| American Crusader | |
|---|---|
 American Crusader, fromProject Superpowers vol. 1 #3. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Nedor Comics AC Comics America's Best Comics |
| First appearance | Thrilling Comics #19 |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Archibald "Archie" Masters |
| Team affiliations | (AC Comics)Sentinels of Justice (ABC)SMASH |
| Abilities | Super strength Super speed Flight Bulletproof Electromagnetic pulse |
The American Crusader is asuperhero who originally appeared inThrilling Comics #19 (Better Publications, Aug 1941). He appeared in almost every issue until #41 (April 1944).[1]
The character was revived in the Modern Age inFemforce #59, byAC Comics, and inTom Strong #11, byAlan Moore andChris Sprouse.[2]
Hissecret identity is Professor Archibald (Archie) Masters, an astronomy professor at an unnamed university in theEastern United States.
The character debuted in 1941, his mousy alter-ego being similar to that ofSuperman'sClark Kent identity. He accidentally got caught in a room with a device called anatom 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.[3]
Cribbed fromSuperman's relationship withLois Lane, Prof. Masters has a secretary named Jane Peters, who despised the professor but idolized the hero.[4] The Crusader also briefly has a teen sidekick named Mickey Martin.[5]
His enemies include Nazis, mad scientists, and Nazi mad scientists, as well as Nazi zombies.[5]
The Crusader appeared in the following titles in the Golden Age:
The American Crusader, along with other heroes fromNedor Comics, was revived byAC Comics through the Vault of Heroes, a suspended animation program for superheroes. He later joined theSentinels of Justice.
Several heroes fromNedor Comics were revived byAlan Moore in hisAmerica's Best Comics continuity, starting withTom Strong #11. The next issue, #12, revealed the American Crusader was among these heroes. In the canon of America's Best Comics, the American Crusader and his comrades were all part of a team calledSMASH.[6] On Tom Strong's world, they were believed to be comic book characters, but in fact they were real people who inhabited another version of Earth occupying another area of the same universe. Tom Strong referred to this other Earth as "Terra Obscura".[6] The American Crusader and other SMASH heroes then went on to star inTerra Obscura vol. 1 andTerra Obscura vol. 2.[7]
In this canon, the Crusader operates as a powerful superhero while also dealing with alcoholism. He works alongside the other heroes of SMASH for many years until 1969, when he and his comrades are imprisoned by an alien device that capture them in localized time-loops.[6] The only member of SMASH who isn't imprisoned is "Doc"Tom Strange, his world's version of Tom Strong. Doc Strange journeys to Tom Strong's Earth to recruit his help while his SMASH comrades remain frozen in time.[6] In the year 2000, Tom Strong and Tom Strange finally free the American Crusader and other heroes from the time-loops.[8] Having not aged since 1969, the members of SMASH resume their heroic activities, including the Crusader who now seeks help in managing his alcoholism.[7]
The American Crusader made a brief appearance in the prose storyLiving Legends, published by Metahuman Press. A flashback comic story featuring rescripted pages over the comic work has also been published as part of theTales of the Living Legends webcomic.
The American Crusader appears in the mini-seriesProject Superpowers, byAlex Ross andJim Krueger. He is kept imprisoned and unconscious by a totalitarian government, and clones called Crusaders are created from his DNA to function as super-powered soldiers.
In the relatedBlack Terror series, the Black Terror finds Archie and helps him to lure the Crusaders and destroy them, using the last of Archie's energy in the process. The Crusaders all die, and an African-American soldier named Marcus Chamberlain, who was with Archie and the Terror at the last moment, gains the power and becomes the new American Crusader.
In the spin-offProject Superpowers: Fractured States, the original American Crusader is resurrected alongside other heroes lost in the void.
Archibald Masters, the American Crusader, appears as a center character in the ongoing webcomicHeroes Inc., created in 2009 by Scott E. Austin. The webcomic takes place in an alternate reality where the allies ofWorld War II lost the war. In present day, the American Crusader gathers DNA from Golden Age heroes in order to create a new generation of heroes.
A version of the character was used in theMultiversity series, where he was the leader of a superteam on a parallel Earth, called the Retaliators (a reference to Captain America and hisAvengers). A second version of the character is killed at the beginning of the story to raise the stakes, and the character is shown on the cover of a comic read by a character during the story.
The American Crusader is capable of flight, superhuman strength, invulnerability to bullets, andelectromagnetic pulse generation. The full extent of his powers at this time is unknown.