ELIAS POOLE

Real Name: Elias Poole

Identity/Class: Human technology user

Occupation: Inventor

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: None

Enemies: Mister Smythe

Known Relatives: None (see comments)

Aliases: The Crackpot

Base of Operations: His workshop in an unknown city

First Appearance: Tales of Suspense I#31/3 (July, 1962)

Powers/Abilities: Elias Poole was an eccentric inventor. He built scale models of his strange inventions, some of which included: a reversible apartment building (for better ventilation), a gun that didn't fire bullets (it only made a loud noise to frighten burglars), and a submarine with wings. Unbeknownst to Poole, his only successful invention was a disintegrator gun, which was used by a boy to stop an act of sabotage by foreign agents.

 

 

History:
(Tales of Suspense I#31/3) - Once again taking another of his oddball inventions to a scientific laboratory, Elias Poole went into Mr. Smythe's office to demonstrate it. When the demonstration failed (as usual), the angry Smythe berated Poole and showed him some of the other ridiculous inventions he had previously brought in, and reminded him that none of them worked either. Smythe then proceeded to throw Poole out of his office. Unperturbed, the "genius" returned home to build his next "great" invention. Weeks later, Poole took his completed gun and returned to Smythe's office, but Smythe immediately tossed Poole out without even allowing a demonstration and threatened to call the police. Discouraged by the fact that all of his inventions were failures, the dejected Poole tossed the gun away into the woods and walked home.

    The gun was later found by a young boy walking in the woods, who thought it to be only a toy. Just then, a helicopter with three foreign spies aboard landed in a clearing near the woods. The spies were going to plant a bomb in the basement of the scientific laboratory to kill America's leading scientists. The boy playfully pointed the gun in the direction of the spies in the distance and pulled the trigger, but when it made no sound, the boy thought it was broken and just threw it into the river, never realizing that he had unwittingly disintegrated the spies with Poole's silent disintegrator gun and ended their threat.

 

 

 

 

Comments: Created by an unknown writer and Don Heck.

    Possibly Elias Poole was related to Wilbur Poole and Albert Poole (or this Albert Poole); I'd like to think they're all from the same family, with Wilbur being the father and Elias and Albert being Wilbur's sons--a family of oddball eccentric geniuses.

    And Mister Smythe...possibly related to Spencer Smythe (creator of the Spider-Slayers)?

    And a big THANK YOU to Dennis Giansante for scanning this story for me!

Profile by John Kaminski

CLARIFICATIONS:
Elias Poole has no known connections to:

Poole's disintegrator gun

Elias Poole's only successful invention, it was a hand-held gun which completely disintegrated three foreign spies, leaving only a pile of their clothes behind, unharmed. It seemed to only work on human beings.

--Tales of Suspense I#31/3

 

 

 

images:
Tales of Suspense I#31, p14 (main image)
  p15, pan3 (head shot)
  p16, pan4 (disintegrator gun)

Last updated:10/13/07

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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