On target, tarkintino. Sometimes the name and/or the costume are cool, but there's no real concept to go with it.

Good points, tarkintino, although I would point out that Red Wolf doesn't ever demonstrate any clear super powers over the 7 Old West issues. He's really just a highly capable man in a funny costume who communes with a god. As brutalis suggested, Indian heroes did well enough in the 50's, so I don't think there was anything inherently untenable about the premise, but it clearly wasn't going to fly in the 1970's, no matter how much socially relevant content was mixed in. And as we'll see next, Red Wolf doesn't fare any better when he's paired up with a partner!

Red Wolf and Tigra! 

Marvel Chillers #3, February 1976
“Holocaust is Our Business!”, 18 pgs
Tony Isabella, writer
Will Meugniot, penciler
Frank Chiaramonte and Sam Grainger, inkers
Joe Rosen, letterer
Petra Goldberg, letterer



Cover by Howard Chaykin and Bernie Wrightson

Around the time that Marvel was introducing new Westerns like Red Wolf and Gunhawks, they also tried to expand beyond their base with new dramatic series aimed at a female readership, including Night Nurse, Shanna the She-Devil, and Beware the Claws of the Cat, the latter of which featured a superheroine named Greer Grant Nelson, who fought crime in a cat-themed costume. None of these series lasted for the long haul, and Tony Isabella re-worked the Cat in the pages of Giant-Size Creatures #1, July 1974. Greer Nelson was transformed from a human in a cat costume to a human/feline hybrid known as Tigra, the Were-Woman, and a couple of years later, Tigra got the chance to headline her own feature, following two installments of Modred the Mystic, with Isabella again writing.

In this premiere episode, Isabella recaps Tigra’s origin and then details Tigra’s battle against Joshua Plague and his Rat Pack, a group of futuristic invention-wielding criminals who defeat Tigra, but leave her alive after Joshua defeats her with a backhand blow. On the final page, an unexpected guest star appears:



It had been nearly three years since a Red Wolf had appeared, and, as we shall see, even longer since this particular Red Wolf had shown up in the pages of Marvel Comics. I doubt anyone expected him to show up here, but I also doubt that readers of the time would have objected to revivals of moribund Marvel characters.

Marvel Chillers #5, June 1976
“Cat and Mouse”, 17 pgs
Tony Isabella, writer
Will Meugniot, penciler
Vince Colletta, inker
Denise Wohl, letterer
Hubert Paley (yeah, right!), colorist



Cover by Ed Hannigan and Frank Giacoia

The 4th issue of this series, which was only the second installment of the Tigra solo feature, was a fill-in, so no Red Wolf. The storyline picks up again here, and now Red Wolf is a prominent co-star, according to the cover, “the most requested guest star of all!!” I’m not sure I buy that, but at least it’s another example to add to my list of Marvel’s 1970’s habit of plastering covers describing their stars as “The Most ____ ____ of (Them) All!” It also warns us not to peek at the “shocking final page”. Spoiler Warning: I’m going to show you the shocking final page below.

Since last issue wasn’t any kind of a team-up, Western or otherwise, I gave only the briefest of overviews. We’ll dig a little deeper on this installment.

Summary:

Tigra’s haunted by memories of the laughter of Joshua Plague, the man she’s stalking—and wants to kill. He and his Rat Pack had raided a research center, killing four and exposing one of the secret tribe of Cat People, of which Greer is a newly-realized member. Suddenly she is attacked by two of the Rat Pack who arrive in a hovercraft. Tigra puts up a good fight, but once again is defeated, and this time, she’s abducted back to the keep of her enemy.

Red Wolf is investigating at the scene of the Rat Pack’s attack on the research lab, released (grudgingly) by the cops, who have confirmed that the Mighty Avengers have vouched for him.


Red Wolf explains to the Cat People that the villains, who struck at a small Native tribe, have stolen The Soul-Catcher, an Indian treasure passed down through generations, said to have fallen from the heavens. Red Wolf summons his horse, Ranger, and heads off in pursuit of the “strange, cat-like creature” whose scent Lobo has caught.

As he rides, recalls his history as Will Talltrees (See? This is the guy from Avengers 80-81, not Thomas Thunderhead from Red Wolf  7-9!), the modern incarnation of the living Owayodata. He recalls that “the first Red Wolf was but a man like myself.” So, Will is not the direct descendent of Johnny Wakely, unlike Thomas Thunderhead.

Back at their base, the Rat Pack recall their own origins as “nothing more than petty scavengers” from Captain Marvel #20. Now, the Pack is more advanced, and is preparing to blow up the research center as soon as they escape with the loot they are stealing from the facility. They think Tigra is out cold, but she revives and starts kicking Rat Pack butt, but is defeated yet again when Joshua wields the stolen Soul-Catcher, which paralyzes her.
Some of the Rat Pack grunts are getting suspicious of Joshua’s interest in experimental serums, his familiarity with the mysterious Tigra, and his sudden strange superpowers. They return to their loyal duties when Joshua gets word that Red Wolf is about to arrive, thinking that Tigra is working with the Rat Pack. They chain Tigra and escape, leaving her to face Red Wolf in that final page we weren’t supposed to peek at:



Comments:

Yes, Tony Isabella rated on my list of favorite writers in the 2020 Classic Comics Christmas, but it wasn’t on the basis of stuff like this, which was competent but not particularly engaging. I was around for Tigra’s debut, and the concept left me cold from the start. Still, I was willing to part with my quarters for this solo series, which turned into a partnership series when Red Wolf joined the cast. Tony left some gaps in the rush to bring Red Wolf into the story, since the last time the Avengers encountered Red Wolf, he had presumably died. The Avengers didn’t tend to have many blank spots in their history, which was pretty jam-packed from issue to issue, but apparently there were some untold adventures that brought Red Wolf back to their attention. Tony doesn’t bother to deal with the Thomas Thunderhead issue, which doesn’t surprise me, since it was easy to breeze past the few mentions of his true name and assume that the star of Red Wolf 7-9 was the same guy who’d tussled with the Avengers. This Red Wolf is back in the classic wolf headdress, not the dopey-looking mask, and he’s correctly identified as a Cheyenne.

The young Will Meugniot does a good rendition of the Indian Avenger, and does a fair enough job drawing Lobo the wolf. Over all, not anything to get very excited about in this issue, but we do have a Western Team-Up underway, as Kepkeville (the site of the research center and a tip of the hat to Barbara Kepke, Isabella’s then-fiance and wife to this day) appears to be in the desert West.

Marvel Chillers #7, October 1976
“The Masque of the Green Death”, 17 pgs
Jim Shooter, writer
George Tuska, penciler
Sal Trapani, inker
John Costanza, letterer
Janice Cohen, colorist



Cover by Jack Kirby and Dan Adkins

Summary:

The new creative team picks up right where the previous installment ended, with Tigra vs. Super-Skrull (formerly disguised as Joshua Plague) and Red Wolf (and Lobo) vs. Robot Number 5, with lower-numbered Rat Packers hanging around as well.

Tigra’s human nature fades and the “blind animal rage” of her Cat People side takes over, leading her to boldly attack the alien villain, who, with all the powers of the Fantastic Four, is way out of her league. The remaining Rat Pack is smart enough to bail, considering that minutes ago, “Joshua Plague” was about to kill them all as well.

In the midst of the brawl, which Tigra and Red Wolf are on the losing side, Super-Skrull sets down the Soul-Catcher, which is retrieved by the true hero of this Western Team-Up, Lobo the wolf. When Skrull zooms off after the trinket using the powers of the Human Torch, Tigra has an opportunity to assist Red Wolf, whose powers, whatever they are, are not up to the task of defeating a robot. Tigra’s, however, are enough to rend the mechanical threat into pieces.

From the shadows, Jules Bannion, the “Joshua Plague”’s spy in the Cat People cabal, sees Tigra and Red Wolf going after his boss (but doesn’t see Robot Number Five’s legless body dragging itself to an ominous “Destruct” button).

Tigra and Red Wolf emerge from the underground tunnel outside a nondescript building in California, which suddenly blows up behind them, courtesy, I suppose, of Number Five, and presumably removing any concerns about Jules.

The Super-Skrull has Lobo cornered, and gives him a blast of Torch-fire (the Soul-Catcher is indestructible, so it should be left behind while the jaws gripping it are reduced to ash).



Red Wolf takes this a lot more calmly than Tigra, and is unsurprised to see an unharmed Lobo trotting up from behind them with the Soul-Catcher in his mouth!

The cops arrive, but Red Wolf’s claim that the Super-Skrull is behind all this is ignored, since there’s no one else around but “a bum, poking through the ashes!” Red Wolf orders Lobo to run away, and he escapes, despite the cop’s certainty that he hit Lobo with five bullets! Our human heroes are loaded into the paddy wagon, with Red Wolf’s tomahawk confiscated, but his coup stick left to him (in consideration of religious liberties, apparently).

But while the arresting cops don’t know a superhero when they see one, the captain recognizes “the famous Indian Avenger” and lets them off the hook:



Captain Marek would also appreciate a closer look at that nifty little magic wand, since he has a stolen goods report on it. Red Wolf has a bad feeling, but turns it over to the “Captain”, who wouldn’t know how to operate it, anyway.

Except the Captain is actually Super-Skrull, who has the powers of impersonation common to all his race! The Soul-Catcher will make the already-formidable villain “truly invincible”, but Red Wolf can’t allow his people’s sacred wand to be stolen, and attempts to wrestle it from the Skrull’s hands.

That doesn’t go well, so Tigra tries, after Red Wolf is konked out by this villain with the strength of Ben Grimm. Super-Skrull activates the wand, so that he can “rip the essence of your existence from the face of this planet!”

Unexpectedly, the Soul-Catcher’s effect backfires, and the Super-Skrull is absorbed into it, his image mysteriously appearing on the surface:



Our heroes can only speculate on what happened. Tigra’s worried that her animal side is making her a savage, but Red Wolf suggests that the Soul-Catcher recognized her goodness and the Super-Skrull’s evil, thus turning on its wielder. It makes her feel a little better, but she’s still not willing to return to the city to clear their names (they assume they will be accused of killing Captain Marek, whose corpse was left behind after the Super-Skrull replaced him).

Comments:

And that wraps up Red Wolf's published adventures for the rest of the decade. This issue pushes Lobo's supernatural abilities even further, which is pretty cool, actually. Red Wolf vs. the Super-Skrull is a match-up that no one who followed the character would have expected. (I don't think anyone ever expected to see him rendered by Jack Kirby, either, but there it is!) Even when he had his own series, he took on far less daunting challenges. But he must have done some impressive jobs that didn't make the pages of the comics, because he's not suspicious with the phony Captain Marek acknowledges him as "the famous Indian Avenger". I don't know if Shooter intended this, but I interpret that as implying that Red Wolf was, at some point, an official member of the Avengers, which would have been a pretty big deal at the time (unlike the present day when virtually every Marvel superhero outside the X-Men franchise has been a formal member of one branch or another). 

In retrospective, Red Wolf has been my favorite of the features I've sampled on this Western Team-Up trail, and I still contend there was some potential remaining when the ill-advised time jump occurred. In my alternate universe where the Marvel black-and-white magazine line was a massive success, I like to imagine Red Wolf headlining their Western-themed magazine, along with other genre-stretching mags like Godzilla, Sherlock Holmes, Thor the Mighty, Star-Lord, Night Nurse, Iron Fist, and War Is Hell, not to mention the thriving monster books! Oh, and Syd Shores lived a long life in that parallel reality, continuing to illustrate Red Wolf's adventures!

Thanks to those who've tolerated this detour from the Old West. It won't happen again, even though Two-Gun Kid did a stretch in the 20th century in the company of Hawkeye and the Avengers. I'll just make do with an acknowledgment of that here, since I don't have the fortitude to read through all of those issues. After all, I started this thread planning on stopping after the two issues prepared for Western Team-Up itself!

Coming Attractions:

I see some Western Team-Ups between a couple of fellows I recognize from the start of this trail, men who fancy themselves “gunhawks”. I think we ought to get better acquainted with them, so what say we mosey on back to the 19th century next?

Yes, Isabella did suffer some raw deals, didn't he? He ran into the same problems at DC, with both of his Black Lightning runs hijacked by replacement writers, and his Shadow War plot that had been the foundation of his Hawkman series abruptly resolved in a different title. In this case, it was pretty clear that however we critique the quality of the story, he had some personal investment, dedicating the 4-parter (that he would not get to finish) to his fiancee, and that he had some pride in Tigra as one of his character creations (or whatever you want to call a complete overhaul of an existing base character).
And I'm glad you mentioned Tuska, whose art on this final installment I had meant to mention. Your assessment matches mine pretty closely, including the favorable impression of his Buck Rogers gig. I happen to think that this Tigra installment was typical of his better work at Marvel in the 70's.

Back to the Gunhawks!


The first announcement I can find for this series was in the Bullpen Bulletins for October 1972:



I was a recent convert to comics at the time, and I remember being excited at the prospect of Doc Savage and Man-Thing, as teased alongside our stars in the cameo shots along the bottom of the page, but the Gunhawks didn’t appeal to me (nor did yet another spooky story book like Journey Into Mystery). I was also ignoring Red Wolf, which had a few months head start on the Gunhawks. The new comic got a plug in one of the Indian Avenger’s letters pages:



It also got a very confusing bit of promotion in a Rawhide Kid letters page:



Jimmy Peavely was commenting on issue 102 of Rawhide’s comic, which was dated August 1972 (two months before Gunhawks #1) in a letter published in issue 106, the same month Gunhawks #2 was published. I had to triple-check, but despite the implications, the Gunhawks didn’t appear anywhere prior to their first issue, so what the heck did Jimmy see that made him “like to see more of the ‘Gunhawks’”? And what’s with the Bullpenner pointing out that “speaking of those mags, didja know THE GUNHAWKS now (emphasis mine) have one of their own?” I don’t know what to make of that conundrum. If I had to speculate, I’d reckon that whoever prepared that letters page augmented Mr. Peavley’s missive with an expression of approval for the new feature that wasn’t inside the envelope he originally mailed in. And I wonder if this further suggests that at the time of preparation, the Gunhawks were slated to debut in some other comic before getting their own series. Is this a Western Team-Up that might have been? I could easily imagine Friedrich introducing them in the pages of Outlaw Kid a month or two prior to the issue we’re about to dig into…

Gunhawks#1 October 1972
"The Thundering Herd", 21 pgs
Gary Friedrich, writer
Syd Shores, penciler
Sol Brodsky, inker
Artie Simek, letterer
Roy Thomas, editor



Cover by Syd Shores

Summary:

We begin this “all-new look at the wild, wild west” with our heroes, the white Kid Cassidy and the black Reno Jones trying to outrun a stampede of buffalo after a misguided hunting attempt:



After some friendly bickering, Cassidy’s horse takes a tumble, incapacitating himself with a busted leg while both of them are in the path of the herd. Miraculously, the lead steer falls from a gunshot and the stampede changes direction. They’ve been saved by a grizzled old-timer toting a massive firearm who both laughs at and disparages the youngsters’ attempts to hunt the innocent buffalo. He’s a friendlier sort than he first appeared, and takes the pair back to his house to commence some doctorin’:



Reno sees a potential mentor here, which they sorely need, being newcomers to the Wild West. As they all get to know one another around the campfire, Reno explains that his was a “good master”, who was also the father of his companion, Kid Cassidy.



Reno and Cassidy grew up like brothers, in fact, with Reno getting the same education as the master’s son, at a plantation where the “all of the blacks there came and went as they pleased…in addition to being paid for their work!” But when the War Between the States breaks out, Reno pleases his master by staying out of the fight, while the Kid goes to war.



Life at the plantation isn’t so bad, even as the war rages on. Reno falls in love with another happy slave, Rachel, but the happiness doesn’t last: the Yankees arrive, killing the master, burning the estate, and, worst of all, abducting Rachel:



That means Reno’s going to have to hunt some Yankees, and he decides he might as well do so wearing the official gray of his new country:



After the war, he returns to the remains of the Cassidy estate where he is reunited with his friend and companion, Kid Cassidy. Together, they decide to stick together and dedicate themselves to tracking down the stolen Rachel.

It’s been a year now, and despite the fact that they “haven’t found a trace of Rachel” they’ve traveled west, attempting to survive by hunting buffalo. The old man is something of a defender of the endangered beasts, and instead pleads for their help in saving the herd. Reno refuses, preferring to stick to his plan of making money from buffalo hides, but since Kid Cassidy ain’t goin’ nowhere ‘til his leg heals, the old man’s calling the shots.

Turns out the old coot’s not an animal rights activist: he’s fine with shooting buffalo for food, but not for hide nor sport. And he’s willing to share his shooting secret with Reno: the “buffalo gun” that he designed back in Ohio. It’s “the most powerful weapon ever known for huntin’…kill a bull from a mile away!” He proves it with a demonstration; this gun has both power and range.

Over the course of Cassidy’s recovery, Reno Jones learns to use the buffalo gun, an extremely heavy weapon that issues a characteristic “Ker-whoom!” when fired. It’s not an easy skill to master, but soon enough, Reno Jones outdoes the weapon’s creator himself, by successfully firing it from the hip:



Next, it’s time to test out Reno’s skills using the gun as intended (the old man accepts that “some of them have to be killed…balance of nature, I think they call it!”

When Reno drops the cow he’s aiming at, though, a second buffalo falls as well: the Dawson gang are back to slaughter the herd! This is the threat that he recruited Jones and Cassidy for! The boys give it their all, now that Cassidy’s back in the saddle, with Reno doing a special level of damage with the buffalo gun:



The Dawson gang can’t stand up to that kind of firepower, so they hightail it, but they didn’t anticipate the weapon’s range; Reno brings the leader down for good. When they check to make sure he’s dead, they find the first clue that they’re on the right trail, and Reno gets a gift of the buffalo gun he wields so effectively:



Comments:

While it’s a bit less blatant in this particular case, this issue, like its contemporary publication Red Wolf, works in some nods to social causes that were on the rise in the 1970’s, namely animal rights. The villains in this issue are not known to be horse thieves or rustlers or outlaws or murderers, they’re just slaughtering the innocent animals that readers of the time knew would quickly be driven close to extinction. And these villains pay with their lives, with Cassidy and Jones showing no compunction about exercising lethal force. This kind of casual violence was a departure from the norm at Marvel, reflective of the influence of 70’s western cinema, including the black man/white man Westerns brought up when we took a less in-depth look at the series early on in the thread.

The only racism on display here comes from some of the remarks from the Dawson gang, and arguably from the writer who presents a ludicrous fantasy of contented, paid, and educated slaves. That kind of white-washing is out of place for the kind of new-wave Western that this is trying to be. I have a hard time understanding why Friedrich stressed that as much as he did. Making Reno a former slave doesn’t have any emotional value if he was only “technically” a slave, but I suppose it does make Rachel more susceptible to abduction if she’s viewed as property by her abductors rather than as a human. And I suppose it makes it more convenient to depict Jones and Cassidy as lifelong friends, and avoids the unseemliness of presenting Reno as the subordinate and less educated one of the team (or as someone exerting dominance over his white partner, which would have too much for 1973 Marvel to handle, I think). Seems like it would have been easy enough to make Reno and the Kid northerners fighting for the Union, and Rachel’s abductors Rebels retrieving an escaped slave under cover of civil war, but maybe Friedrich intends to use the characters’ southern heritage for something more than the shock value of “black man fighting for the Confederacy”.

That valid criticism aside, though, it’s clear that Reno Jones is the star of this Western Team-Up, with Cassidy there only to make this a little more palatable to readers who might turn up their noses as a solo black character. (Even the cover dialog suggests that Cassidy's the "sidekick" in this duo!) Reno’s the only one who’s able-bodied through most of the story, the only one who gains a special ability, and the only one of the pair with a semblance of personality or goal. Since we visited this series briefly at the start of the trail, we already know that this is going to end up as a Reno Jones solo comic, so we’re not expecting much from Kid Cassidy in retrospect. But it’s good to be back in legitimate Western Team-Up territory, although territory a bit different than where we were heading in the beginning.

Our old amigo Syd Shores, from Red Wolf, is at the drawing board for this one. The inks are not up to par with “Wally Wood”, Chic Stone, and Shores himself, but Brodsky does an acceptable if mediocre job of polishing the pencils for publication.

Just the other day, my best friend brought up on the phone that Denny O'Neil GL scene. He talked about how many times Hal Jordan had saved the entire Earth (either in his own book or as part of the JLA), and yet this guy had the narrow-mindedness to ask, "Well what about ME?" I described it as "gas-lighting", a term my friend apparently hadn't heard of, when someone creates a FALSE problem and then starts using it to divert blame from a real problem they don't want to admit exists at all.

Some of O'Neil's BATMAN stories in the 70s were interesting, but for the last 25 or more years, I've tended to look down at him as one of the WORST editors to ever work for both Marvel & DC, doing what I consider severe DAMAGE to long-running characters at both companies. I got genuinely incensed when he was briefly interviewed for the TV documentary, "Comic-Book Super-Heroes Exposed", where he claimed comics editors were "custodians of modern mythology". After all I knew he'd done, the phrase "desecrators of modern mythology" might have been more on-point. (He really seemed to fall off his game once the 1980s started.)