Whatever Happened to Crimson Avenger... and Law's Legionnaires

When Lee Walter Travis decided to adopt the alter ego of Crimson Avenger, he stepped outside his comfort zone as a wealthy newspaper publisher and into the world of costumed crimefighting. As a member of Law's Legionnaires... also known as the Seven Soldiers of Victory, he and his sidekick Wing had several adventures alongside his teammates. The last was a monumental clash with the alien Nebula Man, which caused Lee and the other Soldiers except Wing to be sent to various past centuries. Now in ancient Mexico, Travis became amnesiac and believed himself to be the ruler of its native people. This effect, along with new superhuman powers, were caused by exposure to a fragment of the Nebula Man. When the Justice Society and Justice League retrieved the Legionnaires, returning them to the 20th century to battle their old foe the Iron Hand, Lee discovered that his dear friend Wing sacrificed his life to destroy Nebula Man.

After a brief retirement, in 1980 Lee resumed his heroic career as Crimson Avenger defending Metropolis, while in his professional career he had moved his newspaper the Daily Globe-Leader to that city and renamed it the Daily Planet. However, the next year, Travis learned that he was succumbing to an incurable condition brought on by the Nebula radiation. Deciding to have one final adventure, Crimson Avenger swung from the balcony of his hospital room, saving a lad named Umberto who fell from his mom's apartment window. Then, the Avenger arrived at his original destination, a tanker in distress due to crooks seizing it for its experiemental chemicals onboard. After subduing them and freeing the vessel's crew, he ordered them to abandon ship and flee on its lifeboat while he piloted the volatile vessel out of theharbor. By doing so, the Avenger saved countless citizens on the shores surrounding Metropolis Bay, and seemingly died.

However, due to the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Travis at the instant prior to his perishing was jettisoned from this time period to that of four years in the future. There, equipped with scuba gear he had donned to escape the ship once it cleared the harbor, he ended up arriving on a world now encased in an energy dome along with countless cities from across the Multiverse. 

Now residing with the city and its inhabitants on a new world named Telos, Avenger and his teammates protected Metropolis from various threats for an entire year before the dome collapsed. The ruler of this world sought to pit inhabitants of various cities against one another, and this involved the Crimson and some of his fellow Legionnaires battling the invader hordes of the Antimatter Universe of Qward known as the Thunderers. 

Ultimately, the Qwardians prevailed against the remained Legionnaires, with both Crimson Avenger and his teammate Vigilante dying after being overwhelmed by superior numbers of Thunderers. Prior to this, Stripesy succumbed to pneumonia, while his partner Star-Spangled Kid was heavily involved with Infinity Inc. who were fighting off a different attack on Metropolis led by Jonah Hex and his warriors of the future.

Perhaps the most tragic losses, however, were those of the Battling Bowmen, as Green Arrow and Speedy died back on Earth-Two in the waning hours of the Crisis, as they tried to save cartoonist/reporter Scribby Jibbet from a time-displaced pterodactyl, Instead, the pair fell to their death during this valiant effort, leaving it to the sole remaining active Legionnaire the Shining Knight to come to the rescue.

Meanwhile, on Earth-S and Earth-Four, the Earth-One Green Arrow and Speedy were battling an army of villians invading these parallel planets. Both of them, unlike their counterparts, survived.

Towards the end of the Convengence event, Shining Knight invited Scribby to join him as a new Legionnaire in place of his fallen comrades. As the journalist was chronicling his adventures on this alien world under the dome, he witnessed as Metropolis and all that resided within its border was returning once more to Earth-Two. During this transition, he noted that memories of the past year on Telos were fading away, as reality was once more being restored.

Now back on Earth-Two, the fallen Legionnaires Vigilante's body was found on the streets of Metropolis, surrounded by the city's new conquerors from the Antimatter Universe. And in a cemetary, a grave marked for Pat "Stripesy" Dugan left a mystery as to what happened to fell this strong Soldier. Sadly, the final selfless sacrifice of Crimson Avenger would be left untold, as memories faded from the collective conscience of man.

Those heroes remaining, such as Shining Knight and Scribby as well as Superman, Power Girl and others would undoubtedly have vanquished the Thunderers, sending them back to Qward. This then left those in Metropolis to rebuild their city once more, which had been devastated by natural disasters of the Crisis and warfare on planet Telos.

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Interestingly, the counterparts of the Crimson Avenger and Wing, Flamebird and Nightwing, had a similar eventuality. For years, they resided with their fellow Kryptonians within the shrunken bottled city of Kandor, kept safely inside the Earth-One Superman's Fortress of of Solitude. After a series of adventures wherein Superman and Jimmy Olsen adopted the aliases of Nightwing and Flamebird, a Kandorian version of Gotham City's Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin, scientist Van-Zee and his assistant Ak-Var borrowed these costumes for their own crimefighting escapades.

Eventually, Superman and Supergirl were able to restore Kandor and its citizens to their normal height, on a planet orbiting a red sun known as Rokyn. On this world, the former Kryptonians no longer had superhuman powers, and revealed that this world shifted between universes from time-to-time. As such, Nightwing and Flamebird along with their city were kept in a transitory state, much as the Earth-Two city of Metropolis, between universes... only Rokyn's shifting state wasn't temporary as were those of the cities on Telos.

Funny Faced Friends, Fiends, Foils, & Foibles

Professor Potter, the well-intentioned yet absent minded uncle of Lana Lang, provided many misguided adventures for his friends and family due to his bizarre inventions. The one most effected by his dabblings into the scientific mysteries of the universe was undoubtedly his young associate, Jimmy Olsen. And Potter's golden age counterpart was likewise a source of trouble on occasion.

Among the most successful creations of Potter's was the serum that allowed Jimmy to transform himself into the stretching superhero: Elastic-Lad. 

Prior to this, the Professor unleashed his z-rays on Olsen, transforming the lad into villain Future-Jimmy with mental abilities... which he soon thereafter reversed. Another time, a pill thought to cure a toothache, turned Jimmy into a giant! Potter had previously spawned an evil clone of Jimmy Olsen, and later still would transform Olsen himself into a bizarro much like his own imperfect duplicate Bizarro Jimmy on planet Thrae. Eventually, while on that world, Jimmy used the duplicator ray that initially created duplicates of Superman's friends and foes on Potter, creating a Bizarro Professor Potter who reversed the process, returning Jimmy to his normal humanoid appearance again.

In fact, on the square shaped homeworld of the Bizarros, there were several familiar if hideously disfigured faces beside Jimmy. Some were Bizarro-Lex Luthor, Bizarro-Joker and Bizarro-Titano. These mirrored the villains brought to psuedo-life by the Earth-Two Potter, aka Funny Face, to rob for him. These were Machine Gun Mike, Viper and a lizard giant... all based on comic strip characters Funny Face's bio-ray brought to life. And in fact, shortly after this first caper, Funny Face reappeared behind the scenes to produce a series of Superman-themed cartoons, where synthetic two-dimensional Supermen and Lois Lanes had a series of adventures in their own virtual reality, scenes by audiences across the United States.

To combat these, Lois Lane slyly activated the device while captured by the criminal, and brought to life comic strip heroes that mimic different persona's of Earth-One Jimmy Olsen. Among these was the red-and-yellow costume clad hero Streak Dugan, who like Jimmy's Kandorian alter ego of the masked red-and-yellow clad Flamebird, came equiped with advanced gadgets to fight the forces of evil. Each comic character could grow large, just like Jimmy as Elastic Lad and during his gigantic Turtle Boy phases.

Perhaps the most dangerous villains that Potter and Funny Face unleashed on their respective Earths was the medieval malcontents known as Krogg and Torgo. While Earth-One was saved from Krogg thanks to the combined efforts of both Supermen, the original Superman on Earth-Two enlisted the aid of the caped knight Prince Peril, a more noble psuedo-personage than the dark knight Bizarro Batman whom modern Superman encountered.

The Other Dynamic Duos.... From Kandor and the 30th Century

Batman and Robin were the source of inspiration for many a costumed crusaders, and in these two cases it showed that the concept they embodied was universal and timeless. In the Bottled City of Kandor, last remaining metropolis of the deceased Krypton-One then residing in Superman's Fortress of Solitude, Superman and Jimmy Olsen journeyed there to track down Kryptonian raiders who had threatened Earth-One with a series of thefts. Learning they were outlaws, the pair adopted the aliases of Nightwing and Flamebird inspired by a pair of Kryptonian birds and Gotham City's Dynamic Duo.

Soon thereafter, Kal-El relinquished his Nightwing costume and gave it to distant relative Van-Zee, who had previously imitated his Superman alter ego on occasion. Later, former Phantom Zone inmate Ak-Var married Zee's niece while employed under Van and became the new Flamebird. The pair had scores of adventures in Kandor before it was eventually enlarged. 

Their counterparts were another duo in the tradition of Gotham's gladiators... Crimson Avenger and Wing. After several solo adventures, the pair became members of Law's Legionnaires and later the All-Star Squadron. It was with their fellow Legionnaires that the duo saved Earth-Two from Nebula Man, although ultimately at the cost of their very lives due to radiation exposure.

In the 30th Century of Earths One and Two, the descendant of their worlds' Batmen operated in successive generations culminating in Bron Wayn and Brane Taylor. These futuristic caped crusaders faced fearsome threats such as Bron's foes Muto and Joker and Brane's enemies Xerxa and the Dome. Inspired by Wayn's predecessors the sixth and fifteenth Batmen and Taylor's is the original Brane and Ricky of decades earlier.

Working alongside Bron was his era's Superman, aka Clar Ken, just as Brent had as an ally his nephew whom he adopted in Ricky Taylor. Each of Wayne's descendants during this time came equipped with science undreamed of in the 20th century, such as sophisticated belt jets, advanced communication equipment and teleporting technology... it was their tenacity and courage that helped them utilize it effectively as crime fighters in their time.



Fawcett's Finest: Just Journalists

Ken Wyman and Lee Travis each were born into lives of privilege, yet this did not styme their thirst for either adventure or justice. While Ken was a journalist of the Carterville Daily Blade, Lee was the publisher of the Daily Globe-Leader. Ken rejected his inheritance yet Lee embraced it. Still, each became even more than typical men. Adopting the costumed aliased of Devil's Dagger and the Crimson Avenger, Ken and Lee used domino masks and capes to conceal their secret identities. Ken used a stiletto, Lee his gas gun and crimson smoke.

While Dagger helped protect a wartime Earth-S and the Avenger a wartime Earth-Two, decades later it would be Flamebird who along with Nightwing would fight crime in the bottled city of Kandor on Earth-One. As for the doppleganger of Wyman's butler, this would be the Crimson's partner and chauffeur Wing How.

Bat-Girl or Flamebird, what's in a name?

After the introduction of a sidekick for Batman in the form of Robin, it was only a matter of time before others would replicate his success.

Betty Kane took to her aunt Kathy's example and adopted the identity of Bat-Girl to complement Batwoman in garnering the attention of the Dynamic Duo. After brief careers, she vanished as did auntie, aside from a brief appearance alongside the Teen Titans west team that soon disbanded.

Then the Crisis on Infinite Earths came and Betty was erased from existence, replaced by an Elizabeth Bette Kane who followed Robin's example and used a new identity of Flamebird to attract her man, once more to no avail.

When another Crisis effected the merged Earth, it was revealed that Bette was a native alongside the Justice Society of Earth-Two. Hence she is unique as one of the few, as well as Wildcat, who took over the dominant position on the new merged Earth (wherein most merged characters were originally from Earth-One with their counterparts erased from reality).

During this adventure, it was established, then, that both Earths One and Two had their own Bat-Girl... with slightly different names. And, wherein, the golden age version retired for good, since no Teen Titans existed on her world as had that of her silver age version. Regardless, both lasses were mere precursors to the dominant female protectors of Gotham City in Batgirl and Huntress.

Wonderful Wingmen and Crimson Crusaders Seek Justice on Worlds not their Own

Van-Zee was a scientist living in the bottled city of Kandor, the last surviving city of Krypton-One that had been kept within the walls of Superman's Earth-One Fortress of Solitude. After a brief foray as Superman himself, as he was that hero's lookalike, Van-Zee married and alongside former Phantom Zone convict Ak-Var adopted the aliases of Nightwing and Flamebird.

Lee Walter Travis was a wealthy newspaper publisher in New York City who, along with his assistant Wing How, fought crime on Earth-Two during the early days of the 1940's as Crimson Avenger and Wing. Eventually, both became members of Law's Legionnaires or Seven Soldiers of Victory, and thereafter the All-Star Squadron.

While outside the bottle environment of Kandor, both Nightwing and Flamebird would you Kryptonian level powers, in their home city they relied on flight belts and weaponry in their utility belts. As for the Crimson and Wing, they used ropes and other gadgetry such as red smoke, although on occasion each possessed the power of the nebula energy from their foe Nebula Man.

For Van and Ak, a new life awaited them and the other Kandorians on the trans-dimensional world known as Raokyn, while Lee and Wing faced timeless limbo and death respectively following their class with Nebula Man alongside their allies.