Throughout the past month, my fellow COBRAS have been presenting their takes on costumed adventurers who crossover with the espionage genre. This week, I’m taking a look at some of my favorite super-hero spies, unveiling a character one at a time from the banner above. In case you missed an entry, so far we’ve seen:
The introduction, in which I link to all of the other COBRAS entries
THUNDER Agents (that’s No-Man above)!
Werewolf #1
Today’s unveilee might feel a bit of a rip-off, but you’re actually lucky to be getting that much. For most of the time, the costume of U.S. Air Force Major Wiley Wolf was an all-noir, form-fitting costume that included a blank black face mask. Occasionally, his face would be visible, and so that’s how I was able to portray him above.
Whereas I barely scratched the surface yesterday with the THUNDER Agents, who enjoyed multiple series at the hands of numerous creators over a number of decades, lawsuits notwithstanding, Wolf, a.k.a. Werewolf, only had three issues to his credit. His series was part of an attempt by Dell to cash in on both the popularity of the Universal monsters and the revival of super-heroes. Dracula and Frankenstein became 60s-style super-heroes, complete with spandex. However, with Werewolf, because the Wolfman as played by Lon Chaney Jr. was still under copyright, the folks at Dell decided to create a new character who could cash in on a third fad started by James Bond and the Man From UNCLE. In fact, the cover to the first issue proclaims Werewolf to be THE ONLY SUPER HERO…SUPER SPY IN THE WORLD.
Wolf was a pilot who crash landed in the arctic, and who won the favor of a pack of wolves after nursing one of their own back to health (it should be noted that this wolf, Thor, was only injured because some silly pilot had crashed a plane into him). During his six months with Thor and the pack, Wolf observes a crazy wolf who kills for fun and not for survival. He recognizes that there are people in the world like this too, and vows to do something about it, though he doesn’t know what.
He gets his chance when, after being found by his Air Force buddies, Wolf gets recruited by Central Intelligence, Top Priority Unit One, as their only agent and is rigorously trained in getting judo thrown, getting shot at, swimming while apparently swallowing water, breaking boards, fixing electronics while blindfolded, picking two locks at once, and going through hypnosis to train his face to hold different expressions, making him a master of disguise. The best part of the deal is that Thor gets a transmitter surgically embedded into his brain that allows him to be telepathically controlled by Wolf. But the second best part of the deal is the aforementioned all-black get-up that Wolf, now codenamed Werewolf, gets to wear, impervious to most everything, packing the best in super-spy devices, and which works as a SCUBA suit.
The stories are reportedly by Don Segall, though Dell usually offered no credits. The art is undoubtedly by Tony Tallarico. Instead of recounting the rest of the first issue, let’s read Werewolf’s first adventure instead! If you like what you see, other issues of Werewolf are available in the usual places online, especially eBay where numerous reading copies can be found for under five bucks.
.
