Johnny Peril (Earth-1)

Johnny Peril is a newsman, scientist, adventurer, and soldier of fortune. [“The Doorway into Time,” The Unexpected #106]

Almost nothing is known about Johnny Peril's past, except that he has worked as a newspaper reporter and a soldier of fortune, and he has had training in the sciences.

By 1968, Johnny Peril had a friend named Prof. Rome and was driving to visit him in southern Utah when he met a strangely dressed man named Lewis. The man claimed that, after crossing a bridge he had passed through a doorway into time that had transported him to the city of Thon in ancient Egypt. There he met Terah, the queen of Thon, and became her personal guard and captain of the host after proving himself in battle. He fell in love with Terah but also desired the priceless rubies that were the eyes of the sacred idol of the god Thoth. One night he fled with the rubies, taking Terah with him, and went back through the doorway into time. Unfortunately, once they were back in his own time, Lewis watched helplessly as Terah rapidly aged, died, and turned into dust as old as ancient Egypt. Johnny Peril and Prof. Rome used the rubies to pay for a sanitarium for the crazed Lewis and went to find the doorway themselves. All they found were two broken prongs that might have been the bridge and two stunted pillars that could have been the doorway into time. But Rome also found a portrait of a woman that could have been Queen Terah of Thon. [“The Doorway into Time,” The Unexpected #106]