Tags Matching: dc comics

Rain is in the air, and as such I’m sitting in bed perusing the internet for auctions to post about here on the noize, and as usual the tv is on for background noise. And it just so happens that this classic piece of action hero/rap star collaboration is on:

Not exactly Seagal’s finest hour (though he IS doing a sort of rooftop water ski while dangling from a rope ladder attached to a helicopter right now), but certainly a cinematic high point for DMX. Though I’m sure the author of the book it was based on wasn’t exactly jumping for joy over the way his “raunchy, burnt out cop saga” was translated to the big screen.

All things considered though, not the worst action movie to come out in the 00′s.

But all that’s all besides the point.

I’m posting about Exit Wounds because of one scene in particular. A scene near the beginning where the bad guys rob a police evidence locker while wearing hockey masks. I don’t mean that Jason from Friday the 13th steez, I mean these bad boys:

Now, for any movie buff, the first thing that comes to mind of course is that they stole this look from the classic Michael Mann movie Heat, in which the Hockey mask and jumpsuit look is the chosen uniform for Robert DeNiro and Val Kilmer’s crew to rob an armored car in.

But that’s not where my mind goes.

My mind goes to DC comics and the year 1987. And a little known Punisher rip off named Wild Dog.

I know what you’re asking. “Who the hell is Wild Dog? And why is he running around with Marmaduke and a bunch of old lady dogs instead of a pack of pitbulls and dobermans?” Well, I can’t speak towards the latter, but as for the former…

THIS is Wild Dog:

See? It says so, right on the cover.

An ex-college football star working as an auto-mechanic whose girlfriend is gunned down by the Mafia, Wild Dog was literally a working class version of the Punisher. I mean, we’re talking exact same origins here… decorated Marine? Check. Loved ones killed by Mafia? Check. Decides to wage a one man war in response? Check. The only real difference is that, instead of putting on a SWANK suit of body armor with a scary ass skull on it, Wild Dog settles for his old football jersey, some camo pants, and a hockey mask.

Not a bad look, per se, but nowhere near close to the iconic wardrobe of Frank Castle.

For SOME reason, this watered down wannabe never caught on, and after his mini-series was over he languished in DC C-lister land; getting a one shot and making a few appearances in Action Comics when it was going through a weekly anthology series phase before vanishing from the DCU almost completely in 1989.

Nearly 20 years later, Wild Dog popped up in a panel in Infinite Crisis; a comic in which character after character met gruesome and unnecessary deaths, yet somehow survived completely intact. I have no idea why. You’d think a nobody like Wild Dog would make for perfect cannon fodder (though an alternate reality Wild Dog did meet a grisly end in a 2008 issue of Booster Gold). And yet… I’m kind of glad. I have a soft spot for the guy. I have no idea why. Maybe it’s because his silly little outfit combines Ritchie Underdog with the aforementioned robbers from Heat. But whatever it is, I’m glad to know someone over at DC still remembers he exists.

You’re not the Punisher. You ARE Wild Dog.

Oh yes, you are.