Crimson Avenger
1870 - Lee Walter Travis is born in Billings, Montana. His family owns a series of silver mines.
1885 - 15-year-old Lee becomes foreman of his father's silver mine.
1892 - 22-year-old Lee kills a man on the mine & runs away. He serves in the French foreign legion during the 2nd Franco-Dahomean War.
1894 - 24-year-old Lee runs away from the Foreign Legion when the war ends, & enlists on an opium trawler.
1897 - 27-year-old Lee finds his way to Nanda Parbat, where he begins regaining his health. Seeing how hopeless he is, Wing Hu begins to mentor Travis in the arts of their city.
1904 - 34-year-old Lee feels a calling to return home and begin to use what he's learned in pursuit of justice. He returns to the US & begins a New York newspaper, the Globe, with his family fortune, starting to build his network of informants. Wing Hu comes with him, posing as his valet.
1909 - 39-year-old Lee appears as the Crimson Avenger during the Hudson World Fair, stopping a crew of robbers.
1919 - 49-year-old Lee returns from the war. He does less as the Crimson Avenger due to the respiratory distress he suffered from chlorine gas.
1929 - 59-year-old Lee dies of respiratory failure. before he passes, he sees a runaway ship in the harbor & manages to save the city one last time.
The Crimson Avenger is a really interesting time capsule of a character for several reasons. He's a rare representation of some of the influences that predated and helped inform the invention of comic book superheroes. He's a product of a very specific slice of comic book history, poised right on the teetering edge of the arrival of costumed superheroes, and his own evolution perfectly illustrates some of the evolutions of the medium at the time. He's also an interesting sort of forgotten hero archetype, the sort that is suddenly returned to public awareness because several different era of comics have invented ways to reach back and revisit old ideas.
Our version of the Crimson Avenger is going to leave quite a bit of content on the table, but in exploring some of the possibilities presented here, we think we've found a REALLY cool utility for this character that gives out world something very unique and new. As always, please tell us what you think!
Our version of the Crimson Avenger is going to leave quite a bit of content on the table, but in exploring some of the possibilities presented here, we think we've found a REALLY cool utility for this character that gives out world something very unique and new. As always, please tell us what you think!
|
The Crimson Avenger's Comic HistoryThe Crimson Avenger appeared for the first time in Detective Comics #20 in 1938. At that point the book exclusively told stories about hard boiled detectives, the only superhero in DC's catalog at that point was Superman, who had debuted earlier the same year. In contrast, the Crimson Avenger had much more in common with certain radio serial heroes like the Green Hornet and the Shadow, and his stories played more like crime dramas, with young crusading newspaper publisher Lee Walter Travis embroiling himself in the schemes of criminals to take them down from the inside, all with his trusty valet Wing at his side.
The Crimson Avenger was one of the regular appearing features in Detective Comics, even appearing once on the cover of issue 22. Of course, Batman debuted in issue 27 and quickly became the breakout star of Detective Comics. In a relatively short amount of time the concept of costumed superheroes quickly gain popularity, so in 1940, in issue 44, Crimson Avenger traded in his hat and cloak for a superhero costume of his own. Admittedly, it's a pretty silly costume by todays standards, but it was much more in keeping with the style at the time, as the whole idea of comic book superheroes was still inventing itself. |
|
Crimson Avenger continued to feature in Detective Comics until 1944, when the book was well on it's way to only featuring Batman. In the meantime he had some appearances in World's Finest Comics in 1941 before he was featured in a new publication, Leading Comics, in 1941. He was a member of the 7 Soldiers of Victory, a new superhero team created, presumably, to capitalize on the success of the Justice Society of America, which DC had introduced the year before in All-Star Comics. The 7 soldiers were not as successful as the Society, appearing in the first 14 issues of Leading Comics before it transitioned to a humor and talking animals comic.
It's kind of surprising that that's pretty much it for classic appearance of the Crimson Avenger and the 7 Soldiers of Victory. Issue 100 of Justice League of America in 1972 featured a huge crossover with the Justice Society, and brought back the Soldiers in a story that retroactively explained that they had been lost in history, and from that point forward you did regularly see comics reference the 'classic' adventures of the 7 Soldiers, despite there not being much in the way of adventures to actually reference. Interestingly, after the Crisis of Infinite Earths, you started to see a small increase in interest in the Crimson Avenger's original hat and cape adventures, rather than his costumed ones. He had a dedicated issue of Secret Origins in 1986, and a four issue miniseries in 1988. In Grant Morrison's JLA, it's revealed that when accepting a new member, the Justice League actually use Lee's original Hat and Cape as part of their swearing in ceremony, as he was the very first costumed hero. |
|
|
Our Crimson Avenger StoryWe're going to stick entirely to the original version of the Crimson Avenger, and really lean into the idea that he is the first costumed hero of the 20th century. We're actually moving him even further back than he's usually depicted, starting his career in 1909. We're also deliberately building up his story so that it evokes the classic radio drama heroes he's based on... specifically taking ideas from both the Shadow and Green Hornet. Elements of both characters backstories actually come together in a really cool way, from the Green Hornet's history as a crusading newspaper publisher in a domino mask with his faithful valet, and the Shadow's mystic arts learned while traveling "the mysterious orient", and his city-wide network of informants. We even get to go a step further, because the Green Hornet was always intended to be the descendant of the Lone Ranger, despite the characters being owned by different companies, and by moving his story so far back we get to reference that character too, tying his family fortune to Montana silver mines.
Once we found a particular blend of these influences we really liked, we could cherry pick from the many stories that have been retroactively told about Travis's life and career, like his debut at the World Fair (now the 1909 Hudson World Fair), his partnering with classic western hero Bat Lash, and his final adventure, choosing to sacrifice himself to save his city one last time. These are all actual in-continuity story elements that we're bringing into out timeline practically unchanged. |
The Crimson Avenger's CostumeIt's really fascinating that the classic radio hero-style Crimson Avenger, with his hat and cape, account for such a small amount of the character's total appearances. Traditionally his look seems to have been a dark suit, tie, and hat, with a long red highwayman cloak, although I've seen a few references to a look we really liked, with a red trench coat and white ascot. I believe he showed up in this costume in one of his appearances in Justice League Unlimited.
As much as we enjoyed that costume, however, the fact that we've moved the character's whole story further back in time actually does a lot to really inform what his look will be. We're so used to the visual language of the hard-boiled 30s and 40s detective and the radio heroes of the era, but going back to the early 1900s and 1910s gives us a whole different visual language. Rather than driving something similar to a 38 Buick Roadmaster, imagine Wing driving him in something closer to the roadsters used for those great cross country races of the turn of the century. Rather than a single or double breasted suit with a tie, his costume would have a style and design closer to men's fashion of the era. The twin pistols he's carrying would actually be 1909 Colts, the precursors to the 1911 that the army was testing. I mean, just think of what New York itself looked like. All told it just starts to come together into a very particular visual that profoundly evokes a time and place, and makes the idea of Crimson Avenger being the century's first costumed hero really feel like a foundational part of the timeline we're building. |
|
Related Characters
