Fox Universe

The Flame (April 1939)

First Appearance - Wonderworld Comics 3, July 1939

Alter Ego - Gary Preston

Group Affiliation - All three incarnations of the Mystery Men of America

DESTINED FOR GREATNESS

Unlike many other science heroes of Earth-F, Gary Preston didn't accidentally stumble into powers and a costumed identity. Nor did he make a conscious decision to fight crime due to the loss of a loved one. He did lose his parents, but at such a young age that he was hardly aware of it - and besides, his destiny had already been written.

Though born in America, little Gary's fate was decided at multiple locations far from his home. The first was in the hidden Tibetan community known as the CITY OF FLAMES. Since magic had entered the world thousands of years ago, there had been defenders, even before the Flame Lamas used the mystic fires to found their city. These original defenders were sworn to protect humanity against the malicious forces that originated in the REALM BEYOND. Not one dimension but a vast collection of different dimensional spaces, all connected, this had been the place from whence all mysticism originated, as well as the genesis of the bloodlines and DNA that led to human power potential.

Thousands of years ago, a prophesy was told - not just of a great age of champions who would arise at a time the REALM BEYOND would offer its greatest threat, but of one who would stand above them all - the "FLAME CHILDE."

Before the start of the age of heroes, an infant would be born and signs and portents would be made known to the High Lama - when that happened, the boy was to be taken to the City of Flames, brought up in the mystic and fighting arts, and prepared for the day he would recieve his gifts from the central flame that powered the city. Only the fated one could recieve the flame without depleting the source or being burned by it. The High Lama and other adepts could to some degree maniuplate the energies, but only the Flame Childe could be endowed with its might inside his body and safely leave the city with it, while the main flame continued to burn.

In the year 1920 the signs finally told of the boy's birth. In the spring of 1920, the boy, Gary, was born to the Reverend Charteris Preston and his wife Betsy. But before agents of the City of Flames could reach the boy, his parents had relocated to China, where the Reverend Preston had been engaged as a missionary.

Furthermore a renegade Flame Lama called Chang had enacted a plan to seize the baby, and have him raised under the auspices of his cousin, the warlord Yuen Chang. The Changs hoped to gain the boy's powers under their own control and use him as a loyal "son" of the Chang dynasty which they hoped would overthrow the ruling classes of China.

A freelance agent of the Flame Lamas, Dr Yao Fung, the renowned international detective, and his companion in adventure, Daniel Barrister Senior, had already been commisioned to fetch the child and his parents. When news of the kidnapping of the Preston's reached Jetsun, the High Lama, his consultations with the flame source led him to mystically teleported a sacred artefact to Dr Fung in America. A telegram then instructed Fung and Dan Barrister to locate a man who had acted to save humanity from an attack by the denizens of the Realm Beyond, some 34 years previously. The Flame source indicated this man would be the baby's best chance.

Jed Adams, a broken down old cowboy, whose only claim to fame was his time as "The Waco Kid" was eking out a living in Chicago, writing pulps and working as a gofer in a factory. Dr Fung tracked him down and offered him the artefact - a ring destined for the reincarnation of the Flame City's great champion Wu Deha, who had died nearly 600 years previously.

While the ring wouldn't work fully on Jed, he was told it would rejuvinate him gto his peak and endow him with luck and immortality provided he didn't remove it for 10-15 years. Jed accepted and travelled with Fung and Dan to China, intercepting Yuen Chang shortly after his men had delivered the Preston family to him.