EL LOBO
Real Name: Ricardo Arroyo-López
Identity/Class: Normal human (San Gusto)
Occupation: Slumlord tenant of illegal immigrant buildings in New York City
Affiliations: Works with an unseen individual called Coyote, or possibly someone who is just called a 'Coyote', whose job is to run illegal aliens over the Mexican border and deliver them to El Lobo.
Enemies: Spider-Man, his tenants
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: Also called "The Wolf". (Which is English for El Lobo, duh.)
Base of Operations: An apartment building in New York City
Appearances: "Within Our Reach" Christmas special, published by Star Reach publications.
Powers: Um... tenant intimidation? He also packs a Beretta, and is unafraid to use it, although he's a terrible shot.
Weaknesses: Greedy. Runs away when confronted.
Physical Description: El Lobo is a bald Hispanic male, who looks to be in his late thirties. He's a big, broad-shouldered guy but not very muscular.
History: El Lobo made a good living for many years off the misery of his countrymen, arranging menial jobs for illegal immigrants to America who he set up as tenants in his buildings. He seemed to prefer immigrants from his hoe country, where an unspecified civil war was forcing people to look for new lives elsewhere. He forced them to pay him exorbitant rents, virtually their entire salary, for apartments where the heat rarely worked and the building inspectors were all paid off to look the other way. Now that's an evil villain!
Spider-Man was
swinging by on Christmas Eve, looking for a present for Mary
Jane, when a sidewalk vendor yelled at Spider-Man to stop a kid
who had stolen bread. After a brief crisis of conscience,
Spider-Man trails the kid, Fredo, to a run-down building and
discovers his family living in an unfurnished apartment, feeding
the bread to the youngest son Manuel, who was crying.
Fredo's father, Robert Velasco, tells Spider-Man how they entered America illegally in search of a better life, but ended up virtually enslaved to El Lobo. Spider-Man promises to have a talk with El Lobo about "reducing the rent on this fire-trap" and to pay for the bread Fredo took. Just then, El Lobo comes charging in to tell "those wetbacks to keep the noise down". He's sees Spider-Man, freaks out and runs into the hallway, and pulls a gun and starts shooting at the pursuing Spidey. Spidey trips him with a webline and grabs him by the collar. He then tries to bribe Spider-man not to turn him in for fire code violations. (I would think that's the least of his worries, he just tried to kill Spidey.) Spider-man just responds by knocking him out with a single punch.
He then webs up El Lobo and carries him outside to a nearby police car, saying "it's still illegal to shoot at a man, even in a Spider-suit" and dumps him in front of the officers.
Spider-Man goes back to see Fredo and Robert, but they throw cans at him, because they are afraid of having no heat at all or losing their jobs or apartments or being discovered and shipped south of the border, because at least with El Lobo there they had some security. Spider-Man doesn't know what to do about this. He decides to try and get JJJ crusading in his newspaper to help them, but admits he's largely helpless, he's not a rich gringo. But he spends all the money for Mary Jane's present on buying them a nice Christmas dinner. Yeah Spidey!
Fredo
Velasco: Illegal immigrant child who steals bread to help his
family.
Robert Velasco: Brought his family to America in search of a better life, away from the war ravaging his home country. Now set up in a "bad" job, and indebted to El Lobo.
Comments: Created by Dave Ross, Roy and Dann Thomas, and Jeff Butler.
Ok, it's very much on the sappy emotional side, but this is a nice look at some real-life situations Spider-Man might encounter living in New York City, and how he'd deal with them. And one nice Christmas dinner isn't really a solution, but I don't think there were any easy solutions here. And you have to admit El Lobo was a pretty downright evil guy, I'm glad Spidey kicked his ass.
I do kind of wonder what exact evidence Spider-Man presented to the police when he left El Lobo all webbed up outside their cruiser. We didn't see him give them the gun or tell them about the fire code violations. Do they just arrest everybody they find in big web sacks and sort it out later? They seemed only too happy to take El Lobo away, though.
The "Within Our Reach" Christmas special: Marvel donated Spider-Man for a cover and story because it was an AIDS/rainforest/Christmas benefit book of some kind. His first appearance was correctly identified by Mike McTighe, FoxMart.
His real name and nationality were revealed in Marvel Atlas#2 (San Gusto entry).
Clarifications: El
Lobo has no known connection to:
The Lobo Brothers, (Carlos & Eduardo) also
foes of Spider-Man, the werewolf brothers who tried to take over
the New York mobs
@ Spectacular Spider-Man II#143
Lobo, the pet wolf of the
current Red Wolf, or any of the pet wolves of the previous Red
Wolves, @ Avengers I#80
Lucky Lobo, the gangster formerly
allied with the original Green Goblin, @ Amazing Spider-Man I#23
El Tigre, an explorer imbued with the power of Kukulcan, @ Uncanny X-Men#25
Red Wolf, Man-Wolf, Werewolf by Night, Wolfsbane,
Cap-Wolf, Star-Wolf, or any of the other innumerable
wolf creatures or characters who have probably been called
"the Wolf" in the Marvel Universe
Profile by: caliban
Appearances:
Within Our Reach (1991) - Dave Ross (plot), Roy & Dann Thomas (writers), Jeff Butler (artist), Mike Friedrich (editor)
Last updated: 12/23/12
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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