Secret Origins: Tex Thomson

An American Tale

by Libbylawrence

AMERICAN TALE: Part 1

“Batman dies saving city!” That headline is one I could have done without seeing. He was a hero to me. He made life better for the whole world with just his daily or nightly work. I know I wish I could have known him better. I did know Terry Sloane. He died recently too. He was a truly good man. The only man I know other than Rod Gaynor who could handle a whip better than I could.

The passing of these legends make me feel my age.

It makes me decide to tell my story at least in this journal in full detail. No one may see it for years but it may set the record straight and after so many years of lies and secrets, it would be a release to me to tell the whole truth. Not that I ever lied to gain anything personal. I only did what I did to better fight crime. You’ll see that if you read this.

My name is Timothy Thompson. Tim was my more commonly used name although the wealth my family earned from land and oil in Texas made it natural that I would get the nickname “Tex” Thompson.

The childhood was a blissful time full of adventure and imagination. I loved the movies and longed to play a part myself. To lose plain old Tim Thompson gradually became my forte as you’ll see.

I learned everything that you could pick up from a rural Texas life. I learned Indian lore, riding, roping, tracking, hunting, and of course, to use the whip. An old Mexican man taught me. I’ve often wondered if he didn’t teach Rod and Terry too.

I know that in a life filled with heroes, the one I first met and grew to admire the most was one of the most obscure. Even I only knew him as Cosmo, the Master of Disguise. I met him as a teen in New York. I was on summer break and I was feeling my oats as they say. I met him when he saved me from a gang of muggers. Here’s what happened:

AMERICAN TALE: Part 2

I entered a park and I admit I was somewhat worse for wear. Young and foolish and a bit drunk. That habit ended immediately since Cosmo insisted that his pupils be “pure of body and mind.”

Well, these thugs set on me. It was the Great Depression and folks needed to eat anyway they could. I didn’t know that being a spoiled rich kid. I fought but I was unsteady and as I started to fall, the biggest man I had ever seen loomed into view. That’s exactly what he did and constantly: he loomed! He just rose up from the shadows and you’d never have guessed that he had been within a mile of you! I know I didn’t expect it back then in 1929.

He set into the thugs and he was so graceful. Like a serpent, or — no — some noble creature like a hawk! He set into them and effortlessly drove them off. He saw that I was almost outcold and he did something down right miraculous to me now that I think about that solitary man. He took me home and nursed me back to health. His house was amazing. It was high above the city like some haunted mansion in a comic book.

He never had visitors. He hated company. Yet, maybe he sensed something in me that led him to take an interest in my life. We talked and in those shadowy rooms I never got a clear look at him. His hawk-like nose recalls one actor to me though back then he was not yet famous. Basil Rathbone! Cosmo looked like Rathbone if that was his true face.

You see Cosmo was the Master of Disguise. Better than me, better than Batman, even better for once than Mr. Terrific. No one knew more about disguises and playing roles than Cosmo. I wondered how he picked it all up. He never told me. He even gained and lost accents effortlessly so he could have been French, Southern, British or even Chinese for all I know. There was something… Eastern about him. I don’t know.

Cosmo taught me every secret he knew about acting, make-up, disguise, and using the shadows etc. for a dramatic effect. Those skills made me the man I am now. They carried me through World War II behind Nazi lines!

I never saw Cosmo again after that year. He vanished. The old house remained there… empty as far as I could ever tell. He disappeared. I often wonder if he trained a second mystery-man called the King. For all I know he was the King. It would amuse his weird sense of humor to have abandoned one ID for another heroic one.

I should talk!

AMERICAN TALE: Part 3

I went back to Texas and finished college earlier. I was bright if a bit boastful. I became an aide to the D.A. in New York and I fought crime. I did it the only way I knew how in those days…with knuckles and daring and a few tricks from the great Cosmo. I had a pal named Bob Dailey. He is still my best friend. A loyal, lovable fat man who had and has real heart beneath that comic exterior. This man worked with me doing the work of justice.

That work almost ended my life around 1940-41.

I was on a ship that came under the gun so to speak of sabatours. They literally destroyed the boat and I was presumed dead. I survived obviously. Too stubborn to die is how Cosmo described me.

I was rescued from the ocean off the shore of Portugal. Some fishermen found my wounded body and nursed me back to health. That little hut was the cradle that gave birth to my most life altering decision.

I would let the world believe Tex Thompson had died. Even Bob. That cold act pains me as have other cold acts to loving friends.

It started when I learned from the fishermen that my injuries had been severe. Bad enough to require the use of special potions handed down from generation to generation in that tiny village. As they pulled life from the ocean they also gave me a new life.

The explorer called Ponce de Leon searched for the fortain of youth or so goes the legend. Well, the reality is this: he found it and took it back home with him where he passed it on down to these same descendants who graced me with a dose.

It not only healed me but it stopped the aging process in me. Totally stopped it. I am now physically what I was in 1940. No older in looks or in vitality. That blessing has in some ways been a curse as you’ll see. Oh, no one knows that about me except for Bob. I doubt Jon Law even figured it out. I never told them and after I went behind Nazi lines I never saw any of those All-Stars again (with one exception)as Tex Thompson.

AMERICAN TALE: Part 4

Well, I left them considerably richer and made my way home. I donned a costume for the first time. I admit it was a gaudy, foolish one at that. I called myself vainly Mr. America and sought to lose Tex in that representative of Democracy’s final bastion.

I found the men behind the boat explosion and I even revealed my secret to Bob. I have decided to let him know. Unlike the solitary Cosmo, I needed a pal. He had tears when he saw me alive and well.

I never regretted telling him not even when the loyal duffer put on a costume and called himself Fat Man. Yes, That’s what he called himself: Fat Man.

We made a good team and fought the good fight as when war finally broke out we continued to wage our own struggle.

Cosmo had taught me theatrics. I used them to excess back then. I whistled “Yankee Doodle” as I battled! I blush at the idea now but back then with Hitler breathing down the neck of the free world and star spangled legends like Liberty Belle, Wonder Woman, and Uncle Sam around, it seemed OK.

Now, for a second big moment of truth. I realized that as Mr. America I was about half as useful as I had been as merely Tex in a disguise or two.

So I dropped the outfit and took a wise step for a man with my talents. I couldn’t stare down the likes of Baron Blitzkrieg or the Ultra Humanite but I could slip in and out of other men’s lives with ease and style. I served well overseas as another man without a true face: the Americommando!

AMERICAN TALE: Part 5

As the Americommando I fought the Nazi forces in Nazi Germany itself. I truly became my new “role” and forgot much of the old Tex Thompson. I did a lot of good posing as a Nazi officer. At war’s end I did not kill Hitler. That folk tale has actually poped up from time to time. I never did meet any other mystery-men as Tex or the Americommando again except for one hero who felt it was only “fair” to try to find me after the war ended. He couldn’t leave a fellow hero in possible danger unaided. Terry Sloane (Mr. Terrific) came to Germany in 1946 and we met up. He tracked me down and we shared an adventure with some European heroes before he left. I swore Terry to secrecy and he never told a soul that I had survived the war.

I made it back to America and gave up my costumes for good. I linked up with Bob again and using my wealth and a few well placed legal connections I fought crime again as just a plain two-fisted adventurer with some tricks and a few disguises.

I did it but not as Tex Thompson. It actually started much earlier when I worked for the D.A. before 1940. As an agent I went undercover a lot. I used the legal ties I had back then to move around in disguise and work under odd names with totally unaware good folks who took me for the pilots, detectives, and trouble shootes I pretended to be. Some names I used sound odd but I liked alliteration (Tex Thompson etc.) and the colorful names distracted people from looking too closely into my past. Two names I used back then were “Cliff Cornwall” and “Rod Ryan”.

I had some wild times living those “fake” lives and yet as an actor I added nuance to each part. I’d say Cliff Cornwall lived in a manner of speaking. The wigs, make-up, accents, odd phony backgrounds I create were fun and they helped me do the job of fighting crime and rescuing those in need.

But that was 1938-1940, and I’m up to 1946 in my story. That was when I met Bruce Nelson on a train.

AMERICAN TALE: Part 6

As Americommando I fought well behind enemy lines in Nazi Germany. I lost much that was Tex Thompson as I posed as a Nazi officer. I did not kill Hitler though that old chestnut pops up as a legend from time to time. In 1946 I saw the last mystery-man to ever meet me as Tex. The man named Mr. Terrific tracked me down in Germany and we shared an adventure with some European heroes. He felt it was only fair to try to help a lone mytsery man forgotten by many. He agreed to never reveal that I survived the war. This was because I realized that I could do more good as a plain adventurer in various disguises than I could as a costumed hero.

You see it really started when I was aide to the D.A.. I established legal connections across the nation and worked undercover. I posed as many pilots, detecives, crimebusters etc. with colorful alliterative names and phony accents. I fooled many good folks into believing they truly knew ma ;however, in a way they did. I made those charaters live by creating backgrounds, quirks, nuances that gave them a kind of life. Two names I used back then were Rod Ryan and Cliff Cornwall.

After the war I joined Bob again and used a variety of names with wigs, make-up, odd occupations etc. across the U.S. to fight crime. I admit the old thrill of play acting was part of it. I inherited that game playing passion from Cosmo’s lessons.

You see I did care for the friends I made as Cliff, Rod, Scoop etc. but I couldn’t break character enough to ever tell them my secret. I guess many of them died thinking they knew all about their heroic friends. They didn’t.

But, that was before 1940-1941 as I said.

In 1946 I burned the costumes for good and then I met Bruce Nelson.

AMERICAN TALE: Part 6

Did you ever see the Hitchcock film “Strangers on a Train”? In it two strangers meet on a train trip and agree to kill each other’s enemies. That is not quite what happened when I met P.I. Bruce Nelson on a train in the Midwest. He and I struck up a conversation and since I was travelling as Tex, he had heard of me from his days as a Gotham cop. He told me he was on the trail of a thug named Wolf Brando. I knew Green Lantern and Batman had both put him away at various times.

Well, Brando’s agent got Nelson. He killed him on that very train. I was in time to catch the creep but I was too late to save poor Nelson. So, I did something odd. I took his ID and went to his destination. Posing as Bruce Nelson I brought Wolf to justice. I think that sort of evened things up for my failing to protect the P.I.

Then it occurred to me that what I had done with a living man (Nelson) I could do with my own creations as I did in 1939 with Cliff Cornwall etc. By the way I had not escaped All-Star conections totally since I later learned that Nelson was related distantly to a JSA’er!

So starting in 1946 I became a wide number of people who fought crime around the world under various names.

I found corruption in the shipping industry and I’d loved yachting so it followed that one of my id.’s in the 1950′s was “Captain Mark Compass!” Corny name but it worked. I took a job for a shipping line and as Compass solved several crimes for a time.

After that I adopted a flashy id. as Rick Mysto Carter a magician of stage. “He” let me go almost anywhere in the world of performing and entertainment. I admit my ego enjoyed the shows as much as my heart liked fighting evil. It was pure showmanship of course, not magic.

In the 1960′s I added names like Jason Bard, Johnny, Double,Johnny Peril, Chris Chance, Tom Tressor to my list of adventure seeking creations.

As these men I dared much and lived bravely. Journal ends here and picks up later.

The weirdest thing I ever encountered just happened. During the Crisis when heroes of various worlds mingled freely, I met a real Johnny Peril! He even looked like the id. I created in the 1960′s! I wonder if through some weird twist of Fate or fate if there could be other worldy counterparts for my other identities that lived separate real lives!