The American Crusader: Defender of Democracy

[lordultimus]

When a recent request for more golden age characters came, I immediately thought of this guy, who's actually appeared in various comics in the modern age, including a webcomic called Heroes Inc. and even had a bit of a shout-out by Grant Morrison in Multiversity. I'm not sure why this character always stuck with me. Maybe it's because I like the name, maybe I find his costume simple but memorable, maybe it's because I like the idea of a patriotic hero with Superman level powers. Or maybe it's because his origin really, really should have just killed him.

But don't take my word for it. Take a look at his origin yourself.

Warning for female abuse.



From Thrilling Comics #19, copyright August 1941, now in public domain. Creators unknown, but possibly Kin Platt and Ned Pines, who are credited as artist and editor of this issue respectively.

Comments

[lamashtar]

The costume isn't what stays with me. If the origin weren't so old, I'd think this was a parody. The professor is deliberately given a ridiculous personality. His reasoning for doing things seems...tenuous. And he's somewhat casual about murdering the bosses behind the gang. Frankly, he seems more like a typical supervillain type, who just happened to focus on fighting crime first. It'd be interesting to see him again, with that in mind. Public domain, eh? Someone bring him back!

[alicemacher]

"And he's somewhat casual about murdering the bosses behind the gang."

It's interesting how quickly he goes from "Mercy--I shouldn't have done that! I lost my temper" after (justifiably) punching out the mugger to, as you say, casually blowing up the conspirators.

Also--psst, astronomy professor: It's "planetesimal," not "planetissimal."

[trooper924]

This is the Golden Age when reason and logic are scarce and where superheroes showed absolutely no restraint when dealing with criminals.

And the Crusader has been brought back a few times. There's the Heroes Inc. webcomic mentioned above, but Alan Moore also used in his Tom Strong comics where he lived on a duplicate Earth called Terra Obscura with other public domain heroes.

[lamashtar]

Looks like his personality has been given an angsty lift.. http://www.heroes-inc.net/?p=29