- For other versions of Dollar Bill, see Dollar Bill (disambiguation).
William "Bill" Brady was a bank-sponsored member of the Minutemen who was created by National Bank for publicity purposes, known more to the public as the patriotic crimefighter Dollar Bill.
Biography[]
Early Life[]
William Brady was born in a small town in Kansas and would go on to become a star athlete in college.
Minutemen[]
Brady moved to New York City and became the superhero mascot for the National Bank known as Dollar Bill. He was made to wear a garish costume as one of the conditions of his sponsorship and to increase his marketability. To further capitalize on the bank's image, National Bank convinced Brady to join the Minutemen.
While attempting to stop a raid upon one of his employer's banks, Dollar Bill's cape became entangled in the bank's revolving door and he was shot at point-blank range before he could free it.[1]
Legacy[]
Hollis Mason speculates that If he’d designed Brady's costume himself he might have left out that cape and he would still be alive today.
Dollar Bill's clear commercial motivations are never critiqued by his peers or the subsequent generation of vigilantes who all seem to regard him as a worthy hero; even the cynical Rorschach laments Dollar Bill's untimely death.[1]
Personality[]
Hollis Mason regarded Brady in his book, Under the Hood, as "one of the nicest and most straightforward men I have ever met."
Trivia[]
- Dollar Bill is the least focused on of the Minutemen, having only one appearance in issue 2 of the series and receiving no lines of dialogue. Almost everything known about him comes from the two brief paragraphs discussing him in Hollis Mason's autobiography and the Watchmen Sourcebook.
- Brady's costumed persona is a send-up of various Golden Age patriotic-themed superheroes mainly created as World War 2 propaganda, the most famous of which is Marvel's Captain America, as well as the Shield from Archie Comics and the Fighting Yank from Startling Comics.