I had this creeping around my brain so I thought that I would give this a shot:
In 1940, KING STANDISH, a young socialite who was fascinated by the late screen legend Lon Chaney and inspired by the exploits of Richard Henry Benson, THE AVENGER, discovered a lightweight and durable rubber-based compound that allowed to create near realistic masks. Using his disguises, he battled crime as the tuxedoed KING. His most persistent foe was THE WITCH,a protégé of Patricia Savage, who was also a brilliant disguise artist. After a year of encounters, he was able to rehabilitate her then join forces and eventually married her!
During World War II, the King was sent overseas to help train a severely disfigured soldier his techniques and how to create masks in the field, using whatever he could find. He was sworn to secrecy even though he never learnt his student's name.
After the war, he taught two young men, though he knew that they were hiding their real names:
- First was the teenaged "PETE PARKER" who literally had to only see his examples once to duplicate them exactly. "Parker" was with him briefly. The amazing thing about him was how he could handle the compounds when they were still hot.
- The other was "THOMAS SIGERSON" , an intense young man with astounding physical control and mental discipline albeit dramatic and moody.
Other students included:
- ROLLIN HAND and his future wife, CINNAMON CARTER
- The stage magician who would become renowned as THE GREAT PARIS
- A young man who wanted to stop murders by becoming the victim, CHRISTOPHER CHANCE
- The great but scandal-ridden French actress, LILI de NUEVE
- A mysterious young woman who appeared to have great powers. Her face was unremarkable but she had one of the most perfect bodies he had ever seen.
- Disgraced Army Colonel JOHN "HANNIBAL" SMITH
- A young FBI agent who improved on his formula, TOM TRESSER
Unfortunately some dubious individuals also learnt from him
- The first FALSEFACE who taught them to his namesakes.
- The beautiful but cunning SELINA KYLE.
- The Soviet spy infamously known as THE CHAMELEON
- The assassin codenamed SABER-TOOTH
Are there any other masters of disguise anyone can add?
(Don't say JIMMY OLSEN! I'm assuming that he was trained by You-Know-Who!!)
Replies
There are at least three "severely disfigured soliders" who could have learned the master's secrets, although one of them came along decades later and might not have learned them directly from the man himself. Details at Wikipedia here: "Unknown Soldier (DC Comics)" and at Don Markstein's Toonopedia here: "The Unknown Soldier"
Interesting. "Sigerson", eh? Any relation to a certain "Great Detective"?
The first stuff I'd ever read about the King mentioned that he wound up marrying the Witch, but none of the more recent things have mentioned that--any idea what issue the wedding took place, if it actually appeared in a comic?
It never appeared in any comic, Dave, nor did the romance. The only King story I read was in World's Finest #210 (Ma'72) in its "Bureau of Missing Heroes" reprint of World's Best Comics #1 (Spr'41) where he stopped the Witch from stealing $100,000. But there was an attraction.
Thus I used the Comic Book Law that states the first person the hero shows any interest in is usually the one he's
stuck with for all eternitygoing to marry!I suspected as much, but it seems someone else reached the same conclusion decades ago. I continue to find if frustrating that so many Golden Age DC & AA heroes remain largely unreprinted, while so many more obscure Marvel/Timely/Atlas heroes are available for anyone who wants to buy or borrow the right Marvel Masterworks, and hundreds of truly obscure characters from other companies are available on the Internet for free on sites like the Digital Comics Museum!
At least Zatara managed to avoid Comic Book Law, or Zatanna's mother would have been the Tigress....
I believe the pulp Shadow was a master of disguise. What about Darkman? Who is this "Pete Parker" supposed to be?
And then there was the Turtle Guy. Tur-tle! Tur-tle!
The three unnamed characters are
I did think Kent Allard/the Shadow should be in here somewhere, but since he predates the King, I figured adding him to the mix could lead us all the way back to the Scarlet Pimpernel.
Ron M. said:
The Scarlet Pimpernel was active in 1792 so any other characters couldn't have been influenced directly by him unless time travel was involved. Even if you included Zorro and the Red Shadow, that damned illusive Pimpernel is long gone by then.
I'm more interested in the use of specialized rubber-like masks than simply using makeup and putty.
The Shadow has the ability to cloud men's minds so that should make disguising himself easier.
Lon Chaney's methods were impractical as they were extremely painful.
The Avenger had the advantage of having a moldable face!