Who's This? A space pirate.
The facts: Ironwolf was a swashbuckling science-fiction strip create by Howard Chaykin (only scripted by Denny O'Neil), running in only three issues of Weird Worlds, starting with #8 (December 1973), to replace Tarzan after DC lost the license. All three issues were reprinted in a 1986 special, after Chaykin's rise to stardom, and he would return to the character for a prestige graphic novel called Ironwolf: Fires of the Revolution (with art by Mike Mignola and P. Craig Russell), finally bringing the saga to a close. Otherwise, it's slim pickings. Ironwolf has a cameo in DC Challenge #12 (because why not?), and appears in the Twilight Elseworlds series (also written by Chaykin).
How you could have heard of him: Howard Chaykin has a lot of fans, but his only recent appearances have been in The Multiversity, since Twilight is more or less represented by Earth-37 according to that project.
Example story: Weird Worlds #9 (February 1974) "Though This Be Madness..." by Howard Chaykin with Denny O'Neil
Spaceships made of anti-gravity wood. Alien vampires. Ironwolf as a space corsair who fights the evil Empire (years before Star Wars, mind you). It's fantasy in space. In this issue, Ironwolf has just attacked an imperial ship with his own Limerick Rake, but he doesn't feel great about killing any of the crew.
His objective: The actors being carried aboard in stasis, one of whom looks just like him and was likely part of an imperial ploy. After throwing everyone out the airlock (with suits, or their stasis tubes, again, he's no murderer), Ironwolf flies the transport through hyperspace towards... Earth! Trying to get close to the Empress by posing as a theater troupe, eh? Well, what Ironwolf doesn't know and that his first mate Shebaba does after picking up the actors, is that this was to be a traditional Shakespearean production - complete with boys playing the roles of women. Ironwolf has the wrong distribution in HIS "troupe"! On Earth, Ironwolf and his female lead walk to the palace, trying not to attract attention, but action and violence are never very far in this universe, and they get jumped.
Ironwolf believes they've been rumbled by imperial agents, but it's just a madman, driven insane by "urchin's blood", a powerful narcotic. If the member of the Vampire Legion who comes upon them then is suspicious of the "actor's" swordsmanship, she doesn't say, but she escorts them to the palace in her flyer.
It seems the original actor went through some kind of plastic surgery to look like Ironwolf, because that would amuse the Empress. But her loyal vampire servant Omikel isn't fooled. The female actor at Ironwolf's side is a dead giveaway. So is she still going to let the play go on, or will Ironwolf be unable to give us his Hamlet? Oh no, she DEFINITELY still wants to see the play!
Robots, flying cameras, I'm not sure who all those other actors are... but the whole thing is being transmitted galaxy-wide. And according to Shebaba, Ironwolf is a pretty terrible actor. The production is a train wreck anyway, with the evil Omikel jumping into the last scene to suddenly play Laertes so he can kill Ironwolf for realz. And indeed, his acting partner, as Gertrude, is ACTUALLY poisoned!
Can I just say, the Empire's commitment to following the plot of the play is commendable. But now, it's gone off the rails, and Omikel is about to lose the duel, so the Empress throws Yorick's skull at Ironwolf's head and beans him but good. As he passes out, Hamlet continues the play: "Treachery! Seek it out!", which is a trigger word that activates the Ghost robot to go into assassin mode. The Imperials escape before they're killed and Ironwolf will have to fight them another day.
I'm impressed by early-career Chaykin here, both in terms of art and story. A few years down the line, he could have repurposed a lot of this unfortunately doomed serial for Star Wars comics (he drew the early issues of the seminal Marvel series and even wrote a few issues) - this feels like his audition.
Who's Next? A human Lantern.
Comments