CRIMSON AVENGER

Real Name: Lee Travis

Class: Human

Occupation: Newspaper publisher, mysteryman

Group Affiliation: All-Star Squadron, Seven Soldiers of Victory

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: NYC, NY, 1940s era

First Appearance: Detective Comics I #20 (October, 1938)

Powers: The Crimson Avenger was a superb athlete and hand-to-hand combatant. Early in his career he used a smoke gun capable of knocking out enemies, and the gun could create a crimson mist for him to make dynamic entrances and exits.

History: Lee Travis fought for justice with his newspaper the Daily Globe-Leader, but when that didn't prove to be enough he took on the mysteryman identity of the Crimson Avenger. The police originally thought he was a criminal, and the Avenger used his infamy to infiltrate criminal organizations.

(World's Best Comics #1) - Lee Travis told Wing that world history was at a turning point with WWII raging, and that it was important to protect America as one of the last unthreatened democracies. Lee knew fifth columnists had their eye on the governor, and if anything happened to him it would be a blow to American morale. Lee had Wing drive him to the governors to make him see that he needed guarding. The governor refused to show weakness, and Lee left the interview disappointed. He stuck around long enough to see a fifth columnist disguised as the ambassador of Bolivinia try to kidnap the governor. Lee leapt into action as the Crimson Avenger, and apprehended the saboteur and his allies.

(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. Crimson Avenger and Wing found that Big Caeser and his men were posing as city workers digging up a NYC street. They tried to interfere, but the police took them for hooligans assaulting construction workers, and arrested them. Cesar used the street construction as a front to shut down Times Square's power and start a crime spree. The police realized their mistake, and allowed Avenger and Wing to defeat the thugs. 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 coulkd 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 Seven 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. In the Twin City Crimson Avenger and Wing pursued the Brain to a twin convention. They found a group of men pumping gas into the convention center, and went into action. They beat back the men, but their quarry escaped, leaving behind only a specialty scalpel. The gas temporarily made the twins look different from each other, and the heroes couldn't understand the motive. They followed up their one lead, the scalpel, and tracked it to Dr. Carse, a famous surgeon. He admitted that he was behind the gas, not the Brain. His client, Mr. Bandler, suffered from helium poisoning, and needed a twin with a rare pituitary condition for a blood transfusion. Twin Bobby Leeds was that man, as the gas revealed by not affecting him, but the Brain had kidnapped him. The heroes agreed to bring Leeds back to Bandler on the agreement that he'd give Bobby the free choice of whether or not to donate his blood. Avenger and Wing found Brain's hideout, and rescued Leeds, but Bandler went against his word and had his henchmen apprehend them. The Brain had followed the mysterymen, and revealed that he still had custody of Bobby, the man the heroes rescued was his twin Billy. He demanded a ransom, but the heroes overpowered the mastermind and his men. Bandler apologized for his behavior, revealing that the Brain was his twin, and had spent his life tormenting him. Given the choice of his own will Leeds agreed to help. 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 him 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. Doome provided Nero with a slave galley from Rome, and a number of soldiers. They plundered Triton, a ship full of uranium, while Nero annoyed everyone by seeking attention with his fiddle playing. Soldiers Crimson Avenger and Wing arrived and entered the fray. Wing was not impressed with the emperor, seeing him as just another criminal. They fought bravely, but were overwhelmed by superior numbers. Nero set fire to the Triton, and sailed off. Avenger and Wing recovered, and helped contain the fire before pursuing Nero and his men. They were trapped in a net, and forced into the slave galley. Young lad Sammy Singer and his pup Scraps were stowaways on the Triton that made their way aboard Nero's ship, and they bravely risked their lives to free the heroes. The Soldiers freed the slaves of the galley and took over Nero's ship. After Crimson Avenger busted Nero's fiddle over the tyrant's head he quickly returned to the past with Doome's time scepter. WThe heroes returned Singer to his parents and told them what a hero he was. 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.

(DC Comics Presents #38) - Lee Travis returned to the present, but was disillusioned with a modern world that was so unfamiliar to him after decades of absence. The Globe-Leader had prospered while he was away, and he decided to travel the world. On his trip he found that he was growing ill, and was diagnosed with an incurable disease that would claim his life within the week. Lee felt let down that as a man of action he’d die in bed. Lee saw a tanker ship flashing an SOS, and decided to become the Crimson Avenger once more to investigate. On the way to the ship he saved the life of a young boy that fell from an apartment window, and earned the undying respect of his mother. The Avenger reached the ship, which was carrying experimental explosive chemicals, and had been hijacked by criminals. The Avenger defeated the crooks, but the battle started a fire that ignited the chemicals. The captain told Crimson Avenger the ship was now a bomb that could destroy the entire city. The Avenger placed him on a lifeboat, and steered the ship out to sea. He knew he was doomed, but was glad he could make his death count for something. The ship blew sky-high, killing the Avenger. The ship’s captain never caught his name, so he couldn’t tell the police who the hero that saved the city was, but the little booy the Avenger saved would grow up hearing about his heroics from his mother.

Comments: Created by Jim Chambers.

In the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe the Crimson Avenger lived on Earth-2.

Crimson Avenger received profiles in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #5 and Who's Who Update '88 #1. Crimson Avenger received a profile in Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #20 under the Seven Soldiers entry. He received a profile in Who’s Who Update ‘87 under the All-Star Squadron entry.

Crimson Avenger's appearance in Leading Comics #2 was reprinted in Justice League of America #111 and #112

A statue of Crimson Avenger was seen in the JSA Museum in JLA / JSA: Virtue and Vice and JSA #52, and his photo was seen in JSA #47. Nightwing I #141 showed Crimson Avenger’s memorial statue in Valhalla.

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