Socially aware teenaged Madeline Joyce was born in Washington, D.C.. She was the niece and ward of radio mogul James Bennet, who was sponsoring a Professor Lawson, a scientist claiming to have gotten superpowers through a device that had been struck by lightning. Joyce, secretly tampering with the contraption during a thunderstorm that night, herself gained the ability to fly and great strength after lightning similarly struck, knocking her unconscious. Joyce survived to fight crime as Miss America.

Later, she became a member of Timely's superhero team the All-Winners Squad, fighting alongside Captain America and Bucky, the original Human Torch and Toro, the Sub-Mariner, and the Whizzer in the group's adventures.

It was revealed later that Joyce married fellow Golden Age superhero Robert Frank (the Whizzer), and which she had a son with him. However, Joyce died in childbirth due to radiation poisoning from her offspring, the radioactive mutant Nuklo.