The Secret Origin of Minute Man - part 2 The Star Spangled Dawn!
by Silver Age Fogey

Frank Stiles lay his hand upon the glowing statue of the minuteman in Patriot Park. A minute earlier, he had been shot by Paul O'Connor, one time lab assistant to the Manhattan Project and communist traitor. Frank had worked on the Manhattan Project after he left the military in World War I, only to be fired from the Project for suspicions of O'Connor's patriotism. And Frank had received a lead-jacketed answer to his question only seconds ago, as O'Connor had been selling documents to mysterious agent with a thick Russian accent.

Frank firmly grasped the glowing statue, and then shouted in pain. "Power... surging into me... AARGH!"

He twisted and writhed on the ground as the aura left the statue, and surrounded him. It felt as if a forest fire was raging through his body... but the sensation wasn't the pain of dying. It was the pain of healing...

Striving to control the sensations with his iron will, Frank slowly stood, leaning on the edge of the statue. He spoke, and he heard his voice growing in timber and power. "Growing... younger... body... bursting with strength! Feel like I could lift a thousand pounds!"

The fantastic transformation seemed to be completing. The bullet wounds were gone. The pain of arthritis had left Frank's joints. The dimness of aging eyes, the muffled sounds of failing ears, the trembling of old hands... none of it remained.

Frank looked down into the basin pool at the feet of the minuteman statue. He saw himself looking back, but as he had appeared fifty years ago. His eyes were the deep blue of shining seas... his hair the black of night, rich and full as a field of grain. And as he lifted his arms, he heard a ripping sound - his shirt literally shredded itself as muscles like majestic purple mountains rippled and stretched.

He mused, "That statue must have been hit with some fantastic kind of energy. But it’s fading. It must have completely transferred it into my body!" He stood rapt for a moment, merely experiencing the sensations, the sounds and sights and smells, that he had not known for so long. He hadn't remembered what was possible with a young healthy body... and he realized that his strength was far beyond what he had once known. Likewise, he could see farther than he ever remembered being able to, and his senses were incredible.

He grabbed his cane, now no longer needed to support him as he walked, and he took a leap forward. His super-energized legs launched him nearly fifty feet through the air. He landed in a somersault, and rolled out with a sense of everything about him; he somehow could tell the location of each tree, each rock, the grass, the walkways... "It's as if I can see EVERYTHING!" he said in powerful tones. "It's incredible! "I don’t know what will come from all of this... but I must use these powers to help my country fight her enemies, within and without!"

How to do it? he pondered. What would make people believe in me as a defender of the United States?

A horrified female scream answered his thoughts. He whirled toward it, his enhanced hearing homing in on the sound like radar. Another mugging. This park isn't safe anymore... but what can one man do?

"Great Scott! I know what one man can do!" Frank yanked a strip of shirt and tied it around his eyes, forming a makeshift mask to hide his face. Then he charged across the carpet-like lawns, toward the source of the cries.

He burst through a stand of bushes to see two young punks standing over a woman, collapsed on the ground and weeping. One of them held her purse, and the other threatened her with a baseball bat.

"Hey, c'mon lady, izzat all you got?" the one with the purse asked. "You don't wanna make us mad."

Frank said strongly, "You're mad all right - to think that an American would let your kind attack a helpless woman like this!" He stepped forward, cane still in hand, and toward the two punks.

"Well well well, what have we here? Who are you, Gorgeous George?" The delinquent with the purse laughed as the other came forward, brandishing the bat at Frank. "Time for some clobberin'!"

"I don't think so, son." Frank watched patiently as he could actually see the bat draw back and swing forward - slowly, as if in a movie. It came around, almost lazily to Frank's senses...

Until he raised a steely arm, and felt the bat painlessly smack into his left forearm. Almost casually, he pulled the bat, and the JD holding it was jerked along to crash into the silver cane held in Frank's solid right fist. As Frank had, the eagle headed walking stick glowed with an eerie aura about it... and so did the copper bracers he had been wearing for his arthritis.

"Hey, what's goin' on here?" the other hood asked. He fumbled at his jacket pocket and pulled out a small revolver.

The woman screamed again as Frank dropped the unconscious punk. "You don't want to do this, lad. You're making a mistake."

"Yeah, well, not as big as the mistake yer makin'!" The snub nosed revolver spat bullets at Frank, a target for the second time in an hour.

But this time, no longer decrepit and helpless. With an instinctive swing of his arm, Frank drew one of the metal bands on his arms into the path of the bullets. They struck... and were reflected back at the young man. One bullet knocked his porkpie hat off, and another slammed into the gun itself, shattering it. "Now, young man, let's put an end to this," Frank commanded.

"Holy crow! I gotta get away!" The punk turned and started to dash off through the brush.

But he didn't get far. Frank swung his cane in a large circle above his head, and as he did, a soft white sphere of light formed around the eagle head. Frank snapped the cane towards the hoodlum. "For justice!"

The projectile of light launched at the young man, seeming almost to assume a birdlike form. It slammed into his back, and a surge of white energy dashed over his form as he stopped stock-still. Frank ran over to the stunned teen, and a solid right to the jaw finished that escape effort.

The woman sat up slowly, marveling. "You stopped them! You saved me! How can I thank you?"

Frank carried the limp body back to the other, and dropped them together. "No thanks are necessary, ma'am. It was my pleasure to help you."

A police officer suddenly came running around a curved path towards them. "An' just what's goin' on here?" the officer asked.

Frank gestured at the two punks. "These two were trying to assault this lady. I think she'll be able to prefer charges for you, officer. If you'll excuse me, I have business to attend to." With that, Frank turned and made his way back out of the park, and toward his home.

Frank Stiles stood watching the television, as the six o'clock news told of a strange masked man who had stopped a mugging in Patriot Park. The anchorman concluded, "We don't know who this brave man was, but I can say that America could certainly use a hero like this in these times!"

"Exactly right, friend," Frank answered with a smile. "Patriot City needs someone to lend a hand. Our police just can't do it alone anymore. Someone has to stand up and be counted... and it looks as if that someone will be me." He turned off the television and went into his bedroom.

The walking staff was still glowing, as were the wristbands. "And commies like O'Connor need a lesson too!" He rifled through his closet as his memories swirled around him...

During his tenure as a Civics teacher after being fired from the Manhattan Project, Frank Stiles promoted patriotism and loyalty and civic pride to his young charges. His students absorbed these values as a sponge absorbs water, and Frank encouraged them to carry those beliefs into the world. To that end, a group of his students put together a patriotic play to be performed at Patriot City's Fourth of July Freedom Festival.

They had managed to convince Frank to appear in it briefly, as a spirit of Patriot City. And what better spirit than that of the statue of the minuteman in Patriot Park? The drama club had created a uniform of red, white, and blue, matching the outfit of the statue.

Frank had appeared in that performance, and it had proved so popular that each succeeding class had produced it... always with Frank in his cameo role as the spirit of Patriot City. New outfits had been sewn after a few years as Frank had been aging...

But that original was still in the closet, and it was called to action again. The white uniform pants, the blue vest and tricorner hat, the red crossed star spangled suspenders...

He donned the proud outfit, put on the hat, and lifted his staff. "Time to show Patriot City that there's still a hero around... time to show the world that America still stands for freedom and for justice! And time to hunt down that commie O'Connor, and his Bolshevik spymaster! Those reds might have killed Frank Stiles, but they’re about to meet - the Minuteman!"