Lucas "Snapper" Carr is a character appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Gardner Fox and penciller Mike Sekowsky, and first appeared in The Brave and the Bold in February 1960. From 1960 to 1969, Snapper Carr appeared as a supporting character to the Justice League of America. The character occasionally appeared in comics featuring the Justice League from 1969 to 1989, when he gained superpowers during the Invasion! event.
Snapper was associated with a new superhero team, The Blasters, in various comics until 1993, when he lost his powers and became a main character in the Hourman comic book, beginning in 1999. After the cancellation of Hourman in April 2001, he became a main character in the Young Justice comic book beginning in December 2001. Young Justice was cancelled in May 2003, and he became associated with the governmental organization Checkmate, a role revealed when the character played a small but important role in the 2007–2008 limited series comic book 52 Aftermath: The Four Horsemen. The character made major appearances in Final Crisis: Resist in December 2008 and Justice League of America 80-Page Giant in November 2009.
Creation and early characterization
In 1959, after the successful revival of the Flash and Green Lantern, DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz decided to update the Justice Society of America using a new group of heroes under the name Justice League of America (JLA). According to Schwartz, DC Comics Executive Editor Whitney Ellsworth not only insisted that a teenager be a member of the Justice League but also that this teenager be hip. Ellsworth wanted the new superhero team to tap into the emerging and economically powerful youth culture, and specifically told Schwartz to have the character emulate the hip-talking, leather jacket-wearing, finger-snapping "Kookie" Kookson character on the popular television series 77 Sunset Strip. The teenager had to be a "civilian" (i.e., non-superhero). A hip version of an existing teenage superhero, such as Robin, Supergirl, or existing teenage "civilian" such as Jimmy Olsen was ruled out, as these characters would tend to over-emphasize the hero with whom they were already associated. To preserve the "team" nature of the new comic book, therefore, a "neutral" civilian character had to be created.
Ellsworth specifically coined the name "Snapper Carr", the character's first name indicating his habit of snapping his fingers when excited or making a point. Snapper's given name of Lucas was not revealed until 1978.
Snapper Carr made his first appearance, alongside the first appearance of the JLA, in the comic book The Brave and the Bold #28, released on December 29, 1959, but with a cover date of February–March 1960.
Snapper Carr was not intended to be a superhero, but rather a supporting character for the Justice League. Because of the critical role he played in the League's first adventure, he was formally made an "honorary member" of the JLA, and was often referred to as the team's mascot. At the end of the first adventure, Snapper received a belt with a signal device embedded in the buckle, with which he can summon members of the JLA. Snapper Carr was given a girlfriend, Midge, in Justice League of America #7 (November 1961). Snapper was also shown in 1974 to have a sister, Janet. A year later, Snapper mentioned in Hourman #1 that he has a brother nicknamed "Spitter" Carr (for his habit of spitting). It is unclear if Spitter and Jimmy are the same person, or if Snapper was merely being sarcastic.
Fictional character biography
Membership in the Justice League
In The Brave and the Bold #28, the Justice League of America faces the threat of Starro, a starfish-like alien with mind-control powers. Snapper Carr, who is spreading lime on his family's lawn, is unaffected by Starro when the alien takes mental control of the population of Happy Harbor, Rhode Island. Members of the Justice League realize that Starro can be incapacitated using lime, and the alien is defeated.
In the 1985–1986 crossover Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC Comics rebooted its fictional universe and the back-stories of nearly all its characters. This required retellings of many of origin stories, including that of the Justice League of America. The first adventures of the Justice League, and that of Snapper Carr, were retold in the 12-issue maxi-series comic book JLA: Year One. The first several issues of the maxi-series involved the alien Appellaxians, which had first appeared in Justice League of America #9 (February 1962). In the fictional character chronology, this story occurs before and shortly after The Brave and the Bold #28, but in the publication history of the character it is printed in 1998. In the story, the Appellaxians conspired with a new criminal organization, Locus, to take over Earth. Snapper's uncle, Simon Carr, made his first appearance in the second issue. The adventure with Starro took place between JLA: Year One issues #3 and #4, and Snapper played a critical role in issue #9 in alerting the League to the Appellaxian attack on Earth. In issue #10, he deduced that his uncle had been possessed by the Appellaxian leader, and had the League defeat Simon and then free him from alien control.
Betrayal of the JLA
Gardner Fox left Justice League of America with issue #65, and Dennis O'Neil took over scripting duties. By this time, Snapper Carr was immensely unpopular. O'Neil felt Snapper was outdated and no longer fit with the Justice League. He considered two options: Letting the character disappear without explanation, or writing the character out of the book. O'Neil decided on the latter, even if it seemed abrupt.
By the time the story "Snapper Carr—Super Traitor!" appeared, Snapper Carr had not been present in any Justice League of America stories for some time. The story begins with Snapper shown to be upset by the fact that people are interested in him only because of what he knows about the Justice League, and not because he is a hero in his own right. He is confronted by John Dough, "the most average man in America", who wants to rid the world of superheroes. Snapper helps Dough kidnap Batman, and addresses a public rally condemning superheroes. The crowd riots, and the Justice League members (except for new member Black Canary) lose control of their powers. After a fake Batman attacks people attending a congressional hearing into causes of the riot, Snapper resigns his honorary membership in the Justice League. When the League returns to its Secret Sanctuary (located in a seaside cave near Happy Harbor), they are attacked by Dough—who turns out to be the Joker. Joker reveals that Snapper told him the location of the League's Secret Sanctuary. The League captures the Joker, but Snapper has departed.
"Snapper Carr—Super Traitor!" was the last Joker story for four years, and the last time the Silver Age Joker was seen in print. A much darker, more gothic Joker later appeared in Batman #251, and is the first appearance of the modern Joker. This story also arguably marked the end of the Silver Age version of the Justice League of America as well. Although Snapper Carr was, in later comic book appearances, shown to have made money by writing a memoir about his time with the League, he was also depicted as feeling immense shame for having been tricked by the Joker into betraying the team.
Role in the Justice League
Snapper's role in the Justice League was a varied one. In many early adventures, he often (and unintentionally) provided information or scientific clues which enabled the League to solve mysteries or defeat enemies. For example, in the team's third published adventure, "Case of the Stolen Super Powers!", several important zoo specimens have gone missing. Snapper mentions a few facts about long-lived creatures that he's incorporating into a term paper. Members of the JLA realize that the missing animals were all long-lived. This enables them to deduce the plans of Professor Ivo (who is trying to create an immortality serum) and defeat his android, Amazo.
Usually, Snapper was depicted on "monitor duty", using the JLA computers and satellites to monitor national and world events for trouble to which the heroes could respond. Later, he was depicted as being a journalist, reporting on the League's activities and providing the "official" record of their exploits, as well as overseeing the JLA's mail handling and processing and responding to fans and admirers. Throughout the comic book series JLA: Year One, Snapper was also depicted as a mechanic and I.T. worker, overseeing the installation of a great deal of technology in the Secret Sanctuary and maintaining the hideout's machinery.
Post-JLA
In the character's fictional biography, Snapper Carr made a number of appearances between 1969 and 1989.
His first appearance came in 1972 100th issue, a story in which the JLA has a celebration. Snapper is invited to attend, but is too ashamed by his betrayal of the League to do so.
His second appearance came in 1974, when Justice League of America writer Len Wein decided to have Snapper and his family get kidnapped by a mentally ill man calling himself Anakronus. Anakronus claims to be a supervillain who has attacked the Justice League numerous times, but Snapper knows that the man has never tangled with the League before. Snapper succeeds in having Anakronus tell his (rather lengthy) stories about how he destroyed the League. This prevents the man from killing the Carr family for several hours. Members of the JLA show up and easily apprehend Anakronus.
The Star-Tsar
The Snapper Carr character was depicted as a supervillain in 1977.
The Key was a villain who had brainwashed Snapper in 1965, and induced him to poison the JLA's food. In 1968, Key implanted a post-hypnotic suggestion in the members of the JLA, which forced them to stay in their headquarters for one hour. At the end of that time, they would kill one another. Key planned for Snapper to kill Superman with a kryptonite ray-gun. Key battled the Justice League again in 1974, attempting to blow up the city of St. Louis, Missouri, but Snapper Carr was not present for this event (having resigned from the JLA five years earlier).
The Key's 1977 involvement with Snapper Carr came in the story "The Face of the Star-Tsar!" Doctor Light, a long-time JLA foe, attempts to access the JLA Satellite. Mark Shaw, the former villainous Manhunter now in a new guise as the heroic Privateer, tries to stop him but is defeated. The JLA arrives and Light flees, only to run into a new villain—the Star-Tsar. When the JLA catches up to the two villains, the Star-Tsar flees to Washington, D.C. and attacks an embassy there. The JLA apprehend the Star-Tsar's henchmen and find Snapper Carr lurking nearby. The JLA then rush off to Doctor Light's underwater lair in a lake in New York City's Central Park. Anticipating their arrival, Doctor Light traps the heroes with a device that phases them into another dimension. The Star-Tsar helps the Justice League escape before fleeing himself. Trapped in his own hideout by the JLA, Light blows a hole in the wall and escapes. Leaving the villain's lair, the JLA discover the unconscious Star-Tsar, who had been knocked out by debris from the blast. They unmask him, only to discover that the Star-Tsar is Snapper Carr.
The story continued in "The Key—Or Not The Key", with Snapper/Star-Tsar freed by Star-Tsar henchmen. Several League members trace the henchmen's flying getaway vehicles to the Star-Tsar's lair. They are swiftly captured by Key.
Post-Star-Tsar
The Snapper Carr character made a number of appearances in The Superman Family comic book from 1978 to 1982. Superman gets Snapper at job at S.T.A.R. Labs, a research corporation devoted to creating high-tech weapons and prisons to handle various supervillain and alien menaces. Snapper surreptitiously stole the wreck of a Kryptonian space-sled in the story "Birthright of Power!", and briefly appeared in the story "Kandor vs. Supergirl" as a witness at the trial of Supergirl. Three issues later, he made a brief appearance in the Supergirl story "What Goes Up Can't Come Down" and its conclusion "The Gravity War". At the end of "Nightmare in New Athens", Snapper is shown to have used the space-sled to fix a Superboy robot, but a disembodied intelligence takes control of the android. In "The Screamin' Demon", it is revealed that student teacher Paul French has tried to wipe the memories of his criminal past by developing a "transistorized brain". Somehow, it all went wrong, and while he slept his unconscious mind seized control of the robot (Supergirl briefly battled the robot before Paul woke).
The Snapper Carr character also played a role in the resignation of Green Arrow from the JLA. The story, which is told in flashback, depicted Black Canary and Green Arrow investigating an explosion at the Star City Museum. They were attacked by the Star-Tsar, felled, and hospitalized. Snapper Carr, who just happened to be in Star City, arrives at the hospital to tell them that his Star-Tsar suit was stolen from the Metropolis police by an astronomer named Richard Rigel, who was working on technology powered by starlight. Green Arrow manages to stop the new Star-Tsar by deducing where he will attack next, but not before members of the JLA almost allow the villain to kill thousands of people. In annoyed at the JLA's conduct, Green Arrow resigned from the Justice League.
Writer Gerry Conway brought Snapper Carr back to the Justice League for the comic book's 200th issue. A post-hypnotic suggestion makes the League's original seven members try to reassemble the seven Appellaxian meteorites from the 1962 adventure and use them to clone new Appellaxians who will initiate a second invasion of Earth. Snapper Carr waits with superhero Firestorm aboard the JLA Satellite, while the other heroes battle the aliens.
The Snapper Carr character appeared again in 1999 in the comic book Legends of the DC Universe. In the fictional character chronology, this story occurs some time after Green Arrow's 1980 resignation from the Justice League, but before Green Arrow rejoins the League in 1982. In this story ("Critical Mass Stages 1-5"/"Critical Mass Stages 6-16"), Snapper witnesses five JLA members growing to monstrous size. He believes this is a side-effect of a long-ago attack by a minor villain named Packrat. Snapper finds Green Arrow, who locates Packrat's shrink ray and restores the heroes to their correct size. As Snapper departs, Green Arrow tells the boy that he needs to forgive himself.
The Blasters
In 1989, DC Comics published a three-issue limited series titled Invasion!. The Dominators, an alien race usually seen in the Legion of Super-Heroes comics, decide to invade Earth to learn the secret of the metagene—a gene that can give certain human beings superpowers. In the first issue of Invasion!, it is revealed that thousands of Earthlings have been kidnapped and taken to the Dominator homeworld, where they are forced to run a gauntlet of traps and experiments known as "the Blaster". Six humans, including Snapper Carr, survive the Blaster, an indication that they have the metagene. The Blaster itself forces the metagene in each person to manifest, and Snapper gains the ability to teleport whenever he snaps his fingers. In the third issue, these six new heroes are transferred to Starlag, a Dominator prison. There, they meet up with the extraterrestrial superhero team the Omega Men. They also meet Brainiac 2 and his super-team, the Licensed Extra-Governmental Interstellar Operatives Network (L.E.G.I.O.N.). Together, the three groups break out of Starlag and flee aboard a shuttle piloted by the feline alien, Churljenkins. They run into a superhero task force led by Superman, and assist in the invasion of the Dominator homeworld. There, they discover a cure for the Dominators' "gene bomb" (a device which accelerates metagene activity and destabilizes superpowers, ending with the death of the person with the metagene). Snapper and his group, now called the Blasters, return to Earth while Churljenkins joins the Omega Men and flies off into space.
The Snapper Carr character next appeared in a one-shot comic, Blasters. The story in this comic book begins with Snapper Carr in an alien insane asylum. Snapper had decided to keep his eyes open during a teleport, to see what occurs. On his dismay, he witnessed an eternity of time passing, and was driven temporarily insane. The reader also learns that each of the Blasters has had trouble adjusting to their new superpowers, and are also incarcerated in the asylum. Snapper escapes by teleporting directly to Churljenkins' ship, which had broken down on an alien world. Churljenkins restores Snapper's sanity, and the two of them repair the ship and flee—stranding the Omega Men. They learn that the Dominators have destroyed the Churljenkins' home planet, so they return to Earth. On the journey there, they discover that the Spider Guild (an alien race of humanoid arachnids) has created a weapons depot near Earth. Snapper breaks the Blasters out of the hospital, and the team destroys the depot.
Valor and the loss of Snapper's hands
The Snapper Carr character next appeared in the comic book Valor. The planet Daxam had helped the Dominators invade Earth, but were convinced by Superman to switch sides. The Daxamites, a sub-species of Kryptonian, also gain superpowers under a yellow sun, and this vast army of supermen helped turn the tide and save Earth. The father of Lar Gand (later named Mon-El) died during this battle. Deciding to honor his father, Lar Gand becomes a superhero, joins L.E.G.I.O.N., and meets Superman—who gives him the name Valor. Snapper Carr's involvement in the Valor story begins after Valor is accidentally imprisoned on Starlag II, a Dominator prison near a red sun. Valor signals for help, and his artificial intelligence unit sends for the Blasters. By this time, the Blasters had a number of adventures (none of them depicted in the comic book, just mentioned by the characters) which had turned out poorly, and were about to disband. While rescuing Valor, the team accidentally releases the energy being known as The Unimaginable. Valor and the Blasters battle The Unimaginable, and Valor escapes Starlag II. The Blasters, however, become trapped there.
Some time thereafter, Snapper Carr and the Blasters are able to escape Starlag II, but Snapper becomes separated from his friends (their escape, and how Snapper became separated from them, is not depicted in any comic). In stories first published in 2000, but occurring in the character's chronology at a point after the adventure with Valor, Snapper finds himself being pursued by the Khunds, an aggressive alien species. Snapper is captured, and his fingers are locked together to prevent him from teleporting. Snapper mulls over his past, and concludes that he has always been a disappointment—first to the Justice League, then to the Blasters. The Khunds torture Snapper, then cut off his hands—depriving him of the ability to teleport. At some point soon thereafter, Snapper Carr is reunited with Brainiac 2 on the planet Cairn, where Brainiac gives him new hands, but Snapper still cannot teleport.
Encountering the Hourman android
The character of Snapper Carr is a main character in the Hourman comic book, which was published from April 1999 to April 2001. Throughout the comic book's run, a running gag depicts Snapper wearing a series of T-shirts, each emblazoned with a different superhero's logo or uniform colors. In this comic book, Hourman is an android from the 853rd century. He was built by Tyler ChemoRobotics, a company founded by Hourman (Rick Tyler) in the late 20th century. The Hourman android traveled permanently to the 20th century, which is the one place he believed he could grow and evolve as a lifeform. He joined the Justice League, and at one point accessed all of Batman's memories of the League. These memories made the Hourman android realize that Snapper Carr would be a good "humanity coach". The reader learns that, after having his hands restored, Snapper returned to Earth. He married and was divorced by a young woman named Bethany Lee (whose mother is the Happy Harbor chief of police). Snapper is depicted spending most of his time at a trendy if run-down Happy Harbor coffeehouse, the Mad Yak Café, and caring for his pet cat, whom he has named Starro. In a tie-in to "Day of Judgment", Snapper fantasizes about two alternative futures—one in which he never betrays the Justice League and becomes a super-hero, and one in which he betrays them and becomes a washed-up alcoholic. Snapper is able to deduce that demons are harassing him and his friends, causing these fantasies, and he not only gets rid of the demons but convinces one of them to reject evil and become good by (feeding it cheesecake). Shortly thereafter, Snapper Carr and his friends are accidentally trapped aboard Hourman's timeship for months, nearly going insane. After being freed, Snapper is kidnapped by demons and tortured for several days, but is freed by Hourman. Snapper is shown suffering from severe depression after this experience. Hourman asks Snapper to tell him about his time with the Justice League, and in flashback Snapper relates the events of Justice League of America #77. The reader learns that Snapper regrets quitting the Justice League, and that Bethany divorced him because Snapper felt he was not good enough for her. Hourman says that Snapper fights for the common man, and that's what people like about him. This lifts Snapper out of his depression. and Justice League of America #77. Snapper is not dead but back in time, caught in a loop where he is forced to relive the loss of his hands over and over.
Helping Young Justice
The character of Snapper Carr has a major recurring role in the comic book Young Justice, a group consisting of teenagers and young adults. Initially, the group is mentored by Red Tornado, but in Young Justice #38, Impulse (Bart Allen) decides to leave the group to live a life away from super-heroics. Robin (Tim Drake) resigns, too, feeling no one trusts him. Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) asks Red Tornado for help, and he persuades Snapper Carr to provide daily oversight of the group. Snapper Carr appears irregularly over the remaining publication history of Young Justice.
During and after Snapper Carr's run in Young Justice, the character appeared in cameos three times in other comic books. The first appearance was when he attended Green Arrow's funeral. The second appearance showed him hanging out with the Justice League during a meeting with the Avengers from Marvel Comics. The third appearance was when he attended Green Arrow's wedding to Black Canary. In this last outing, Snapper's invitation to the wedding is stolen and restolen by a host of villains, but Snapper manages to attend the event all the same.