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The Blitz Earth b
Real Name: Jimmy
Travis
Identity/Class: Human mutate
Occupation: Racing driver
Affiliations: Cyclone (sidekick)
Enemies: Helmut Schletmann, commies
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base
of Operations: Earth A
First Appearance: Big Bang #3 "The Cris-Cross
Crisis" (Caliber)
Powers/Abilities: Able to run at supersonic speeds.
History: During a race in Monte Carlo, racing driver
and ladies man Jimmy Travis was forced off the road by
his East German rival, Helmut Schletmann. Uninjured, he
decided to explore the hidden cave next to where he
crashed. The cave contained an abandoned Nazi
laboratory, complete with test tubes of secret formulae
and a red and yellow uniform marked "Ubermensch". All of
the test tubes were ruined, save the one labelled
"Blitz-Geschidigkeit".
Unknown
to Jimmy, he had been followed by gamblers who had
orders to finish him off. One of them dropped his gun,
which went off. The sound of the shot startled Jimmy,
who spilled the contents of the test tube on his racing
suit. The suit dissolved, but Jimmy was unharmed. With
nothing else to wear, he put on the Ubermensch uniform.
When the gamblers came in to kill him, Jimmy astonished
himself by defeating them with a burst of super speed.
He realised that the words on the test tube translated
as "Lightning-Speed", and that exposure to the chemicals
had granted him superpowers.
Using
his new powers, he caught up with Schletmann and
dismantled his car. He then raced to his hotel for a
spare racing suit, pushed his car to where it would have
been if he had not been attacked, and won the race.
Afterwards the quick tempered Travis decided to fight
crime, taking the name of Schletmann's car "Der Blitz".
He soon acquired a sidekick (Cyclone) and became a
founding member of the Round Table of America.
He was
killed in an explosion in the late 1980's. His sidekick,
Cyclone was crippled by the blast, but with the aid of
cybernetic legs returned to action as Overdrive in the
mid '90's.
Comments: Thanks to Chris Adams for all the
information about the Blitz used on this page. He notes
that "This version of the Blitz first appeared in Big
Bang #3 (Caliber series, reprinted as Big Bang # 6 by
Image) in the best BB story ever, "The Cris-Cross
Crisis". The Blitz differs from the Flash, in that
Jimmy's personality (as well as his colour scheme) are
the opposite of the easy going Barry Allen.
It
would appear that allowing for the 20 year time
difference between the two Earths, that Jimmy and Mack
(the Blitz of Earth B) got their powers at the same
time, in the same laboratory." The explosion that killed
the Earth A Blitz and crippled Cyclone (leading to him
becoming Overdrive) was first mentioned in Big Bang # 4
(Caliber series), but it has never actually been
depicted.
CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with
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