Jay Garrick

Jay Garrick: 1803 - 1913
Jason "Jay" Garrick was born in the early 19th century in La Moyne (What is now present-day St. Roch) to a pair of French colonials shortly after the Louisiana Purchase was conducted. As a child, Jay's father was often gone exploring the wilderness. When his father was home, Jay would accompany him on day-long hunting trips or on trade missions with the local Blackfoot tribes. When his father was away, Jay would spent a lot of time with his scholarly mother, reading and studying the classics. During the War of 1812, Jay's mother was killed and his father was presumed dead, as he had never returned home since the beginning of the violence. At the end of the war, Jay assumed the identity of a dead British soldier in order to gain passage to Europe. Shortly after that, Jay did his best to look for any surviving family in France, but ultimately failed. He would live out the rest of his childhood as a well-read street urchin who was always on the move. He survived by stealing only what he needed to survive (Food, clothing, and the occasional book.)

After reading of the exploits of the Greek Gods and feeling a kinship to those tales, Jay made his way to Greece one summer, hoping to explore the ruins mentioned in those fantastical tales. While there, Jay took shelter from a sudden storm inside a cave along Mount Kyllini, but in his haste, he twisted his ankle and struck his head. Jay was knocked unconscious, but when he awoke, he found his ankle and head bandaged and a bowl of fruit nestled in a pile of rocks beside him. Even after he regained the strength to walk, Jay stayed in the cave waiting for his savior to return, but they never did. When Jay finally did decide to set out, he grabbed the empty bowl from the rock pile and found it was not a bowl at all, but a silver helmet with a golden wing on either side.

Jay was dumbfounded as he put the helmet atop his head and found himself transformed. Not only did Jay's entire perception of the world around him change, but Jay's muscles were rejuvenated. Most impressively, Jay found he could run to the horizon and beyond without tiring, Jay spent an incredible amount of time running and bounding over Greece, testing out his newfound power. With each step, his speed increased, as did his agility. When he did finally rest at the side of a natural spring, Jay was startled to find his father watching over him. Jay thought is father a ghost, as he hadn't aged a day since Jay's fondest memories of him. In truth, Jay's father was not a spirit, but a being of flesh and blood—well, flesh and ichor: The divine messenger of Olympus itself, Hermes.

In Jay's childhood, Hermes has split his time between Earth and another new world the gods had settled. Hermes had been searching for Jay for some time and had only found his son when Jay had literally stumbled into Hermes' own birthplace: The cave on Mount Kyllini. Impressed by Jay's intuition, Hermes had decided to bequeath his old war helmet to his son and trust Jay to uphold the heroic ideals of of Jay's namesake: The classical hero Jason of Iolcus.

Godspeed: 1914 - Present
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 * Appearances of Jay Garrick
 * Character Gallery: Jay Garrick