Created by Bob Justice
Requiem
Alter Ego: Lee Stevens
Occupation: Private investigator/Medium
Known Relatives: none
Group Affiliation: Liberty Squad
Base of Operations: New York, NY
Background/History:
As a child, he was visited by his grandmother’s departing spirit when she died. He told his parents that she had died within seconds of her actual passing. He became fascinated with the thought of communicating with the dead. He studied and focused all his talents toward that goal. In the late ’30s, he built a machine that created a small electromagnetic field between two wires that he thought would act as a screen allowing him to view the dead. When he turned it on, it did indeed make an opening into the land of the newly dead and it sucked him in through it. The souls he came across told him he had to leave, no one living could remain there. One man, part of a group who had died in an arson fire, wanted to know why they should help Lee. They decided that they would help Lee if he would help them. They would pool their concentration and send him back to the realm of the living if he would avenge their deaths. He agreed and they managed to open the rift from their side and send him back. He confronted the building owner who had torched his property and killed fifteen tenants. He projected the last horrifying memories of the pain of their deaths into the mind of the arsonist. His heart could not stand the strain and he had a heart attack and died himself. As he practiced, he learned how to communicate more easily with the recently deceased, travel in astral form, control ectoplasm, and channel the power of willing spirits to help him avenge the dead and protect the innocent. Publicly, he started a business as a private investigator. Privately, he avenged deaths as Requiem gaining a reputation as a hero and was invited to join the Knights of Freedom. After the war ended and the group disbanded, he took some time off and concentrated on helping troubled souls rather than active superheroing, but when he got the call from All American to join the Liberty Squad, he could not say no. Following the disbanding of the Liberty Squad, he hung up his costume for good and rarely used his powers other than to communicate important messages and to debunk fakes. He now spends more time in the land of the newly dead helping souls make the transition, rarely stepping into the realm of the living unless someone requires avenging.
For more on Requiem See Requiem from "The Atomic Age"