TRULY GONE&FORGOTTEN : ECHO

A disease cured by medical science and ventriloquism. I bet that isn't covered under Obamacare.

When you choose to fight evil in all of its forms, you have to make do with whatever resources you’ve got available. This is how professional ventriloquist Jim Carson managed to launch his crime-fighting career using only his ability to throw his voice. Thus was born Echo, the man who is not standing exactly where you thought you heard his voice coming from!

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, sis."

Carson actually packs a little more punch than merely being able to sing “The Yellow Rose of Texas” while drinking s glass of water. Early in his career, he also dons an invisibility belt (referred to erroneously on more than one occasion as his “invincibility belt,” possibly as a tangible example of wishful thinking on the protagonist’s part), which actually seems to just be doubling down on ventriloquism now that I think about it. Surely throwing your voice so that it appears to be coming from somewhere else is the same thing as just speaking normally while invisible, right? Aw, what do I know, I ain’t in show business.

Having reached the apotheosis of making sure the audience never saw his lips move, Carson also wore a flashy cape in his super-hero identity, even though he was usually invisible. Maybe he just likes capes, I know I do.

Later on, he added a “radioactive ring” which allowed him to paralyze his opponents, possibly by causing tumors to quickly grow along their spinal cord. Lord knows it probably wasn’t doing him any favors.

The gadgets were secondary to Echo’s war against crime, however. Primarily aiding his cause was his sister (or, in some stories, his wife and/or girlfriend) Cora and his/their older brother, a brilliant but elderly chemist named Dr.Doom. Hold on. I guess mom remarried. Doom (Of the Connecticut Dooms, I believe) actually ends up playing a slightly greater role in the stories than Echo himself, since many of their adventures rely on someone coming to Doom for help – and why wouldn’t you, a trustworthy guy like Dr.Doom – or Doom introducing his siblings to one of his questionably accredited scientific colleagues.

Oh yeah, and one time? He fought an
EVIL ventriloquist.

While not a typical excursion, but used for an example, one of Doom’s colleagues in the Mad Science community believes that women are not only a separate species from men, but were also descended from cats. Naturally, to prove this, he invents a ray which turns women into cats. See, they’re cats now! How could they be turned INTO cats if they’d never BEEN cats in the first place? QED, case closed! PS also the ray kills them, which is probably what kept this guy from getting the Nobel nod.

Like a few other characters from Harry “A-for-Anything” Chesler’s stable, Echo received a second life in repackaging as “Ventrilo,” his adventures being recycled with the names changed (Dr.Doom evolved into Dr.Fate, just as it happens in nature). He never did get that invincibility belt he always wanted, though.