinks going with the ship, as his father requests, might be a bit of a lark.
Out at sea, White Flower and her gang pursue and launch an armed raid on the merchant vessel, in the course of which the villainess shoots and wounds Li Po. The pirates board the cargo ship... where Li Po is shocked to recognize White Flower as one of the westerners he had fallen in with. A sneering White Flower, who has been using Li Po to get information about his father's silk shipments, is about to shoot him dead when Namora climbs over the side of the vessel and grabs the villainess from behind round her neck....the bad woman's gun shot going wild and missing Li Po. Namora punches White Flower, whose gun drops from her hand. Namor takes care of her men. An unmasked White Flower and co are next seen as handcuffed prisoners. Li Po tells Namor he'd thought the troupe now exposed as villains were his friends, ones he had taken up with to become "modern." Namor explains he was just being used by them to loot his father.
The story returns to "present," where Li Po comes in joining his father, Namor and Namora. He is now wearing traditional Chinese clothes and now very much involved in the family business he'd once turned up his nose at.
Description - In the introduction to the story she's called "The cruel but beautiful White Flower." She is a slim, good looking young white redhead, probably in her 20s. She wears a striped yellow and black top with green pants tucked into "piratical" boots. She has an eye mask to disguise herself.
Character - A black hearted, totally ruthless and greedy, villainess.
White Flower dialog -
"Kill everyone who resists! Then dynamite the ship!"
"That fool will pay with his life!"
"Your usefulness is at an end, sniveling fool!"
Weapons - Handgun and a club (possibly metal). White Flower is seen wielding a dramatically massive cutlass on the title page, though this never happens in the story. On her belt she has a holster for her gun with a sword on the other hip, though she never uses the sword..
Fate - Arrested
Note - "White Flower" is vaguely reminiscent of the earlier "latter day" buccaneer anti heroine "Alie" in Guy Boothby's popular 1897 novel "The beautiful White Devil." However, unlike Boothby's creation, "White Flower" is a completely evil character.
