Roy Raymond (comics)
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| Roy Raymond | |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| In story information | |
| Full name | Roy Raymond |
| Supporting character of | Batman and Robin |
Roy Raymond is a fictional character in DC Comics.
Was introduced in Impossible... But True!, a back-up strip in Detective Comics, beginning in #153 (Nov. 1949).
[edit] Fictional character biography
He is the host of a television show, also called Impossible... But True!, which bore a strong resemblance to Ripley's Believe It Or Not. The stories would involve Raymond and his assistant, Karen, investigating claims and exposing hoaxes, ensuring all the stories on the show were true. The strip was later retitled Roy Raymond: TV Detective.
In the Silver Age, Aquaman took over the back-up slot in Detective. Raymond subsequently appeared in the Superman titles, where it was revealed he had been kidnapped by a supervillain and brainwashed into committing crimes. After being rescued by Superman, he resumed his television career at Metropolis' Galaxy Broadcasting, which at the time was also the employer of Clark Kent.
Roy Raymond also appeared during Rick Veitch's tenure on Swamp Thing, issues 67-68,74, 81, and Annual 3 (1988). He is portrayed as an avaricious media figure; surgery has made him appear much younger, and he wants to use Swamp Thing to further his career. He and his assistant Lipschitz are trapped for days in a limo being driven by a monstrous and insane failed earth elemental called "The Wild Thing" (issue 74). He spends the latter part of the ordeal, before being discovered by cops, hallucinating a business deal with Morgan Edge over the concept of Swamp Thing. Lipschitz is dead, having spent his last hours face down in filth at the bottom of the limo, injured and unable to move, pleading with Raymond to summon help. Raymond also ends up with severe facial damage, his plastic surgery having come undone during the trip. Raymond however rebounds in issue # 81 with a repaired and older face, recommitted to to being an honest investigative reporter who will reveal society's corruptions.
Robin #38 (Mar 1997) introduced Roy Raymond, Jr., the grandson of the original, who presents a tabloid television series in Gotham City called Roy Raymond: Manstalker. Raymond Jr. is portrayed as arrogant, inept, and a huge embarrassment to his grandfather.
The latest mention of Roy is in Detective Comics #818 (Jun 2006), where Batman describes Roy as one of the few detectives he admires, but who "chooses to waste his talents on daytime television" and so is apparently still hosting his TV show.
Raymond Jr appears in Flash #238 (May 2008), now working for a news station in Keystone City which is launching a smear campaign against the Flash (based on an ill-thought remark by West, Raymond gives the hero the "Most Awful Human In The Universe" award). Unknown to him, his boss is the supervillain Spin, who uses media manipulation to control reality. The storyline is ongoing.
[edit] Alternate versions
Raymond appears in Darwyn Cooke's 2004 DC: The New Frontier as a Hollywood celebrity who bravely refuses to comply with McCarthy's Congressional Committee on Un-American Activities investigation into supposed communists in the entertainment and superhero worlds. He is blacklisted as a communist sympathizer for refusing to name communist celebrities or his own political position, thus presumably losing his TV and radio shows as well as his newspaper column.
