Editing Mighty Mouse (section)

===Mighty Mouse: rename and redesign===
[[File:Mighty Mouse (original blue version).png|thumb|upright|left|Mighty Mouse, as the character originally appeared, wearing a costume reminiscent of Superman's.]]
In 1944, Paul Terry learned that another character named "Super Mouse" was to be published in [[Standard Comics]]' ''Coo-Coo Comics'', so his character's name was changed to Mighty Mouse.<ref name=toon>{{cite web |last1=Markstein |first1=Don |title=Supermouse, the Big Cheese |url=http://www.toonopedia.com/suprmous.htm |website=Toonopedia |access-date=February 15, 2020}}</ref> The first short under the character's new name was ''The Wreck of the Hesperus'', released February 11, 1944, adapting [[The Wreck of the Hesperus|the celebrated poem]] by [[Henry Wadsworth Longfellow]] with the addition of a superhero mouse. A couple months later, the studio spoofed another classic, [[Robert Louis Stevenson]]'s ''[[Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde]]'', under the title ''Mighty Mouse Meets Jeckyll and Hyde Cat''.

By summer, Mighty Mouse's costume got an overhaul as well. Until this point, he'd been wearing Superman's colors—a blue costume with a red cape—but in the June 16, 1944, cartoon ''Eliza on the Ice'', Mighty Mouse appears for the first time in a red costume, with a yellow cape. This is also the first time that the character was portrayed as living among the stars, hurtling down from the heavens to save the day.<ref name=terry-ch18/>

The final design of the character debuted in the 15th cartoon, ''The Sultan's Birthday'', released on October 13, 1944. In this cartoon, redesigned by animator [[Connie Rasinski]], Mighty Mouse has a fuller figure with an exaggerated upper body, and is clad in a yellow outfit, with a red cape and trunks.<ref name=terry-ch18/>

Like his inspiration, Superman, Mighty Mouse's [[superpower (ability)|superpowers]] are vast and sometimes appear limitless. His main powers include flight, super-strength and invulnerability. The early cartoons often portray him as a ruthless fighter; one of his most frequent tactics is to fly under an enemy's chin and let loose a volley of blows, subduing the opponent through sheer physical punishment.

However, his powers can vary, depending on the demands of the story; he is sometimes knocked unconscious or rendered temporarily immobile by the villain, only to rise again by the end of the cartoon and save the day. In some films, he uses [[X-ray vision]] and [[psychokinesis]]. He was also able to [[Time travel|turn back time]] in 1946's ''The Johnstown Flood''. Other cartoons, like 1945's ''Krakatoa'', show him leaving a red [[contrail]] during flight that he can manipulate like a band of solid, flexible matter. In several of the cartoons, when Mighty Mouse achieves the impossible feats, the narrator exclaims, first in a normal voice: "What a mouse!!!!!", followed by his louder triumphant voice: "WHAT A MOUSE!!!!!"

In a 1969 interview, Terry said that Mighty Mouse's power had a religious aspect: "When a man is sick, or down, or hurt, you say, 'There's nothing more we can do. It's in God's hand.' And he either survives or he doesn't according to God's plan. Right? So, 'Man's extremity is God's opportunity.' So, taking that as a basis, I'd only have to get the mice in a tough spot and then say, 'Isn't there someone who can help?' 'Yes, there is someone; it's Mighty Mouse!' So, down from the heavens he'd come sailing down and lick the evil spirit, or whatever it was. And everything would be serene again." Biographer W. Gerald Harmonic notes that as of the mid 40s, Mighty Mouse would be pictured living on a star or a cloud, up in the heavens, and that he became "a Christ-like figure, a savior of all 'mouse-kind'."<ref name=terry-ch18/>

While his typical opponents are nondescript cats, Mighty Mouse occasionally battles specific villains, though most appear in only one or two films. Several of the earliest "Super Mouse" films (having been made during [[World War II]]), feature the cats as thinly veiled caricatures of the [[Nazism|Nazis]], hunting down mice and marching them into [[Internment#Concentration camp|concentration camp]]–like traps to what would otherwise be their doom. The Bat-cats, alien cats with bat wings and wheels for feet, appeared in two cartoons; in two others between 1949 and 1950 he faces a huge, dim-witted, but super-strong cat named Julius "Pinhead" Schlabotka (voiced by [[Dayton Allen]]) whose strength rivals Mighty Mouse's. In rare moments, he confronts non-feline adversaries such as human villain Bad Bill Bunion and his horse, or the Automatic Mouse Trap, a brontosaur-shaped robotic monster. In ''The Green Line'' (1944), the cats and the mice live on either side of a green dividing line down the middle of their town's main street. They agree to keep the peace as long as no one crosses it. An evil entity, a [[Satan]] cat, starts the cats and mice fighting. At the end, Mighty Mouse is cheered by mice and cats alike.