History
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Silas Stevens
Silas Stevens was a swindler who was active in the 1940s. By 1947, his activities were uncovered by lawyer Roger Hatch and his partner Richard Alton who began blackmailing him to keep quiet. Having gone deaf five years prior, Stevens had learned to read lips. Coincidentally he lived across the street from Roger Hatche's nephew, Hillary King. King was a struggling writer who was embittered by the fact that his uncle had refused to support his struggling craft. King often mumbled his plots as he wrote them, and began writing a story called the "Green Masked Killer" that was inspired by his desire to get revenge against his uncle.
Reading King's lips, Stevens then decided to murder Hatch and Alton using the Green Masked Killer identity hoping to frame up Hillary King. Stevens then kidnapped King after his landlady overheard him mumbling a plot point and thinking he truly wanted to kill his uncle. He then went to the home of Roger Hatch and killed him with a poison dart. Tipped off by the land lady, the Human Torch and Toro arrived on the scene too late to stop the killing. Having anticipated their arrival, the Green Masked Killer had set up a tank of water to douse their flames and escaped. Doffing his disguise, Silas got into the crowd of rubberneckers who had come to King's boarding house to gawk at the police and spoke with the authorities in an apparent attempt to avoid suspicion.
He then resumed his guise of the Green Masked Killer and eliminated Richard Alton. Realizing that the blackmail letters were still at Roger Hatch's home, the Killer went back and caught the Torch and Toro just as they had found them. He then knocked the heroes out with gas and destroyed the remaining evidence. Silas then returned to his home to eliminate Hillary King, but the Torch and Toro -- having deduced the true identity of the killer -- stormed in and easily subdued Stevens, who confessed his entire crime and was turned over to the authorities.[1]
His subsequent fate is unknown.