Crimson Avenger

The **Crimson Avenger**, born **Lee Travis**, is an American newspaper publisher and masked vigilante in Earth-Two. The publisher of the *Globe-Leader*, Travis uses legally and ethically dubious tactics to bring down criminals who have otherwise evaded reprisal. His sidekick is Wing, a loyal Chinese chauffeur and assistant.

## Biography

By late 1938, the Crimson Avenger was a well-established nuisance to the police force and a feared agent against crime. In October, he framed defense lawyer Myron Block for attempted murder in a convoluted plot that exposed Block's true crime of supplying false witnesses to his clients, allowing guilty and violent criminals to get off. He then surreptitiously led police to a gravesite where a bank robber had been killed by a rival gang and unwittingly buried with $50,000. The Avenger caught the dead man's cohorts at the gravesite and bound them for the police's retrieval. Travis boldly put a $5,000 reward in his paper for information leading to the capture of the Crimson Avenger. Besides being a tactic to sell papers, this would allow him to figure out how secure his secret identity truly was. This strategy also brought to light a corrupt police officer who was cooperating with criminals to try to bring down the Avenger—the latter thwarted their plans and brought them to justice. At the beginning of 1939, Travis heard of a series of murders on major crime leaders in the city. As the Avenger, he arrived at the scene of one such killing only to find that the killers hardly acknowledged him; they simply shot the gangsters and quietly left. Trailing them to their hideout, the Avenger found that they were zombies controlled by a scientist looking to gain control of the city's underworld by wiping out its gang leaders. The man also looked to sacrifice heiress Linda Perry with a snake for reasons unclear. Crimson incapacitated them and notified the police to take the scientist in.

With the help of a Chinese ally of Wing's named Sin Lu, the Avenger next uncovered a deadly insurance scheme carried out by Tony Sparta and also involving a police commissioner. The insurance schemes continued, as the Avenger brought to justice an airplane manufacturer who was deliberately exploding his own planes to collect on the insurance money, killing passengers along the way. The Crimson's infamy became such that a gang tried to use a knockoff Avenger costume to commit heists, but the real Crimson Avenger shut down their plans and brought them to justice. The Crimson then supplied the police with evidence to bring down Mike Moran, a gambling bookie who had killed a man for his massive debt, plus a man who'd taken photos of the deed, and a nurse who'd operated on the latter. Shortly afterward, Travis got embroiled in a battle over a valuable ruby, though was unable to see it out himself due to abrupt police involvement, and solved a convoluted kidnapping case.

## References

1. ↑ *Detective Comics* #20h: "The Crimson Avenger." (October 1938) Chambers, Jim.
2. ↑ *Detective Comics* #21h: "The Crimson Avenger." (November 1938) Chambers, Jim.
3. ↑ *Detective Comics* #22c: "The Crimson Avenger." (December 1938) Chambers, Jim.
4. ↑ *Detective Comics* #23d: "The Crimson Avenger." (January 1939) Chambers, Jim.
5. ↑ *Detective Comics* #24h: "The Crimson Avenger." (February 1939) Chambers, Jim.
6. ↑ *Detective Comics* #25h: "The Crimson Avenger." (March 1939) Chambers, Jim.
7. ↑ *Detective Comics* #26d: "The Crimson Avenger." (April 1939) Chambers, Jim.
8. ↑ *Detective Comics* #27f: "The Crimson Avenger." (May 1939) Chambers, Jim.
9. ↑ *Detective Comics* #28e: "The Crimson Avenger." (June 1939) Chambers, Jim.
10. ↑ *Detective Comics* #29d: "The Crimson Avenger." (July 1939) Chambers, Jim.