Origin
The Whip is the descendant of Don Fernando Suarez, a nineteenth century hero. Following in the footsteps of his ancestor, millionaire Rod Gaynor met Marissa Dillon, daughter of the publisher of the Seguro Sentinel, the local newspaper in a small town. Marissa took Gaynor to see the padre of the local mission who told the two about the legend of the Whip. Gaynor then found many of El Castigo’s belongings and decided to become the new Whip.
Creation
This version of the The Whip was created by Gardner Fox and first appeared in Flash Comics #1. The Whip represents a very short lived period in the history of comics, when modern superheroes were inspired by and stylized as Western characters, despite the two genres being popular in comics. Another prominent example is Vigilante.
Character Evolution
As a golden age hero, the Whip underwent very little actual character evolution. At the time comics were serialized and generally told stories involving two dimensional characters as opposed to over-riding story arcs as is common in the modern medium.
For a time Gaynor was based out of Seguro and had a Chinese servant named Wing Tai. His horse was named King (later changed to Diablo). Gaynor later went to to fight crime there. He was also a member of the wartime All-Star Squadron. It is not known what happened to him after 1944.
Most of his early stories fall into this same pattern. The only real break from this was in the pages of All Star Squadron in the 1980s. This series had originally started as an attempt to relaunch the Justice Society of America, but a change of focus had left it as a collecting point for most golden age heroes who had become the property of DC Comics. The Whip appeared in about a half dozen issues at this time.
Much as he had followed in the footsteps of his descendants, so too did Shelley Gaynor (his granddaughter) follow in his footsteps in order to become the modern Whip.
Powers and Abilities
The Whip was a fine hand-to-hand combatant, a superb horseman, and a master in the use of the whip as a weapon.