American Crusader
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The American Crusader is a fictional character and a superhero who originally appeared in Thrilling Comics #19 (Better Publications, 1941). The character was revived in the modern age in Tom Strong #11 by Alan Moore and Chris Sprouse.
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[edit] Character history
His secret identity is Professor Archibald (Archie) Masters, an astronomy professor at an unnamed university in the Eastern United States.
The character debuted in 1941, his mousy alter-ego being similar to that of Superman's Clark Kent identity. He created a device called an atom smasher, and, inevitably, the experiment went awry. Instead of killing him, the accident blasted him with radiation, which endowed him with various superhuman abilities. He used these powers to fight crime as the American Crusader.
Prof. Masters had a secretary named Jane Peters. The Crusader had a teen sidekick named Mickey Martin.
The Crusader appeared in the following titles in the Golden Age:
- America's Best Comics 6
- Thrilling Comics 19-35, 37-39, 41
[edit] Revivals
[edit] America's Best Comics
The American Crusader, along with other heroes from Nedor Comics, were revived by Alan Moore in his series Tom Strong. This revival set the characters on a parallel world called Terra Obscura, which was also the title of the resulting mini-series.
The Crusader apparently (from a Terra Obscura continuity standpoint) operated as a superhero until 1969, when, on a mission to stop an alien from converting Earth into a spaceship, he was imprisoned in an alien restraining device which Tom Strong imagined to be a heavily localized time-loop. This bubble kept him in suspended animation until he was freed in 2000 by Strong, and his fellow SMASH member, Tom Strange.
Described by Strong as "probably the first nuclear science-hero", he is "possibly even more powerful than Tom Strange".
Within the Terra Obscura continuity, he is an alcoholic, currently seeking help for his addiction. He operates with the modern incarnation of SMASH.
[edit] Powers and abilities
The American Crusader is capable of flight, superhuman strength, invulnerability to bullets, and electromagnetic pulse generation. The full extent of his powers at this time is unknown.
