History
Garrett was a counterfeiter known as "Big Eyes" due to the fact that he had abnormally large eyes. In the fall of 1942, he and his men got involved in the racket of making counterfeit war stamps so that they could cash in on the fund raising efforts of the United States Army. They operated from a secret printing press in the basement of the home belonging to Big Eye's minion, the brutish Joe Thomas.[1]
Their stamps were not perfect and has a single flaw: The minute man on the war stamps did not have his hand on the plow he was standing next to. This defect was discovered by Toro when he and a classmate were working on posters for a city wide contest to see which school could sell the most war stamps. Investigating with the Human Torch, they found a seller that sold the fake stamps. Before they could learn who the mastermind was, the shop owner was gunned down by Joe. When the Torch and Toro attempted to stop Joe from getting away, he took a young girl hostage.[1]
Furious, Big Eyes demanded that Joe kill the little girl; however, Joe could not bring himself to kill a child. Instead, he decided to leave her on the side of the street with a note pinned to her shirt. Joe used their most recent hydro bill to do this, almost forgetting to tear off the portion that listed his home address. Big Eyes noticed this and tore it off before Joe could use it. However, this act of mercy still proved to the the undoing of Big Eye's operation. This was due to the fact that the account number was still on the bill, and with that bit of information, the Torch and Toro were able to get the address from the electric company.[1]
Although Big Eyes had rigged his illegal printing press with a vacuum that sucked the air out of the room in the hopes of suffocating the Torch and Toro and prevent them from using their flames, Big Eye's own desire to see the heroes suffocate led to his capture. The Torch quickly found a way to let air enter the air tight room, and the two heroes feigned their deaths. When Big Eyes and his men entered the printing press to dispose of the bodies, the two heroes sprung to life and easily captured them, turning them over to the authorities.[1]
Big Eye's subsequent fate is unknown.