(Crack Comics 001-031, 1940-1943)
There are a lot of elements to the Black Condor's origin so I shall be presenting them in a bulleted list:
-His father, archaeologist Richard Grey, brought his wife and newborn baby along on an expedition to Mongolia. This did not pay off, as their caravan was massacred by bandits and the only survivor was the baby, Richard Jr, who was carried off by a mother condor.
-Experiencing cross-species maternal instincts, the condor chose to raise the child instead of eating it. Grey eventually not only learned to communicate with condors but through imitation managed to teach himself to fly (later on this explanation of his power was considered far too ridiculous. Instead, he was exposed to a radioactive meteorite while living with the condors, which makes a lot more sense).
-Teen Richard then has a run-in with some eagles that leaves him seriously injured. He is found by kindly hermit/ missionary Father Pierre, who nurses him back to health and teaches him English. And names him Black Condor - because of his black hair, oddly enough. All is well until bandits kill Father Pierre while Black Condor is out and about. This puts him at 3/4 parental figures lost to crime, giving him the motivation of 1.5 Batmans.
-Black Condor becomes a foe of crime across Eurasia, with enough success that it's reported on globally. The narrative culmination of this effort comics in Hindustan, where he confronts and kills Gali Kan, the bandit chief who had killed Father Pierre (later retellings of the origin make him explicitly the one who killed Condor's parents too, because that's very narratively satisfying)
For the first year of Black Condor adventures he bummed around the world defeating various tyrants using his black-ray gun (never explained) but then! He encounters young US Senator Tom Wright! Who is his double! And who is then killed! And Black Condor, a man who was raised by birds and has known how to speak for maybe five years max, assumes the man's identity, position in the US government and fiancé. With the fiancé's father's blessing.
Anyhow, real good comics. It's a shame that a character with such a lot of wild stuff going on doesn't really show up any more. He has successors but other than being able to fly they're pretty separate character concepts, to be covered in about 50 subjective years, I guess.
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