- Gerald Marsh aka The Protector, Ant-Man foe @ Tales to Astonish I#37
- Henry Marsh associate of Vincent Farnsworth @ Tales of Suspense I#6
- any other characters with similar names
LEE TATE
Real Name: Lee Tate
Identity/Class: Extratemporal evolved human (1950s era)
Occupation: "Trouble-shooter of the future"; assistant to Professor Marsh
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Dora Marsh, Professor Marsh
Enemies: None
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Professor Marsh's seaside laboratory, somewhere in the United States;
formerly from an unspecified future era
First Appearance: Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3 (December, 1956)
Powers/Abilities: As the offspring of advanced human evolution, the physically fit Lee Tate was a superior man from the future who seemed to posses some degree of psionic abilities (see comments). He demonstrated the power to put an individual into a hypnotic trance and selectively eliminate certain portions of that person's memory; it is unknown if he had any additional mental powers.
Tate employed some unspecified method of time-travel to journey to the past, and he used his knowledge of potential events to avert a global disaster.
Height: 6' 2" (by
approximation)
Weight: 190 lbs. (by approximation)
Eyes: Unknown
Hair: Black
History:
(Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3 (fb) - BTS) - Lee Tate came from "far in the future," when mankind had
apparently evolved with great mental powers. The people of the
future used scanners to monitor past events that potentially jeopardized
their existence, and they sent trouble-shooters on tours of duty back
through time to prevent these events from ever occurring--one such
trouble-shooter was Lee Tate. When it was learned that Professor
Marsh's nuclear fission experiments would inadvertently cause a
world-wide catastrophe, Tate was transported back
to 1956, where he became the assistant to the research scientist--Tate
pretended not to know too much about Marsh's work to avoid
suspicion. Tate met the professor's niece, Dora Marsh, and she and
Tate shared a mutual attraction to each other.
(Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3) - Tate read one of Dora's theories on what she predicted the man of the future would look like; he let her know that he found it interesting, but absurd (Coming from the future himself, he knew differently). After the two quarreled, Dora mentioned that her uncle was going out to the bay to test his nuclear device. Alarmed, Tate began to run to the docks, with Dora following him. Along the way, Tate told Dora he had to stop her uncle, or the world would lose its future. Tate explained that the experiment would unleash an element that would cause soil sterilization, which would spread and destroy the world's crops, and eventually cause mass starvation.
Reaching the docks, the two climbed aboard a motor-boat and sailed to the platform of Professor Marsh's device. They arrived just in time for Tate to grab the scientist's hand before he could engage the activating switch. Tate then placed the professor in a hypnotic trance and ordered him to completely forget about his experiment. As Professor Marsh stood dazed, Tate revealed his true nature to Dora and explained his mission. They guided the somewhat befuddled Professor Marsh into the boat to take him back to his lab, and Tate told Dora that he had to return to the future because his job was done. Then he asked Dora to go back to the future with him as his wife, and he assured her she'd like it, because it was nothing like the future she envisioned; Dora happily accepted Tate's proposal.
Later, when he came to his senses, Professor Marsh contacted the police and spoke with a plain-clothes detective regarding the mysterious disappearance of his niece and assistant. The detective noticed that the professor seemed to be a bit dazed, and Professor Marsh admitted that he couldn't remember what experiment he had been working on because there seemed to be blank spots in his mind.
Comments: Created by an unidentified writer and Angelo Torres (artist)
This story--"The Blank!"--was crammed into just 4
pages, so details were sparse--if it were produced today, they could have
easily stretched the plot into a 4-issue mini-series.
I'm only assuming Tate had some sort of mental powers, and that he didn't
just use advanced technology to hypnotize Professor Marsh. And
assuming he actually had mental powers, he probably didn't have mental
telepathy--otherwise, he could have just read Marsh's mind and found out
himself when the scientist planned to activate his experiment instead of
learning it from Dora.
It wasn't revealed exactly how Tate traveled from the future, but since he
was going to take Dora back with him, obviously it was some method that
could accommodate "passengers".
And I'm not even gonna bother mentioning all the divergent time-lines and
alternate worlds that would result from the actions of Lee Tate and his
fellow trouble-shooters!
As far as I can figure the Temporal Paradox Lee Tate and his fellow time travellers are trying to create is -- a Causal Loop. See also Retrocausality
--Gammatotem
Profile by Ron Fredricks.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Lee Tate has no known connections to:
Dora Marsh and Professor Marsh have no known connections to:
The daughter of Professor Marsh's brother, she was a student of applied
genetics. She theorized and wrote many articles about the evolution of
mankind, and even created a small statue of what she envisioned as a future
man. She predicted that cold and unemotional men of tomorrow would
have large and hairless heads, physically weak bodies, and a dependency on
machines.
Dora met her uncle's lab assistant, Lee Tate (secretly
a time-traveler from the future), and the two were attracted to
each other. But they quarreled when Tate told her he thought her
evolution theory was absurd (Being from
the future himself, Tate knew differently).
After Dora told Tate that Professor Marsh was about to activate his cobalt
nuclear fission device, Tate ran off to stop him, and Dora followed.
When they reached her uncle, Tate prevented him from activating his
device. Then Dora witnessed Tate hypnotizing her uncle and blanking
the knowledge of his experiment from his mind. Tate explained to Dora
that he was actually from the future, and on a mission to prevent a
planetary disaster that would have been accidentally caused by her uncle's
experiment.
With his mission completed, Tate was going to return to his own time; he
asked Dora to go with him as his wife, and she happily accepted his
proposal.
--Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3
The foremost nuclear research scientist in the field, he worked out of his
seaside lab. He was the uncle of Dora Marsh, and he employed Lee Tate
as his assistant. Professor
Marsh was experimenting with a new approach to cobalt nuclear fission.
He constructed a nuclear device on a small platform in the bay, where he
planned to use the water as a conductor.
But the scientist's experiment would have caused a planetary crisis if not
for the intervention of Tate, who was actually a time-traveler from the
future, and thus he knew of the disaster that would have occurred.
Tate prevented Professor Marsh from activating his device, then hypnotized
the scientist and made him forget all about the experiment.
Later, after Dora accompanied Tate back to his future era, Professor Marsh
spoke with a police detective regarding the mysterious disappearance of his
niece and assistant.
--Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3
images: (without ads) Appearances: Last updated:
04/02/16 Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know. Non-Marvel
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Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3, p5, pan4 (main image, Lee Tate reveals his true nature to Dora)
Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3, p2, pan4 (headshot, Lee Tate)
Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3, p4, pan3 (Lee Tate hypnotizes Professor Marsh)
Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3, p4, pan6 (Lee Tate proposes to Dora Marsh)
Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3, p1, pan3 (Dora Marsh, with her statue of her envisioned future man)
Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3, p2, pan1 (Dora Marsh describing to Lee Tate how she envisioned the future of mankind, with statue of future man in foreground)
Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3, p1, pan1 (Professor Marsh)
Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3, p4, pan1 (Professor Marsh about to activate his device, Lee Tate and Dora Marsh in motor-boat in background)
Strange Stories of Suspense#12/3 (December, 1956) - unidentified writer, Angelo Torres (artist), Stan Lee (editor)
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