At the beginnings of the year 1940 the American Air Force and Marine department are having some looses due some mysterious attacks, the answers seem clear: sabotage and espionage.
A member of the Intelligence, Admiral Corby calls his friend, Alan Armstrong, to let him know a terrible notice: his fiancé, Eve Corby, and daughter of the Admiral, was flying in an airplane, which has been shot down. His daughter is disapeared, and everybody suspect that she's dead.
But Alan is an strong willed man, and refuses to believe that his beloved girlfriend has died, rather, he dons a costume and takes his gyrosub to find her. On his quest, he realizes that a masterspy, code named The Mask. Alan finds the headquarters of the spies and rescues her sweetheart, however, The Mask escapes. After this, Alan decides to watch over America to get rid of the spies.
Eve is the only person that knows his secret identity, but once, The Mask (who returned subsequently) captured The Mask and controlled his mind with a device named Brainograph. While washing the mind of the Spy Smasher, The Mask fills Alan's mind with commands of betrayal and murder, so good is he at that, that when Alan gets out of the Brainograph, the Spy Smasher kills the Mask.
After this, a lot of events happen regarding terrorist acts, Admiral Corby finds out who is the responsible behind these events, and calls Bulletman to help him. By this time, Alan had already done killed a lot of soldiers of the American army, destroyed anything he could, and even tried to kill all the people reunited in a secret summit of the army.
Now, trying to stop the Spy Smasher and his Gyro-Sub (a silent red and yellow vessel that combined the functions of an airplane, auto gyro, speedboat and submarine, as fast as light) wasn't the easiest of the tasks. Being as intelligent as he was, Alan managed to arm a little army of convicts, in the end, Bulletman stopped them. But, Spy Smasher shots a bullet from his gyro-sub and stops Bulletman.
Taking him into his lair (what Bulletman precisely wanted, so he pretended to be unconscious), which coincidentally, is the former Mask's headquarters, Alan is trying to brainwash Bulletman just as it happened with him. Bulletman resists and escapes, but Spy Smasher escaped.
Enraged, Spy Smasher tried to kill Eve, and Bulletman stopped him. With the Brainograph destroyed in a posterior battle, Bulletman receives the unexpected aid of Ibis, The Invincible and his Ibistick, which reverses the process. Spy Smasher repents, but is forgiven due he wasn't really responsible of his acts.
In 1943, he teams with Captain Midnight to get a new secret airplane done by this last one. Spy Smasher retires at the end of the war, becoming the private investigator known as 'Crime Smasher'.
Spy Smasher was part of the super team known as the Squadron of Justice.
In the post-Crisis continuity, it is known that he joined once more, using his costume and his gyro-sub to get the Scorpion, helping Billy's and Mary's father, C.C. Batson.
The Scorpion is an ancient Egyptian device which was in East Germany, in this adventure, both battle Baron Blitzkrieg. After terrible efforts, the two heroes escape bringing with them The Scorpion to America. Since then, Alan retired and has lived in Fawcett City ever since.
The Spy Smasher is the brainchild of Bill Parker and C.C. Beck, and appeared in the very same first issue where Captain Marvel appeared the first time. Kane Richmond played this character in the serials by the Republic films, 12 chapters released by 1942.
Go Back to Bios Menu
