Crimson Avenger - Lee Walter Travis

Lee Walter Travis

The original Crimson Avenger made his first published appearance in Detective Comics #20 (October 1938). He was a wealthy newsman named Lee Walter Travis who took up the identity of the Crimson Avenger to battle crime.

Travis initially dressed in a red trenchcoat, a fedora, and a red mask covering his face; except for the red coloring, he was visually similar to the Shadow. He had an Asian chauffeur/crime-fighting partner, and used a gas gun to subdue criminals, similar to the Green Hornet. Later, when superheroes became more popular than costumed vigilantes, his costume was changed to a more standard superhero outfit, consisting of red tights, yellow boots, trunks and crest, and a "sun" symbol which was recently stated to have been a stylized bullet hole.

He was trained in hand-to-hand combat in Nanda Parbat. While there he saw the future and witnessed an "unnamed" hero (Superman), and the man's selflessness and death at the hands of a monster (Doomsday). This inspired him to return to America and combat crime, first as a corruption-free newspaper owner and later as a masked crime fighter.

In his costumed identity, Travis was seen to carry both conventional handguns and a special pistol that dispensed a bright red smokescreen.

Years later, he died rescuing his city from a freighter about to detonate in its harbor, when he makes the crew abandon ship while he pilots the ship to a safe distance.

The Justice League of America always has a version of his first costume present whenever they are inducting new members as a homage to the Crimson Avenger's status as the world's first costumed crime fighter.