Created by writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema, Red Wolf was William Talltrees, a young man whose Cheyenne family was extorted and murdered by corrupt businessman Cornelius van Lunt. To avenge them, he adopted the legendary persona of Red Wolf, gaining vaguely defined powers from the Native American god Owayodata and a partner, an actual wolf named Lobo.
“I liked the story,” recalled comics historian Paul Zuckerman of Red Wolf’s September 1970 debut in Avengers 80. “Although Native Americans had already long been treated with more respect in comics, this brought them front and center into the modern world, part of the trend of relevant comics that were popping up then and getting all of the attention from the media.
“They didn't really do much with the character and when Red Wolf got his own series, it wasn't him — it was his ancestor! But it was books like this that piqued my interest in comics again.”
Penned by Gardner Fox and drawn by Syd Shores, the Red Wolf feature that began in Marvel Spotlight 1 (Aug. 1971) was set in the Old West.
“The switch to a Wild West era character was something Stan imposed on us,” Roy Thomas recalled. “I would have preferred to keep the modern hero from the beginning.”
“Red Wolf marked the first time that an American Indian had assumed the role (of mysterious avenger), and it certainly should be remembered at least for breaking ground in a new direction,” Maurice Horn wrote in Comics of the American West.
In the movies at roughly the same time, actor and writer Tom Laughlin introduced his half-Indian ex-Green Beret avenger, Billy Jack.
