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Carl Draper (Earth-One)

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Yes! I'm different now! Hurt... rage... Self-hatred have made me different! Through 12 miserable years I've struggled to erase those feelings-- Searching for something in myself to respect! And when I couldn't find it within me-- I put it there...
— Master Jailer src

Carl Draper was a former high-school classmate of Clark Kent and Lana Lang who became the villainous Master Jailer as an adult out of envy of Superman and obsession about Lana.

Carl Draper, nicknamed "Moosie" by his classmates, was an overweight and introverted boy who grew up in Smallville. Infatuated with Lana Lang, he resented Superboy, with whom Lana was infamously obsessed: On one occasion, when Carl and his classmates were accidentally trapped in a cave, Carl discovered the way out after courageously exploring but was denied the credit for rescuing Lana and the others when Superboy arrived before he could get help. Nevertheless, this incident demonstrated Draper's innate knack for exposing the vulnerabilities in containment systems, which would serve Draper well in his future profession as a security consultant.[1]

As a teenager, Draper became a staunch anti-Superboy amateur orator, further alienating him from his peers due to the unpopular nature of his position. Draper's purpose for taking up this campaign, to impress Lana and unseat Superboy from the altar of her affections, was utterly defeated, as Lana's indifference turned instead to contempt. Nevertheless, a speech once delivered to his Smallville High class made a significant impact upon Clark Kent. Draper alleged that Superboy had no right to pretend to heroism so long as no record existed of a conflict between Superboy and an equal or superior opponent[2], as true valor is ostensibly assessed by courage and tenacity in the face of real danger. Superboy saw fit to answer the challenge in his own way, creating a Kryptonian-tech android named Kator and programming Kator to fight him without mercy.[3]

After a few clashes, Superboy grew concerned at how close Kator was coming to seriously harming him, and in their final battle, Superboy was nearly killed by Kator in outer space and was forced to destroy Kator. However, without Superboy's knowledge, Kator approached Draper before his destruction and provided Draper with a tracking device which Draper could use to reach a minimalistic robotics laboratory that Kator had set up. Following Kator's posthumous instructions, Draper allowed himself to be converted into a cyborg with Kator's power -- Kator-Two -- and kidnapped Lana to lure Superboy into a death battle. Fortunately, Jonathan Kent happened upon Superboy's original kill-switch for Kator, deactivating Draper's enhancements. Superboy then used his Mind-Prober Ray to erase all memory that Lana or Draper ever had of this sequence of events from their minds.[3][4]

As an adult, Draper moved to Metropolis, underwent cosmetic surgery to make himself handsome, lost weight, and became a master at crafting highly advanced security systems. He created a prison specifically designed to hold super-villains, the Mount Olympus Correctional Facility. Superman, in an attempt to make the prison even more secure, relocated it to orbit using an anti-gravity platform and covered the entire prison with a plastic bubble. Although Superman suggested that Draper's achievement be recognized by giving the penitentiary the alias "Draper's Island," Draper was once again denied the credit for his work, as the reporters present, chief among them none other than Lana Lang, went for the sensationalistic angle and popularized the nickname "Superman's Island" instead, ignoring the knowledge and effort that Draper required to build it. Enraged, Draper created the identity of the Master Jailer for himself and stole the power-packs from the cells used to incarcerate the Parasite, Metallo, and the Atomic Skull, siphoning their energy into a device disguised as a key-ring. By duplicating the three villains' powers simultaneously, the Master Jailer was able to knock Superman unconscious and kidnap Lana.[1]

The Jailer took them both to a secret mountain lair, where he placed Superman in a labyrinth-trap under simulated red-sun radiation. Once Superman reached the end of his twisted maze, the de-powered Action Ace would receive an electrical jolt to the head to induce short-term retrograde amnesia and knock him out, then the platform of the labyrinth would make a 180-degree rotation to put Superman back at the beginning. By this method, the Jailer hoped to either wear Superman out until the deathtraps within his labyrinth killed Superman or to consign him to an endless hell of an existence with no possibility of escape. All that Draper demanded from Lana was that she love him for "proving" his superiority to the Man of Steel and to join him in witnessing Superman's torture and humiliation. Therefore, it fell to Lana to save Superman's life, damaging the Jailer's master control console and eliminating the red-sun effect, thereby allowing Superman to break into the Master Jailer's chamber and capture his enemy. Ultimately, the final ignominy was that the Master Jailer was incarcerated within his own prison facility, unacknowledged and forgotten, now nothing more than another deranged super-villain.[5]

The mistake of presuming to contain the Master Jailer within his own prison became apparent when the Jailer led a prison break only a short time later, taking Metallo and the Atomic Skull with him. The Jailer attacked the Galaxy Communications building with the intention of kidnapping Lana again. However, Superman was quick to respond and overcame his adversary on this occasion with relative ease. Now knowing that the Master Jailer's powers were derived from his key-ring, Superman merely severed the key-ring's connection to the Jailer's costume with a burst of heat-vision, allowed him to plummet a few stories until he passed out, and then caught him. Metallo and the Skull were returned to prison as well in undocumented encounters.[6]

The Master Jailer escaped prison again and set his sights on Supergirl, being contracted by a group called the Super-Crime Task Force (S.C.T.F.) -- a front group created by an ex-cellmate of Lex Luthor who had been arrested by Lex's brother-in-law, the late FBI agent Jeff Colby. The Jailer's objective was to stage a gimmick that would drive Lex's sister and Jeff's widow, Lena Thorul, to madness. The Jailer's plan involved assigning an S.C.T.F. agent to impersonate Lena's nurse during her period of outpatient convalescence from a cerebrovascular accident brought on by her telepathic abilities. Lena had recently learned that she was the sister of Lex Luthor and that Supergirl, her own family, and the FBI had been keeping that knowledge from her for years, causing Lena to feel betrayed by Supergirl. At times of extreme distress, Lena was tricked by her imposter "nurse" into believing that she had gained the power of telekinesis and that it was running out of control, thanks to a device hidden upon the fake nurse's person which could levitate certain objects at a distance. The next stage of the S.C.T.F. plan involved luring Supergirl to a location which she was led to believe was a secret lair of Lex Luthor. A Lex Luthor imposter would lie to Supergirl that she had been trapped in a room built to simulate Krypton's gravity and therefore nullify her super-powers, whereas the actual effect of depowering Supergirl would be accomplished through simple hypnosis. Meanwhile, the S.C.T.F. would send a Supergirl imposter into Lena's room while the real Supergirl was occupied, and this agent would pretend to be so affected by Lena's "telekinesis" that she "lost her powers," subsequently feigning her death by telekinetic defenestration. The entire objective of the Master Jailer's convoluted scenario was to trick Lena into believing that she had murdered Supergirl in anger. Ultimately, Supergirl broke her hypnotic spell when she observed a fly in the room where she was kept confined and realized that it would be impossible for the insect to take flight under Krypton's higher gravity. As such, Supergirl confronted the S.C.T.F.'s Lex Luthor impersonator and unraveled the plot, but did not learn at the time that the Master Jailer was the individual hired to organize the psychological assault on her and her friends.[7][8][9]

While the Master Jailer's plot for the S.C.T.F. failed, the Jailer himself went completely unscathed due to being removed from the practical execution of the operation. As such, Draper simply changed criminal employers to a more notorious and powerful crime syndicate, the Hierarchy of International Vengeance and Eliminations (H.I.V.E.). Incidentally, the H.I.V.E. were also inspired to pit the Master Jailer's talents for subterfuge against Supergirl's raw power.[10][9] The Master Jailer's first attempt at defeating Supergirl involved baiting her into the open with a bank heist and blasting her with a ray that turned her into an incorporeal phantom.[11] Supergirl managed to rematerialize herself with technical assistance from the Atom and struck back at the Jailer, clearing out his hidden base in one of the suspension towers of the Brooklyn Bridge. However, the Master Jailer anticipated the base's discovery and substituted himself with a remote-controlled android duplicate, which self-destructed once Supergirl had seized it.[12] The Master Jailer took the World Trade Center hostage to compel Supergirl to confront him yet again, and this time, the Jailer unleashed a device that would convert Supergirl's body into a sentient ray of light. Supergirl managed to use a space warp to solidify her corporeal form once more, heading the Jailer off on a jewelry heist he sprang after believing he had permanently disposed of her. The Maid of Might refused to take any further chances with the Jailer, depriving him of all his hi-tech gimmicks at super-speed and knocking him unconscious.[13]

Enraged at the relationship struck up between Lana Lang and Clark Kent, Draper set in motion a new plan to incapacitate Superman in order to keep the Man of Steel from interfering with his new goal of murdering Clark. This plan involved infiltrating a military base, commandeering several nuclear warheads, and bombarding Superman with them. This had the effect of converting Superman's costume into Green Kryptonite and fusing it to his skin. Afterwards, Draper attacked the Galaxy building and then Clark Kent's apartment building at 344 Clinton Street, hoping to find Clark and eliminate him. However, Superman used the Duplicator Ray to create Bizarro-duplicates of the nuclear warheads, undo the Kryptonite-transmutation process, and save his life, before confronting the Master Jailer at the apartment building and taking him out.[14]

Since then, Superman and the Master Jailer have clashed various times over the years.

Powers

Abilities

Equipment

  • Traps & Prisons: The Master Jailer's specialty is in the construction of high-tech snares and prisons capable of confining even the most powerful detainee by managing optimal exploitation of the prisoner's weaknesses and limitations.

Weapons

  • Although loathing to engage himself in personal combat, the Master Jailer has made use of complicated weapons and devices in the past to hold his own at least for a little while in a fight with Superman. On one occasion, Master Jailer found a means of harnessing the powers of Metallo, Parasite and Atomic Skull.

Related

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Superman #331
  2. ↑ The majority of opponents with "equal or superior" power that Superboy had fought up until then were natives of the 30th Century and encountered during Superboy's Legion of Super-Heroes adventures.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Superboy (Volume 2) #17
  4. ↑ Superboy (Volume 2) #18
  5. ↑ Superman #332
  6. ↑ DC Retroactive: Superman-The '70s #1
  7. ↑ Superman Family #213
  8. ↑ Superman Family #214
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Superman Family #216
  10. ↑ Superman Family #215
  11. ↑ Superman Family #219
  12. ↑ Superman Family #220
  13. ↑ Superman Family #221
  14. ↑ Superman #393


Superman Villain(s)

This character has been primarily an enemy of Superman in any of his various incarnations, or members of the Superman Family. This template will categorize articles that include it into the "Superman Villains category."

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