VIGILANTE (I)

Art by Ramon Villalobos

Name: The Vigilante (I)
Secret Identity: Gregory Saunders
First DC2 Appearance: WEIRD WESTERN QUARTERLY #6
Status: Hero
Base of Operations: Dos Rios, Texas (21st Century), American West (19th Century)
Group Affiliation: Law's Legionnaires AKA The Seven Soldiers of Victory
Occupation: Singer/Masked Adventurer
Known Relatives: Jud Saunders (grandfather, deceased), Kitty Saunders (nee Wilcox, grandmother, deceased), Nathaniel Saunders (father, deceased), Cyril Saunders (cousin), Sheira Saunders (cousin, deceased), Daniel Leong (adopted son)
Height: 6 ft. Weight: 188 lbs.
Eyes: Blue Hair: Black

Powers and Abilities: The Vigilante is an excellent hand-to-hand fighter, and is equally skilled at riding both motorcycles and horses. His weapons of choice are his twin Colt .45 Peacemakers (though he can handle any firearm with ease) and his ever-present lariat, with which he can hogtie any foe in record time. He has a natural talent for singing, and can play just about any song by ear, preferring to do so on acoustic guitar.

History: Greg Saunders was born into a family of lawmen, with both his grandfather and father having served as sheriff for the town of Carson City, Wyoming. Despite this legacy, Greg had his heart set from a young age on entertaining folks for a living. While his father taught him the ways of the law, he secretly planned on heading off to the big city and becoming a musician, and in 1934 at the age of 18, he did just that, running away to New York with a guitar on his back and five dollars in his pocket. After a few years of playing in gin joints and seedy theaters, Greg landed a record contract and started to ply his trade on the radio. Dubbed "The Prairie Troubadour" by his manager Billy "Pop" Gunn, he began to build a decent career, traveling from one city to the next, performing both in person and on the local radio affiliates. Back in Wyoming, his father continued in the role of sheriff, even though he was getting on in years. Greg kept insisting to the man that he should retire, and even offered to help out financially, but his father wouldn't hear of it. Then in early 1941, the elder Saunders was killed while trying to stop robbers from stealing a gold shipment moving through his town. Feeling that he could have prevented it if he'd stayed in Wyoming to carry on the family tradition, Greg vowed to become the lawman his father wanted him to be. Taking a cue from both the emerging heroes of his time and the Western gunfighters of old, he strapped on his father's guns, hid his face behind a red bandana, and dubbed himself the Vigilante.

After tracking down his father's killers, Greg brought his unique style of crimefighting to the Big Apple, and later with him on the road as he continued his public career as a country singer. Just a few months after beginning his new vocation, the Vigilante joined up with six other emerging heroes to take down a mysterious figure called the Iron Hand. With the shadow of World War II looming over the United States, they later decided they could serve their country best as a team instead of individually, and formally banded together as the Law's Legionnaires (see The Seven Soldiers of Victory), defending their home soil as many of the more powerful heroes went overseas to fight the Axis powers. "Vig" still acted alone on occasion, however, until working on a case in Chinatown in 1943, where he encountered 10-year-old Daniel Leong. His grandfather had been framed by a Japanese agent known as the Head, and the two of them banded together to clear the man's name and bring in the real criminals. Afterward, Daniel tagged along with Greg in both his singing and crimefighting careers, adopting the name "Stuff, the Chinatown Kid".

Greg’s life took an unexpected detour in 1948, when the Seven Soldiers found that the Iron Hand had resurfaced, continuing his plans for world domination that they’d thwarted seven years before. Heading to Philadelphia, they were too late to stop the Iron Hand from resurrecting an ancient entity called Neh Buh Lah -- mistakenly dubbed “The Nebula Man” by the Soldiers -- which proceeded to wreak havoc across the city. In a last-ditch effort to stop the creature, the Soldiers decided to detonate the Star-Spangled Kid’s cosmic converter belt (see Star-Spangled Kid/Skyman), unaware that the resulting explosion plus the Nebula Man’s own chaotic energies would blend together and rip a hole in reality, scattering all of the Seven Soldiers randomly across the timestream. Greg was thrown back to 1875, with no clue whether or not his comrades survived, and no way for him to get back to his proper time. After coming to accept his new situation, Greg began to travel across the Old West, still plying his trade as a musician wherever he could, and still protecting the innocent as the Vigilante. As the years passed and he settled into the era more, he met up with many of the Western heroes he’d heard stories about as a boy, and ironically became good friends with Cinnamon and Nighthawk, who -- unbeknownst to any of them -- would later be reincarnated in Greg’s proper time as his cousin Sheira and her husband Carter Hall (see related entries).

By 1895, Greg had settled in Opal City to serve as deputy to Sheriff Brian Savage (see Scalphunter). Now a lawman in every sense, Greg was content with his life in the past, and therefore was shocked when his cousin Cyril (see Speed Saunders) suddenly showed up one day, ready to take Greg back to the present. The return trip was bittersweet for Greg, not only because he was leaving the era he’d called home for two decades, but because he now found himself in 2008, exactly sixty years after the Soldiers had battled the Nebula Man. Now in his early fifties and suffering from a double-dose of “time-lag”, Greg decided that the time had come for the Vigilante to retire. Currently, Greg spends most of his time on his newly-bought ranch in Dos Rios, Texas, enjoying a more laid-back lifestyle and catching up on what he’s missed. However, when the call goes out and his friends need him, Greg has been known to put on his guns again “for old time’s sake.” You just can’t keep a good cowboy down.