Tales of the north as a sub-genre date back to the Franklin Expedition, then the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. Northerns in Marvel Comics, those were a product of the glorious 1970s (and later).
I can remember being twelve years old and living in Dawson Creek, Alberta. I can remember that young man giggling hysterically over a comic book. It was an Incredible Hulk comic (I wish I had time to find it!) that featured Dawson Creek as its setting. What had me in stitches was the way those silly New Yorkers had portrayed “the Canadian wilds”. Dawson was portrayed as log cabins. The characters names were all “Mackenzie’ and “MacDonald”, and everybody wore checked fleece. I bought my Marvel Comics at a convenience store just like everybody in the civilized U.S. of A. And I didn’t trade no pelts for them.
I haven’t located that issue yet but I did stumble upon a few other things. Incredible Hulk #161 in which the RCMP get their turn to take on the Hulk. In red serge and riding on horses, of course. Like leftovers from Sgt. Preston of the Yukon, the boys in red get knocked about like ten-pins.
Well, the good news in all this silliness was the next issue featured a classic Canadian villain, the Wendigo. The Wendigo is a spirit that lives on the wind, can fly, freezes its victims to death, and is an eater of human flesh.
In the never-ending quest for big, bad guys for the Incredible Hulk to fight, Steve Englehart was the first to use Wendigo for a Marvel style punch-fest in The Incredible Hulk #162 (April 1973). Hulk in the previous episode had fought a battle at the Niagra falls then headed north into the wilds of Canada. He fights the Wendigo but the brute escapes because Hulk rescues a man named Georges Baptiste. Hulk takes him to a doctor, where Baptiste tells of Paul Cartier, the doctor’s brother who was trapped in a cave along with Georges by wolves for days. One of their party was dead and on the fourth day Paul ate human flesh. This obscenity caused him to transform into the Wendigo. Hulk and Wendigo have another scuffle in a logging camp (hey, they actually have trucks!), which ends with Wendigo fleeing, saying that Paul is gone and he is now completely a monster.
The Incredible Hulk #181 (November 1974) saw the return of Wendigo, and New Yorker, Len Wein picks up were Englehart left off. Marie Cartier and Georges Baptiste are back. Marie lures Wolverine and Hulk to Quebec so she can use their strength to subdue her brother. Marie has given up medicine for native magic. She plans to perform a spell of transforming on Paul that will move the curse to the Hulk. Her plan fails, largely because Hulk and Wolverine can’t stop punching each other. Georges accepts the mantle of Wendigo, freeing Paul. Marie asks why, and he admits he loved her.
All of this leads up to Monsters Unleashed #9 (December 1974) where the writers from Connecticut and NYC were replaced by one even farther removed from Canada’s snowy climes, by Londoner, Chris Claremont. The black & white magazine, usually featuring Frankenstein and Man-Thing gives us “Snowbird in Hell”. A small plane carrying Doc and Fitz crashes in a storm. Fitz wakes up to find himself in a remote village with a priest and several others. They tell him about the Wendigo that first killed Hercule Maris then later two others when it destroyed the only radio. They are trapped and the monster’s winter supply of food.
When the monster takes Madame Valery, Fitz springs to action but the others hold him back. They explain that guns and knives can’t hurt the beast. Fitz convinces them to set a trap using fire. They spill most of their supply of fuel in the church. When it comes time to spring the trap, Wendigo surprises them and Fitz can’t light the fuse. That job falls to Jonny the cleric. The church explodes with the monster inside.
But the trap fails and Wendigo attacks Fitz, who shoots it in the face with the flare gun he was going to use in the church. Wendigo runs off (again!) and Fitz pities the man trapped inside the monster.
The Uncanny X-Men 139-140 (November-December 1980) finally saw a Canuck transplant from the Alberta College of Art and Design, John Byrne, plotting and drawing Canada’s superhero team, Alpha Flight. (Finally, someone who knows what those Alberta winds are really like!) Byrne has the X-Men and Alpha Flight in the woods looking for Wendigo. Wolverine recounts what happened in Hulk #181.
It is actually Nightcrawler who fights Wendigo first, then Wolverine but it will take everyone to put him down. In the end, Snowbird, transformed into a white wolverine knocks him out. Dr. Michael Twoyoungmen, or Shaman, cures the inflicted Georges Baptiste of his curse, who asks: “Am I truly free?” Vindicator, James McDonald Hudson (wow! that’s name’s more Canadian than Alan Thicke, Michael J. Fox and Wayne Gretzky combined!) promptly arrests him.
Amazing Spider-Man #277 (June 1986) offered us a new version of the Wendigo, written and drawn by Virginian, Charles Vess. Despite the cover art, Spidey doesn’t actually fight a northern spirit. Vess uses the creature to embody a bad NYC snowstorm. It was a cool back-up story but little else.
At last, in 1991 a true-born Canadian, Todd McFarlane got to draw Wendigo in Spider-Man #8-12 (March-July 1991). (Like Athena, Todd rose from the blood spilled in Calgary by John Byrne from drawing all those comics so fast.) McFarlane wrote and drew this mini-series within a series. Wendigo resurfaces with the body of a murdered 11 year-old boy. The beast gets the blame as hunters kill everything that moves in the woods. Bigfoot fever rages through the papers. Eventually Wolverine shows up, beats the creature but does not kill it. He realizes someone else is to blame. Spider-Man eventually leaves his problems in NYC to join him and with the beast the three track down the serial killer who is to blame.
McFarlane does a great job to set things in the real Canada with RCMP that look like real cops, shots of normal Canadian streets and headlines from real newspapers including his beloved Calgary Herald. (He doesn’t use the Edmonton Journal but what can you expect from a Calgary Flames fan?) He sets the story in Hope, British Columbia, the town where Sylvester Stallone filmed First Blood (1982).
Was that the end of Wendigo? Not by a long shot. Wendie became a regular in many different Marvel titles over the years. He even got an action figure. Go figure.
If you want to check out how DC did the frozen north, click here.
