On the 11th Day of this year’s Jack Kirby Month, focused on Fantastic Four-related characters, today’s prompt is Johnny Storm’s college roommate and good friend, Wyatt Wingfoot.
We first meet Wyatt in Fantastic Four #50 (as if there wasn’t already enough going on within the “The Galactus Trilogy!”). It seems as though perhaps Wyatt might have been inspired by Native American Olympian Jim Thorpe (one indicator might be that Lee actually gave the college’s Football coach the name “Thorpe”), though at first Wyatt showed no interest in athletics.
Wyatt had no superpowers, but his natural athletics, quick mind and bravery equipped him to accompany the FF on several adventures. A good friend, he accompanied Johnny Storm in his extensive search for Crystal and the Inhumans, at great risk.
I believe his last appearance during the Kirby/Lee FF run was in issue #80, where he enlisted the FF’s help to find out what was going on on the reservation with reported appearances of Tomazooma, the Living Totem. In that last appearance, Wyatt was driving around a sort of ATV called the Gyrocruiser, gifted to him by the Black Panther. I thought it would be fun to include it here, add a little extra interest.
That’s all for the alliterative Wyatt Wingfoot. (Stan sure did like those alliterative character names!) Come back tomorrow if you’d like to see who shows up next!
Terrific character look. I felt he was a candidate for his own book. A sort of Sgt. Fury type of fellow. I would have wanted the character drawn by Jack, tho. Or possibly you in our current present. Some crossover adventures with Wolverine would work. Maybe not a book, but a one issue singular 128 page tale. Thanks,
Joe
You’re welcome! Glad you enjoyed my take.
Interesting idea, a starring/solo outing for Wyatt. I’m sure Jack could easily have come up with something interesting, if he had been turned loose and told, “Just go for it!” If it had been done back then, it would have been either a big one shot, or just a regular continued book. The industry wasn’t quite ready to think in terms of doing miniseries or limited series yet.
That was the problem he ran into later at DC. He envisioned all his Fourth World material as having a definite ending, but they didn’t want that. It was a little too “outside the box” for them yet at that point. So instead, it was like he was perpetually stuck in the midst of this novel he couldn’t end.
He sort of got the chance to end it much later, in the ’80s, but his thinking (and his art) had moved to a different place in the intervening years. So the ending wasn’t necessarily the same as what he would’ve done originally, had he been allowed to do what he wanted then.