Tommy Thompkins
1919 - Tommy Thompkins is born in Metropolis, Suicide Slums.
1926 - 7-year-old Tommy Thompkins' mother passes. His father is largely absent, leaving him alone in Suicide Slums.
1929 - 10-year-old Tommy Thompkins becomes a newsboy for the Daily Planet.
1931 - 12-year-old Tommy Thompkins and his fellow newsboys, when they are confronted for protection money by local organized crime, choose to stand up to them with all sorts of hijinks. They are assisted by the Guardian, a new vigilante, who dubs them the Newsboy Legion.
1933 - 14-year-old Tommy Thompkins and the Newsboy Legion discover Jim Harper's identity as the Guardian, and agree to keep it secret.
1937 - 18-year-old Tommy Thompkins and the Newsboy Legion stand up to Intergang with the help of Jim Harper.
1940 - 21-year-old Tommy Thompkins and Johnny Gabrielli are drafted. Patrick MacGuire enlists to join them in Europe.
1942 - 23-year-old Tommy Thompkins unit enters the North African Theater in Algeria.
1943 - 24-year-old Tommy Thompkins, while his unit is pinned down by a machine gun nest near Medjez-el-Bab, Tunisia, charges single-handedly, clearing it with a bayonet, saving his unit before he is gunned down.
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Tommy Tompkins StoryOf the four original Newsboys, Tommy might actually be the one that is the hardest to actually get a sense for. This is specifically because he's the "leader" the of the group, which means he's just sort of the baseline. He's not tough like scrapper, smart like big words, or talkative like Gabby, he's just sort of the main guy. In the early issues of The Newsboy Legion, when the fact that these were all juvenile delinquents was a big plot point, that made him feel like James Cagney in the movie Public Enemy, just this dangerous kid roving around the city looking for trouble.
Trying to emphasize Tommy's role as the central characte of the Newsboys, when creating their war heroics we actually mirrored a real life Medal of Honor winner, Army Private Nicholas Minue. This huge act of heroism is what brings all the other Newsboys back together, allowing Gabby and Scrapper to serve together under Jim Harper right up until the end of the War. |