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| "DC's First Masked Hero" from The Crimson Avenger #1 (DC, 1988) by Roy & Dann Thomas and Greg Brooks |
Though excessively wordy, Roy Thomas' work on Golden Age characters was a great love of mine through the 80s. The Crimson Avenger was DC's first masked hero, predating Batman by a matter of months, obviously a character in the pulp mode. Though he would later wear spandex, the mini-series takes him back to his origin as a fedora-wearing masked man just going to a fancy dress party when he is called into heroism. I also love how Thomas uses 1938's War of the Worlds broadcast as backdrop, as it would have coincided with the Crimson Avenger's first appearance on the stands. DC should really collect Roy Thomas' Golden Age origin stories from Secret Origins and All-Star Squadron AND include this mini in it.
I liked this character and you are right about having these stories collected. If memory serves me right--and at my age it sometimes doesn't--the artist or inker on the mini went to jail for assaulting and/or killing his girlfriend or roommate.
ReplyDeleteI have NO idea where Geoff Johns was going with his legacy character in JSA, I liked that she had Lee Travis's guns and that she took two of Wildcat's nine lives, but she dropped into nowhere.