BILLY GUNN

Real Name: William Gunn

Class: Human

Occupation: Hero

Group Affiliation: Seven Soldiers of Victory

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Mobile, 1940s era

First Appearance: Action Comics I #43 (December, 1941)

Powers: Billy Gunn was a ferociously loyal friend and a skilled gunslinger.

History: Billy Gunn served as sidekick to the mysteryman Vigilante.

(Leading Comics #1) -When criminal mastermind the Hand learned he was dying he broke out a number of criminals, and planned a once in a lifetime crime for each of them, but warned them they'd be opposed by their arch0-enemies, who he'd taunted to top them in the morning's paper. Green Arrow and Speedy, Crimson Avenger, Shining Knight, Vigilante, Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy all responded, taking the Hand's threat seriously. The heroes met in the Gotham City auditorium, where the Han broadcast a video informed them where their arch-enemies would be committing crimes. The mysterymen decided to take care of their own, and report to each other in a week on their progress. The Hand gave Dummy a plan that involved kidnapping Hollywood stars, replacing them with stone sculptures, and claiming to having used a ray that turned them to stone, demanding a ransom to turn them back to normal. The Hand tipped off Vigilante to the scheme, and the mysteryman arrived in L.A. being courted by Hollywood, even though he was satisfied being a radio personality. Billy Gun used the opportunity to try out for a western, but the director thought him very unauthentic. Vigilante and Gun uncovered the ruse, and the Dummy animated himself, and hid behind sculptures of future kidnapping victims. He engaged in a firefight with Vigilante, but the hero shot the sculptures, which toppled on top of his enemy, rendering him helpless. The rest of the villains failed, and the Hand decided to destroy the heroes himself to preserve his legacy. He contacted them via video, and gave them the address of his hideout, daring them to defeat him. Just then he got a call from his doctor that a new surgery could cure him. He realized he'd acted rashly, but his pride demanded he destroy his foes. The mysterymen made their way through all his booby-traps until they penetrated his sanctum. He aimed an electric beam at them, but Vigilante shot it down, electrifying him. The heroes realized the good they did teaming up, and decided to form the Seven Soldiers of Victory.

(Leading Comics #2) - Sylvester Pemberton's father brought him to a bank to leartn about finance, even though he protested that it was interrupting his anthropology studies. Criminals Captain Bigg, Brain, Falseface, Hopper and Rattler posed as city workers, and broke a water main. The hydraulic pressure wrecked the bank's wall, and they robbed it, affording their escape by changing clothes and impersonating police officers. Sylvester told Pat that there had to be some mastermind behind such a crime, and team-up of notorious criminals, so they resolved to call a meeting of the Sreven Soldiers of Victory. The Soldiers followed a trail of gunpowder the criminals' truck left behind, and it led to a train station. They discovered film reels from the crooks mastermind, the Black Star, who directed them to split up for his planned crime wave. The Soldiers split up to the locations the villains were headed. The Rattler was sent after a rare stamp owned by three men in Big City. He killed two of them, and his torture techniques forced them to reveal that Mr. Wilkins, who had physical possession of the stamp, was staying at the Sixty Kiddie Club, where seniors got to relive their formative years. Rattler disguised himself as a senior, and booked himself in. He had his gang of thugs dress up as Native Americans and set fire to the place to force Wilkins to save his stamp, but Vigilante and Billy Gunn interfered, ruining his plan. Vigilante found his gang's hideout, but Rattler got the drop on him with a gun, and tied the heroes up in the desert next to a poisonous snake. Rattler decided to torture Wilkins, and left the heroes to die. They escaped, but Rattler fended them off, knocking ouut Vigilante with a rock before fleeing. Back at the Club, Vigilante caught up with him, seeing through his disguise because his hands were stained red from the rock he used, and took him into custody. Black Star had planned for his henchmen to fail all along, and was pleased at Rattler's lack of success. Once Mr. Wilkins produced the stamp the Star snatched it and fled. Wilkins warned that the stamp was the key to a rare radioactive element. The other criminals failed, but Black Star had that planned all along. One Mr. Wilkins knew his secret, and told the assembled Soldiers that he once worked at a chemical firm that discovered a ray that could enlarge any organic life. They decided it was too dangerous to exist, so they hid each of the radium-elements needed to make the beam, and hid them in a useless object. Their clerk Mowse had observed them, and took the identity of the Black Star to reassemble the elements, using his henchmen's crimes as a distraction. Black Star used the ray on himself, and challenged the Soldiers to meet him at his castle. The heroes fought their way past giant birds, rabbits and insects before confronting the villain. Stripesy knocked hgim cold, and he fell in front of the black light ray, being enlarged until his body crashed through the earth and he was crushed by his own weight. The Seven Soldiers were thrilled by another victory for justice.

(Leading Comics #3) - Oliver Queen and Roy Harper were testing out a two-way radio when Roy saw men dressed as Alexander the Great, Nero, Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun and Napoleon robbing a national bank. The villains of history disabled Roy, and Khan made off with his two-way radio. Oliver came to Roy's aid after they disappeared, and from the two-way transmissions they realized the men weren't dressed as historical characters, they actually were them. They called a meeting of the Seven Soldiers, and the radio revealed that the men had been plucked from the past by mad scientist Dr. Doome, who was building a time machine to penetrate the future and rule the world. To complete it he needed several rare metals, and dispatched his partners to find them. The Soldiers split up to tackle each of the historical figures. Attila the Hun and Doome's crony's seized a shipment of tantalum from Deadwood, South Dakota, but were harassed by Wild Bill Dickson, nephew of the famous Deadwood sheriff. Vigilante and Billy Gunn arrived on the scene, and Bill pointed them in the right direction. They found Attila and company fleeing to Mount Rushmore, and quickly apprehended them. A mob was convinced that Wild Bill committed the train heist, and was ready to lynch him before Vigilante intervened. The townsfolk listened to Vigilante, and after clearing Bill of wrongdoing made him a deputy. Before Vigilante could turn Attila in, the warrior fled back to the past. After all the villains were foiled the Soldiers tracked Doome to his headquarters, and he used his time machine to flee into the past. The heroes followed, finding themselves in 1200 BC during the Greek sack of Troy. Doome had convinced the legendary Ulysses that the Soldiers were enemies, and he sent his troops against them. When Ulysses saw how valiantly the Soldiers fought he knew they could not be villains, and ordered his troops back. Doome fled to the present, and Speedy had the presence of mind to take a time scepter with him, so the Soldiers returned to their own time. In desperation Doome tried to send himself into the future, but without the rare metals he still needed the machine exploded. The Soldiers were unsure if he made it, but knew that if he did there would be heroes like them in the future to take care of business.

Comments: Created by Mort Meskin.

In the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe, Billy Gunn lived on Earth-2.

Billy Gunn's appearance in Leading Comics #2 was reprinted in Justice League of America #111 and #112.

Billy Gunn had a cameo in Hawkman IV #6

All characters mentioned or pictured are ™  and © DC Comics, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Please visit The Official DC Comics Site at: http://www.batman.com