Avenger

Real Name: Richard Henry Benson

Identity/Class: Human mutate (?)

Occupation: Adventurer

Affiliations:

Enemies:

Known Relatives: Alicia (wife, deceased), Alice (daughter, deceased), unnamed mother-in-law (deceased)

Aliases:

Base of Operations:

First Appearance: The Avenger (Street and Smith, 1939)

Powers/Abilities: Able to remold his face to appear like anyone he wants.

History: Richard Benson was an exceptional man. While his looks did not make him stand out from the crowd, he was a scientific genius with senses and physical strength far greater than most. At a young age he amassed vast wealth as a soldier of fortune, working all around the world, and finally making around a half million dollars in an amethyst venture in Australia.

Benson and his family, wife Alicia and daughter Alice, heard that Alicia's mother was dying. The immediately head to the airport to board a flight to Canada to see her, and when they are told they cannot get on the plane, Benson, unaccustomed to being told "No" presses the issue and gets them on board. But when he returns from a trip to the toilet he is shocked to find his wife and child gone, and everyone else on the plane denying they were ever there. Benson snaps and is hospitalised. He awakens to find that the loss has turned his jet-black hair completely white, bleached the colour out of his suntanned skin, and paralysed his facial muscles so that he can mold his features like putty. Determined to discover what really happened he becomes the Avenger, a deadly foe of the underworld.

He armed himself with two unique weapons, a knife he christened Ike, and a pistol he christened Mike; the former was strapped to his left calf, the latter to his right. Ike was designed as a throwing knife, with a double edged blade, eight inches long, and almost no handle to speak off. Mike was a .22 caliber, with a long barrel for targeting, a built in silencer, and a grip almost in a straight line with the barrel, making the weapon resemble a length of blued steel tubing. Only capable of holding four shots at a time, Benson never killed anyone with Mike, instead using his incredible marksmanship to knock enemies out by creasing their skills.

He slowly gathered around himself a team of allies who had also suffered at criminals hands, a group he christened Justice, Inc. Based out of Bleek Street in Manhattan, they are:

Smitty, Algernon Heathcote Smith, an extremely tall electrical engineer who had been framed for a crime he didn't commit. Smitty aided him on his very first case.

Fergus MacMurdie, a dour Scottish chemist whose family had been murdered when he refused to pay protection money.

Nellie Gray, a deceptively pretty martial arts expert whose father had been murdered.

Joshua Elijah H. Newton and his wife Rosabel, a black couple whose disguise as Benson's domestics hid their keen intellects - both were college graduates.

And Cole Wilson, a peerless mechanical engineer.

The Avenger's code was a simple one. He refused, personally, to take the lives of even the lowest crooks. However, he would maneuver them into positions where, by certain moves springing from their own hate or greed, they were apt to destroy themselves.

Comments: Benson's first case was the disappearance of his family. He discovered they had been thrown out over Lake Ontario as they had witnessed the plane being used as a method of kidnapping rich businessmen.

The characters were created by Lester Dent (Doc Savage) and Walter Gibson (The Shadow) and the stories written by Paul Ernst writing as Kenneth Robeson, a Street & Smith house name.

The Avenger ran in his own title from 1939 - 1942, with a total of 24 issues.  After the cancellation of his own title there were a few stories published as a supporting feature in Clues-Detective, 1942 - 1943 (5 issues) and a final story in The Shadow, 1944. These stories were written by Emile C Tepperman who had previously written adventures for The Spider and Operator 5.

When the stories were reprinted in the 1970's by Warner Books, the series proved popular enough to hire Ron Goulart to pen an additional twelve stories.

There was also a short lived radio series in 1941, and two attempts at a comic series, once in the seventies (4 issues) and once in the nineties (2 issues).

CLARIFICATIONS:

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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