Summary

• Characters in comic books are often inspired by various sources, but in the case of Snake Eyes from G.I. Joe, Dell's Werewolf was not one of them.
• Dell Comics attempted to create superhero versions of classic monsters like Frankenstein and Dracula, as well as Werewolf
• The original design for Snake Eyes by Ron Rudat was altered to be all-black for budget reasons, which had nothing to do with Dell's Werewolf character.

Welcome to the 930th installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed, a column where we examine three comic book myths, rumors and legends and confirm or debunk them. In the third legend of this installment, we discover whether Snake Eyes was inspired by an obscure Dell superhero.

A regular theme in the history of comic books (and, well, really, ANY popular fiction) is the idea of taking inspiration for creations from different sources. For instance, Jerry Siegel was inspired by the Philip Wylie novel, Gladiator, about a super-strong person, when he came up with the idea for Superman (Siegel had noted a number of other inspirations over the years, as well, like John Carter of Mars, but Wylie's Gladiator was an inspiration that Siegel tried to obscure for fear of being sued). Rob Liefeld has also been quite open with the various characters that helped inspired Deadpool's creation (from Spider-Man to Boba Fett to Snake Eyes),

As noted above, one of the characters that Liefeld has cited as an inspiration for Deadpool was Snake Eyes. G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero was one of the most popular comic books of the mid-1980s, and it was obviously a huge inspiration for a number of creators of Liefeld's generation. An interesting legend that a reader (whose email I can't seem to find. Please write in to let me credit you!) sent me years ago was whether Snake Eyes himself was inspired by an obscure Dell Comics superhero, Werewolf. Let's find out!

Who in the world was Dell's Werewolf?

As I noted a few years back, Dell Comics was a rare comic book company in that they did not actually produce their own comic books. They cut a deal with Western Publishing, who would do the actual production of the comics while Dell would finance the books and distribute them. This was the case from 1938-1962, a huge boom period for the two companies, as their Walt Disney Comics sold like gangbusters. In any event, Western eventually decided that they would just try to do the books on their own, so they went on their own in 1962, creating Gold Key as the new name for their comics. Since it was the same comic book company making the comics as before, it was difficult for fans to tell that anything had changed (until Gold Key started experimenting with making their comics look like picture books). But whatever, the main topic here applies to both companies, so it really doesn't matter.

Anyhow, on their own, Dell tried a whole bunch of ideas to try to remain in the comic book business.

Two of their ideas were to make horror comics, including Dracula

and Frankenstein...

Amusingly, in the mid-1960s, Dell then decided to get in on the superhero boom by launching SUPERHERO versions of Dracula and Frankenstein!

I wrote about the superhero era for Dracula here, and I wrote about the superhero era for Frankenstein here.

However, what I DIDN'T write about was Dell's WEREWOLF superhero!

It was the third superhero version of a classic Universal monster, and since Wolfman was a trademarked term, they called their werewolf character simply Werewolf. This Werewolf was a pilot who crashed in the wilderness, and lived with a pack of wolves for six months. He then became a super-spy under the codename Werewolf, with his trusty sidekick, Thor (one of the wolves he lived with). Don Segall apparently wrote the series, with art by Bill Fracchio and Tony Tallarico.

Okay, so Werewolf's outfit definitely looks a lot like Snake Eyes, and he even had his own wolf friend, just like Snake Eyes and Timber! So, was he an actual influence?

Did Dell's Werewolf inspire Snake Eyes?

I asked Larry Hama about it a while back, and he had never heard of Werewolf, but the thing is, Larry Hama, while the creator of Snake Eyes as a character, did so AFTER the character was first designed as a generic "Commando" toy by the great Ron Rudat, the designer of the original G.I. Joe action figures for the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero toyline of the early 1980s.

Rudat would design the figures, and their basic function, and then Hama would create a name and a personality for each figure.

On the brilliant website, 3DJoe.com, they shared Rudat's original design of the "Commando" figure that would become Snake Eyes...

Notice how he's doesn't look like the traditional Snake Eyes at all? That was because Snake Eyes only became an all-black figure because of an idea someone at the company had to save on painting costs. If one of the initial G.I. Joe figures went without paint, then that would save enough money to keep the whole line under budget, so one of the characters had to become all-black, and obviously the commando figure made the most sense, so Rudat re-designed the character to make him all black...

So therefore, it just doesn't make sense that Rudat could have possibly been influenced by an obscure Dell superhero comic book, since the character only BECAME all-black because of a practical concern that had nothing to do with Rudat's initial design for the character. He just took his initial design, and threw a black mask on the character. So I think that this is safely false.

That's it for Comic Book Legends Revealed #930! We'll see you soon for the next installment! Be sure to check out my Entertainment Legends Revealed for more urban legends about the world of film and TV. Plus, Pop Culture References also has some brand-new Entertainment and Sports Legends Revealeds!

Feel free to send suggestions for future comic legends to me at either cronb01@aol.com or brianc@cbr.com.