Many
moons ago I ran a very short piece about the history of the
Magellanverse which introduced a number of Golden Age heroes… Victory
Man, Lady Lariat, Chinese Lantern, Knuckle Duster, Black Hood, Gizmo
Girl and [drumroll] The Streaker
– you can read it here.
Here’s what we know about him...
The
Streaker, aka Jake Spanner, was a biochemist with the dream of turning
himself into the world’s first invisible man. Numerous attempts in 1936
proved unsuccessful, but he didn’t realise that the various chemical
cocktails he had intravenously pumped into his body had created a
special bio-molecule that had an unexpected side-effect. Instead of
becoming invisible he found he was the world’s fastest human – a title
he still holds.
Able to run at speeds in excess of
50,000 kph, Jake Spanner found a new career fighting crime as The
Streaker. Claiming that clothing only slowed him down and/or burst into
flames due to air friction, Spanner chose to do his running nude and so
never had an official costume. A pair of goggles were all he used to
conceal his identity.
During the 1940s, criminals weren’t
the only ones to despair of The Streaker’s crime fighting career, many
religious leaders and politicians declared him obscene. Countless
warrants across several continents were issued to arrest The Streaker
for indecent exposure – except no one was ever able to catch him to
issue them. Uproar at any appearance of The Streaker was enough for
most local newspaper to declare “Streaker
Run Out of Town”.
Despite the controversial nature of
his crime fighting suit (or lack thereof), The Streaker still
contributed significantly to preventing many murders, robberies and
man-made disasters. He preferred to work solo as most other
super-heroes – especially the women – found his nudity discomforting.
However, he still played a significant role as a member of super team The
Victorious (see left - click to embiggen).
The Streaker vanished in 1951 –
aged 39 – various theories abound as to his ultimate fate but none are
proven.
I admit the character was originally intended
as part joke and part
call-out to a comic about naturism/social nudity I was doing at
the time. Despite those scant origin details a story about The
Streaker, or at least his legacy for all other Magellan speedsters, suggested itself almost
immediately… a story that has taken over ten years to come to fruition.
The above art is the cover for the story, in case you were thinking it looks a
bit familiar, you'd be right. This story features two speedsters from
across two times, so how could I not pay homage to the cover of the
classic
silver-age comic Flash of
Two Worlds? (left - click to embiggen)
As you might suspect, this
story will include depictions of nudity from time to time – nothing
gratuitous, but if that sort of thing isn’t your thing then I’ll
understand if you don’t want to read!
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