LYLE CRAWFORD

Real Name: Lyle Crawford

Identity/Class: Human, magic user

Occupation: Professional Basketball player (team unnamed)

Group Membership: The Hand

Affiliations: Beast, Hand, Takashi

Enemies: Elektra

Known Relatives: "Black Cat" Buddy Crawford (father, deceased), unnamed mother (deceased)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Uncertain. It had a New Orleans feel to it (despite the Anime art), but it could have been New York city or Chicago, or elsewhere.

First Appearance: Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#1 (September, 2002)

Powers/Abilities: Lyle was a highly talented basketball player, as well as being intelligent and charismatic. It is uncertain to what degree he had been trained as a ninja.

History:
(Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#1 (fb) - BTS) - Lyle's mother died thirty three years before the events of this story (see comments).

(Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#1 (fb) - BTS) - As a kid, Lyle use to go watch his father, "Black Cat" Crawford, play jazz.

(Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#1 (fb)) - Lyle was a skilled basketball player, and he attended college thanks to money scraped together by his father's savings.

(Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#1 (fb) - BTS) - Lyle played basketball in college, but also studied hard.

(Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#1 (fb) - BTS) - Lyle was recruited by the Hand, who posed as a self-help group, offering to help pay for his schooling, train him as an athlete, and set him up with a job after his graduation.

(Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#1 (fb)) - Lyle introduced his father to Takashi. Lyle became irate when his father tried to dissuade him from working with the Hand, and he angrily left with Takashi, who secretly slew his father.

(Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#1-2 (fbs)) - Lyle continued on as a professional basketball player, and the Hand groomed him for a position of political power.

(Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#1 - BTS) - Elektra was directed to visit Moonshine's by an agent of the Hand, where she learned about Buddy and Lyle, and she was hired to assassinate Carlo Sapporito by Jackie Sure-Shot (whom she later learned was Takashi).

(Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#2 - BTS) - After Elektra killed Sapporito, Buddy's ghost told Elektra that the Hand intended to resurrect their lost spirits within the body of Lyle, casting away his soul in the process. Elektra learned that Sapporito was a professor of Asian studies who had spoken out against the Hand. She similarly learned that the Hand had masterminded the assassination of Democratic Congressional hopeful Marty Diggs...leaving the spot open for Lyle.

(Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#2) - Lyle gave an interview, announcing his plans to run for congress.

(Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#3) - On another television spot, Lyle continued to discuss his plans for congress. Buddy sent his trumpet to Elektra, who gave it to Lyle as a gift, who fled along with Takashi. Takashi instructed Lyle to be prepared for the meeting the next night when he achieved the potential for which the Hand had been grooming him.

(Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#4) - Takashi mesmerized Lyle and summoned the spirits of the Hand who had been trapped in Limbo. Elektra arrived to stop the process and she fought Lyle, pushing him onto a jagged piece of concrete, impaling his chest. The spirits of the Hand filled his dying body, which proved unable to contain so many souls, and instead began to transform into an Earthly incarnation of the Beast. However, before the transformation was complete, Elektra decapitated Crawford, banishing the Beast and the spirits of the Hand.

 

 

 

Comments: Created by Scott Morse.

    The reference to Lyle's mother dying in 1969 is topical.

    Elektra never would have known that the Hand was using Lyle Crawford if a Hand agent hadn't sent her to Moonshine's. Maybe Buddy Crawford's spirit was able to manipulate that agent.

    The only thing definitively stated to rank the chronology of this story was that it was some time after Elektra had been killed and resurrected. It was also at a time when the Hand was at a low power ebb.

Profile by Snood.

CLARIFICATIONS:
No known connection to:

Buddy "Black Cat" Crawford has no known connection to:

"Black Cat" Buddy Crawford

    A noted blues (or jazz--they say both) musician, Buddy was married and had a son, Lyle, though his wife died not too long after that. Buddy played at the Bar Moonshine's three times a week for twenty-two years, putting every spare penny in a college fund for Lyle. When Lyle introduced him to Takashi of the Hand, Buddy recognized that Takashi was not right and tried to dissuade Lyle from joining up with them. Takashi touched a finger to Buddy's trumpet, and when Buddy next played it, he had as soon as his lips touched the mouthpiece.

    Years later, Buddy's ghost helped direct Elektra to stop the Hand from using Lyle, choosing death for Lyle over his becoming a servant of evil. Afterwards, he thanked her, and gave her a kiss from her father.

    Buddy's ghost sometimes took the form of a black cat, or maybe the black cat was his avatar. He was able to access certain realms from which he could contact people on Earth, or at least people of certain spiritual discipline, such as Elektra. He could hide himself and those with which he was communicating from the Hand. In addition, his black cat avatar once attacked and slew an agent of the Hand.

--Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#1 (1(fb), 1-4

images:
Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#3, p14, panel 1
Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#2, p20, panel 1
    p6, panel 1 (Black Cat)
    p11, panel 1 (Buddy)

Elektra: Glimpse & Echo#2-4 (October - December 2002)

Last updated: 07/13/04

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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