Who's This? Green Lantern's second wife.
The facts: Molly Maine is a post-war Golden Age Green Lantern villain created by Robert Kanigher and Irwin Hasen for All-American Comics #89 (September 1947). She would have appear in Alan Scott strips some 15 more times, usually by herself, but sometimes as a member of the Injustice Society. An altruistic streak meant she would betray that group and often team up with GL. So despite her clownish attire, she was more Catwoman than Joker. Scott and Mayne were later married in an Infinity Inc. Annual, making her Jade and Obsidian's stepmother. When Alan Scott was turned into the young Sentinel, it caused a rift with his aging wife and Molly sold her soul to Neron to be rejuvenated, and Alan had to go to Hell to retrieve her soul. Post-New52, Green Lantern has been retconned to be gay, but he still married Molly, divorcing after Alan comes out.
How you could have heard of her: No, she's not the Golden Age version of Harley Quinn. At least, not really. Molly Mayne remains a concern thanks to more recent JSA comics, as she has a son (by another man) who goes by Harlequin's Son. Other women have taken the Harlequin code name.
Example story: All-American Comics #93 (January 1948) "The Double-Crossing Decoy!" by Robert Kanigher and Irwin Hasen
It's not often that we see superheroes or supervillains who wear glasses, which Harlequin evidently does, but no, wait, not in her secret identity. So it's just a fashion accessory. What's more amazing, of course, is that Molly Mayne's civilian identity is Alan Scott's secretary!
In the Lois Lane mold, she desperately wants to make Green Lantern fall in love with her, but has no use for his pasty real self. And ironically here, Alan wants to lure the Harlequin out of hiding just as much as she wants to lure GL out into the open. He's, in fact, about to surprise her in full costume, so she's quick to put her sensible dress back on and to her great delight, Green Lantern asks her out! As first dates go, the opening of the Palladium (a big arena where the stage "plays" with animatronic elephants) is nice enough, but she's going to have to excuse herself at some point to go to powder her nose because that was to be her next target. As the Harlequin springs into action, Alan congratulates himself on having rumbled her by setting a jealousy trap. Beard indeed. And though the crooks in her service are willing to kill Green Lantern with a robotic elephant stomp, Molly won't have it.
She acts like her aim is bad to save her beau, but then flashes him right in the eyes so she can go back and take her seat. The show is ruined, so he flies her off to a different date - a tower that test's a pilot's reaction to upward acceleration. Okay, I'm not sure I rate that one highly. But again, this is just to trick the Harlequin into attacking (wait, isn't this dangerous to your presumptive date, Alan?). The "Old and New Arms Exhibit" also has bows and crossbows and soon, bad guys are attacking the crowd (and him) with them. They then switch to guns, because they don't realize wooden arrows were much more dangerous to the hero, but you know who has a wooden weapon? Harlequin!
She gets into a fight with these mugs because her goal is not to kill GL, except with kindness and love, but they overpower her. As per the cover, they tie him to a missile and shoot him over the city, and all Molly can do is give him a kiss goodbye (not shown on panel because there ever was a cooties-conscious comic, it's this one). She does slip him something, though... an automatic pencil that acts as a laser so he can cut his bonds. Not sure how that relates to her "clownish" theme, but even so. Meanwhile, the crooks bring the Harlequin along on their next caper, and the focus is way too much on them. Let's just skip to GL saving her from a great fall and be done with it.
It's, in retrospect, funny how little chemistry they have. But honestly, she starts off as a villain (of sorts) and quickly turns into a damsel in distress. She needn't have dressed up. She he drops her off to the police station where no one thinks of unmasking her - or indeed, taking her weaponized glasses away, and she escapes in time to go back to work the next morning.
The "Next Ish" caption box seems to imply that she's basically his co-star now, which is an interesting notion for an early superhero strip. Is this a post-War thing? It's kind of like Black Canary and Johnny Thunder. Well, in any case, poor Molly would have to wait some 35 years for Green Lantern to seal the deal with a ring.
Who's Next? A reverse ugly duckling.
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