Red Wolf (I & II)
First Appearance: Avengers #80 (September 1970).
Appearances: Avengers #80, Red Wolf #1-9, Fantastic
Four Annual #25, Avengers Forever #4, Blaze of Glory
#2-4.
Years Active: 1760-?
Sometime
around 1760 C.E. Owayadata, the wolf-god of the Cheyenne, saw that his
worshipers were in need of a champion. So Owayadata leant a small portion
of his power/essence to a Cheyenne, Wildrun, who became known to both the
Cheyenne and the enemies of the Cheyenne as Red Wolf. Red Wolf helped the
Cheyenne, taming the first horse and driving the Sioux and other enemies
of the Cheyenne away from the plains so that the Cheyenne would have a
place of their own. At some point later in Red Wolf's career the time-traveling
villain Kang the Conqueror appeared and challenged Red Wolf to a fight;
Red Wolf, after having lost to Kang, acknowledged the Conqueror as his
superior in combat and agreed to serve Kang as a member of the Anachronauts,
Kang's time-traveling warriors. Red Wolf (I) seems to have been the only
member of the Anachronauts to have survived the events of Avengers Forever.
Later, sometime in the 19th Century, a group of Cheyenne
was massacred by the U.S. cavalry, leaving behind only a child. The child
was raised by a white couple, who named him Johnny Wakeley. Sometime after
the Civil War Wakeley's parents were killed by "Indians" (sic), and Wakeley
was being pursued by a group of renegade Cheyenne when he found the burial
place of the first Red Wolf and was visited by Owayadata, who persuaded
him to put on the costume of the Red Wolf, take up the totem of power (the
coup stick), and become Red Wolf (II). Wakeley used his skills as Red Wolf
(II)to try to bring peace both to the "Indians" and the Americans.
In Blaze of Glory it was revealed that Wakeley, by 1885, had
seen that
the white man did not want peace with the red, but only wanted
them dead. The stories then say how he fought only on the side of his red
brothers. Reports placed him with Hinmaton-Yalaktit
and the Nez Percé in their attempted flight to Canada.
It is also possible, and even likely, that one of Wakeley's descendants
or the father/grandfather of the current Red Wolf was active during World
War Two for the Allies.
Notes: Johnny Wakeley is only the second Red Wolf about whom
historical details are known, and Will Talltrees, the modern Red Wolf,
is only the third Red Wolf about whom historical details are known. It's
entirely possible that there have been Red Wolfs continually, from 1760
to the modern day, and we simply haven't heard of any of their adventures
to this point.
