With the insanity of Yankee Doodle Jones now an institution even as World War II neared its conclusion in the European theatre. With police thinned by the fighting overseas, they didn’t stand a chance against the massive super-powered being more powerful than any mortal. Heroes of comparable power existed—but most were also too busy aiding the war effort to lend a hand.
The Midwest city found itself alone against a power it could not hope to control. Jones declared himself emperor and set out to systematically destroy anyone that opposed him. The police and city government saw no choice but to bow to his whim when it was clear no one would aid them in their plight.
The other heroes of the city took up the call. The Dragon would gather Echo, the Enchanted Dagger and California-based hero Barry Kuda to join him in his fight against the insane created man. Kuda was a mysterious underwater hero only in the area by chance. But when The Dragon looked for heroes, the undersea adventurer answered the call.
Everything came to a head on October 14, 1944. The four heroes confronted Yankee Doodle Jones face to face…and the battle would rock the city to its core.
In his mad quest to take total control of the city, Jones now ruled from city hall, flying off to destroy anyone or anything he might see as a threat. As night fell, the combined might of the heroes made their move.
The details of the battle can only be pieced together in hindsight. The heroes succeeded in ending the life of the artificial man, but Echo and the Enchanted Dagger were both killed in the conflict. The Dragon disappeared from the city, his whereabouts to this day still unknown. Barry Kuda returned to California after the victory, but refused to speak of that night for the rest of his life.
The Dragon left Yankee Doodle Jones’s body little more than a burning corpse, his components melting away. Only dental records were capable of identifying the former hero. River City was free of his rule, but now stood with a broken government, a police force in shambles and no super powered protector to help its through the post-war transition.
The origins of police scientist William Norton remain shrouded in mystery. Before his arrival in River City in early 1944, no record of a William or Bill Norton that fit his description can be found. The name was almost certainly an alias for the mysterious figure, but no amount of research has ever brought any more information about Norton to life. Whatever the secrets of his origins, he quickly found a place as part of the River City Police Department in their laboratory.
But as a police scientist, he seemed to rarely involve himself in cases. Not officially, by any means. Instead Norton worked under the Alias of the Dragon, a deadly crimefighter on the streets of the struggling city. Wearing a skintight piece of red fabric unlike anything in the world and a green cloak that seemed made of some lizard-hide, he was a strange figure in the dark nights of River City. His red bodysuit was impervious to flame, while his green cloak was bulletproof. He carried a strange ray gun that could unleash massive blasts of flame unimagined by the most modern flamethrower designs, dwarfing even modern techniques. Truly the Dragon was a mystery wrapped in an enigma, a figure that not even history seems able to explain fully.
Either as Norton or as the Dragon, he would remain a fixture in River City as Yankee Doodle Jones’s insanity grew. He would become a key player in the coming battle that would threaten to tear the town he now called home to pieces.
