WILL WINGFOOT
Real Name: William Wingfoot
Identity/Class: Human
(Native American;
Keewazi) athlete;
pre-modern era
Occupation: Heir to the chief (with unspecified duties within the
Keewazi tribe);
formerly an Olympic decathlete;
formerly a Metro College track and field and/or football star
Group Membership: Keewazi tribe;
formerly the Metro College track and field team and the Metro College
football team
Affiliations: Sam Thorne (former teammate)
Enemies: "Orrgo" (actually, it was KhLΘG but Will never knew what the creature really was); Carlton Beatrice
Known Relatives:
Silent Fox (father, deceased),
Roberta Elk Step
(mother-in-law, deceased),
Miriam
(uncertain relation, deceased);
Roberta (wife, deceased);
Wyatt Wingfoot (son),
Rain Falling
West (daughter),
Wynona Wingfoot
(daughter)
Aliases: "Big Will" Wingfoot
Base of Operations: Keewazi Indian Reservation, Oklahoma, United
States;
formerly Metro College in New York City, New York
First Appearance: (Mentioned) Fantastic Four I#51 (June, 1966)
(seen) Sensational She-Hulk in Ceremony#1 (1989)
Powers/Abilities: Will Wingfoot was an accomplished athlete, said by some to be "the greatest Olympic decathlon star the United States ever had!"
The fact that his father, Silent Fox, was a minor magic-user suggests that Will should have inherited some ability to use tribal magic as well. However, the fact that he spent most of his life not believing in magic presumably adversely affected whatever potential ability he might have had.
Height: Unrevealed (but probably over 6')
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Brown (?)
Hair: Black
History:
(Fantastic Four I#269 (fb) - BTS) - By birth, Will Wingfoot was heir to his
father Silent Fox's position as chief of the Keewazi tribe.
(Fantastic Four I#51 (fb) - BTS) - As a young man, Will Wingfoot left the Keewazi Reservation to attend Metro College in New York City, New York. While there, Will came to be known as "Big Will" Wingfoot and a decathlon star. Will and fellow student Sam Thorne were teammates who were great together.
(Sensational She-Hulk in Ceremony#1 (fb) - BTS) - As an engagement present, Will was given a very special basket by his wife-to-be.
(Strange Tales III#1 (fb) - BTS) - Although his father had spoken often of tribal magic, Will, as a modern Keewazi, did not believe.
(Strange Tales III#1 (fb) - BTS) - After making the U.S. Olympic decathlon team, Will Wingfoot returned home to the Keewazi Reservation.
(Strange Tales III#1 (fb)) - One day, Will and his father were in a Jeep
scouting the unpopulated sections of the reservation as they looked for a few stray sheep.
As Will drove and looked, Silent Fox read a story in a monster magazine about an alien
monster called Orrgo the Unconquerable who had supposedly terrorized the entire world.
Silent Fox then described to his son what the story said had happened to Orrgo. Will asked
his father why he read that preposterous stuff and what he was looking for, but Silent Fox
counselled patience because he would know what he was looking for when he saw it.
Just then, a red-skinned creature calling itself Orrgo appeared out of nowhere, causing the Jeep to overturn and crash. Will was shocked when his father used magic to defend them from the creature. As "Orrgo" threatened them and demonstrated his power by turning the Jeep into molten slag, Silent Fox admitted that the creature was more powerful than he and would eventually defeat him. To prevent that from happening, Silent Fox told Will that there was an amulet powerful enough to defeat Orrgo in the blue spirit bag in his hogan, and that Will had to get that amulet and bring it back to him. Will started to ask if the police or the army could help, but Silent Fox insisted that he get the amulet so Will started to run to the hogan.
As Will ran off, Orrgo acknowledged that he was fast and tried to strike him with brain-blasts, but Will evaded them, and Silent Fox distracted Orrgo until Will was safely away. Will ran the ten miles to the hogan without slowing and found the amulet where he had been told it would be. However, since Silent Fox had no other car and no horse, Will had to run back to the battle site. Exhausted, with his lungs burning and his throat like sand, Will came within sight of his father and realized that he also was exhausted and would be defeated by Orrgo before Will could reach him. In desperation, Will hurled the amulet towards his father and, his aim being true, Silent Fox was able to catch it. Now strengthened by the power of the amulet, Silent Fox was able to command Orrgo, saying, "Down, evil one! Down into the rock! I trap you! I bind you!"" Unable to resist the power of the Hand of the Creator talisman, "Orrgo" sank into the rock even as he protested that he could not be defeated!
Once "Orrgo" was gone, Silent Fox stated that it was finished, for now, and when Will asked his father what had been going on and what that thing had been, Silent Fox replied that he did not need to know. Silent Fox then told Will that one thing of which he must be certain was that he would have a son and that, when he was old enough to understand, Will must tell his son this story and make sure that he would remember it.
(Strange Tales III#1 (fb) - BTS) - Later that year, Will Wingfoot won two gold medals at the Olympics.
(Fantastic Four I#51 (fb) - BTS) - At some point, Will and his wife became parents to a son they named "Wyatt Wingfoot."
(Sensational She-Hulk in Ceremony#1 (fb) - BTS) - At some point, Will and (maybe) his wife became parents to a daughter they named "Rain Falling West."
(Fantastic Four III#26 (fb) - BTS) - At some point, Will and his wife became parents to a daughter they named "Wynona Wingfoot."
(Sensational She-Hulk in Ceremony#1 (fb)) - "Twenty years ago," a young businessman named Carlton Beatrice came to the Keewazi reservation to buy certain mineral rights. For reasons that have not been revealed, Will Wingfoot refused to sell to him, but Beatrice learned of "the powers" that Roberta Elk Step and Miriam possessed and stayed to learn these mystic arts from them.
(Sensational She-Hulk in Ceremony#1 (fb)) - Carlton Beatrice killed Miriam,
Wyatt's aunt, before fleeing from the reservation.
Miriam's relationship to Will has never
been clarified.
(Strange Tales III#1 (fb) - BTS) - When Wyatt was just a boy, Will told him the story of how he and Silent Fox had battled the creature that had claimed to be Orrgo the Unconquerable. Will told his son that, even though later that year he had won two gold medals, he had never raced a tougher race than he did on that day.
(Fantastic Four I#51 (fb) - BTS) - Will Wingfoot died.
The circumstances of
his death have never been revealed.
(Strange Tales III#1 (fb) - BTS) - Later, after Will was gone, Wyatt asked his grandfather many times why the story about "Orrgo" was so important, but Silent Fox would only say that Wyatt knew what he needed to know.
(Fantastic Four I#269-270 (fb) - BTS) - Some years later, Silent Fox died; this, combined with the fact that Wyatt's father was "long dead" meant that the headdress of the chief was now going to pass to Wyatt. However, Wyatt later told the Council of Elders that he had decided that he would not be accepting the title of chief because he felt that his doubts made him "not fit to be chief" at that time.
(Sensational She-Hulk in Ceremony#1 - BTS) - One day, She-Hulk (Jennifer
Walters) received a package in the mail from an unknown sender. She opened it and found a
certain Indian basket. Later that day, Jennifer and Wyatt had an arranged encounter that
ended awkwardly.
The next day, Wyatt visited Jennifer in her apartment where he saw the
basket and recognized it as his mother's engagement present to his father. Jumping to the
(mistaken) conclusion that Jennifer had acquired the basket because she had wanted him to
propose marriage to her, Wyatt did just that and Jennifer accepted.
(Sensational She-Hulk in Ceremony#1 - BTS) - A few days later, the engaged couple traveled to the Keewazi Reservation in Oklahoma to inform his family. That night at dinner, Roberta Elk Step told Wyatt and Jennifer about the impending threat posed by Carlton Beatrice. In recounting Beatrice's history with the Keewazi, Roberta mentioned that "twenty years" earlier "Wyatt's father" had refused to sell Beatrice certain mineral rights that he had come to the reservation to buy.
(Sensational She-Hulk in Ceremony#2 - BTS) - The next day, Rain Falling West helped Jennifer by loaning her a shirt that used to belong to "Wyatt's father" to replace her leotard. Rain admitted that she had made some alterations to the shirt. Seconds later, Jennifer and the basket were teleported away for a meeting with Carlton Beatrice. When that meeting didn't go the way he wanted, Beatrice teleported them to a location high above the Keewazi Reservation. Jennifer and the basket were not harmed by the impact with the ground but the shirt was reduced to tatters.
(Sensational She-Hulk in Ceremony#2 - BTS) - Later, after Jennifer and Wyatt had acted together to thwart Carlton Beatrice's evil, world-threatening plan, Wyatt addressed the people of his tribe and stated that as chief of the tribe, a title he now claimed by birth and deed, he swore that he would keep their people together until the day he returned them to their land. As the people cheered, Rain told Wyatt, "Your father would have been proud of you."
(Strange Tales III#1) - Years later, after the Keewazi had been restored to their land, events occurred which led Wyatt to tell his father's story about "Orrgo" to his friends, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm, and to Doctor Stephen Strange. That story and the Hand of the Creator talisman that Wyatt carried with him proved to be crucial in helping the heroes to trap the just-freed KhLΘG.
(Strange Tales III#1) - The following week, at a poker party, Ben Grimm told Nick Fury about his and Johnny's recent adventure with Wyatt, including how Will had encountered KhLΘG years earlier. When Fury expressed his doubts, Grimm asked Doctor Strange, who was also playing in the game, to confirm his story and he did.
Comments: Created by Stan Lee.
This character's first name is usually given as "Will"
and it was not until Wyatt's profile in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z
Update#1 (April, 2010) that his full first name was confirmed to be "William." It was also
that profile which established that "Roberta" was the name of his late wife, Wyatt`s mother.
Will Wingfoot's death was implied in Fantastic Four I#51 (June, 1966) by the fact that both Wyatt and the Metro College coach spoke of him only in the past tense. His death was confirmed in Fantastic Four I#269 (August, 1984) when Wyatt thought to himself about how his father was "long dead." Are there any comics in the 18 years between those issues in which his death is referenced?
Although Will Wingfoot's father and mother-in-law are both now dead, Will pre-deceased them so I have not included their status in the list of his known relatives. As for his wife, although she has been listed as being deceased, no mention has been made as to whether or not she died before Will so I have decided to presume that she also outlived Will and so have also not listed her status. In contrast, Miriam is listed as deceased because she definitely died before Will.
In Fantastic Four I#269 (August, 1984), following his
grandfather's death, Wyatt thinks to himself that he is "not yet thirty." Later, in
Sensational She-Hulk in Ceremony#1 (1989), Roberta Elk Step states that Carlton Beatrice
had first come to the Keewazi Reservation "twenty years ago" and that Wyatt's father had
met with him. Taken together, these temporal references indicate that, unless Wyatt was
significantly overestimating his own age, Beatrice must have made his first visit to the
reservation less than ten years after Wyatt was born.
Valid considerations, but I'd list their current status quo.
--Snood
I find it puzzling that Rain Falling West only refers to Will Wingfoot as "Wyatt's father" and not as "our father." It gives the impression that for some reason she does not consider Will to be her father. Her choice of words and the fact that, unlike Wynona, Rain does not carry the Wingfoot surname, could mean that Rain and Wyatt were half-siblings who shared the same mother and maternal grandmother but had been fathered by two different men. However, since there's no evidence for this theory, maybe Rain just chooses her words oddly when discussing family relationships?
In Fantastic Four III#29 (May, 2000), Wynona Wingfoot embraces a recently-freed older man whom she joyfully calls "Father!" but who Doctor Doom (Reed Richards) addresses as "Black Eagle." The semi-official explanation is that Black Eagle is either a surrogate father who helped raise Wynona after her parents died or a step-father who had married her mother after Will's death. Both options sound good to me and FAR better than the possibility that Black Eagle might actually be a resurrected Will Wingfoot.
In his first appearance in Fantastic Four I#80 (November, 1968), Silent Fox called Wyatt "the son of my son" and thereby established himself as being Wyatt's paternal grandfather and Will's father. However, some online sources claim that Roberta Elk Step was Wyatt's paternal grandmother which would make her Will's mother. Although the Official Handbooks do not (I think) support this, the truth is that there is as yet no in-story evidence that absolutely disproves this idea. Maybe it would be helpful if some future story would provide a definitive Wingfoot family tree?
Complicating any discussion of Will's family tree is the fact that some Native American Indians do not use the same kinship terminology as most Western societies that use the joint family (Inuit) kinship system. For example, in the Iroquois kinship system, a person's father's sister would be an "aunt" but a person's mother's sister would be called "mother" as well. If the Keewazi tribe followed this system, then Miriam could only be Wyatt's aunt if she were Will's sister. However, this is speculative because it has never even been hinted that the Keewazi might not follow the Inuit kinship system.
In Fantastic Four I#50, the name of the Metro College football coach introduced in that issue was "Sam Thorne" but in Fantastic Four I#51, the issue which revealed that this character had once been "Big Will" Wingfoot's teammate, his name was given as "Jim Thorpe" instead. In the coach's next appearance (in Fantastic Four I#61) his name was given as "Sam Thorpe" and it was only in his fourth appearance (in Fantastic Four I#138) that the character regained his original name of "Sam Thorne." Why his name was ever changed for that one issue is unclear but it may have been meant as a reference/homage to the real-life Jim Thorpe, a Native American decathlete who competed in the 1912 Summer Olympics and won two gold medals. I guess even back in the 1960s "continuity" wasn't as important as some of us would like to think it was.
Notes about images:
The image of Carlton Beatrice walking beside a male Keewazi
Indian (presumably meant to be Will Wingfoot) with Roberta Elk Step in the background is from
the second panel of the page (that should have been) numbered "38" of Sensational She-Hulk
in Ceremony#1. It is part of Roberta Elk Step's flashback to when Carlton Beatrice first came
to the Keewazi reservation. I wasn't able to scan this image myself without damaging my copy
of that squarebound comic so I "borrowed" it from Snood's profile on Roberta Elk Step where
that image is listed as being on page 35.
The other three images in this profile are from the story
featuring Will Wingfoot and his father that appeared as part of Strange Tales III#1. That
issue was also in the squarebound bookshelf format and the only way that I could have scanned
images that I wanted from it would have been if I were to tear it apart...AND THAT WAS NOT
GOING TO HAPPEN!!! Fortunately, when I explained the situation to Snood, he was able to
scan the images I needed from his copy. How he managed this I do not know but it worked. So,
thank you, Snood. Without those images this profile would be much less interesting.
I put a heavy
external hard drive on top of the scanner lid to push it down and
flatten the book to get the images. I have many books falling apart
from repeated scanning, re-reading, etc., but it's all worth it in the
name of the Appendix!
--Snood
Hogan is a Navajo term for one of their people's primary dwelling structure...aka home.
--Snood
Profile by Donald Campbell.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Will Wingfoot has no known direct connections to
images: (without ads)
Strange Tales III#1, page 37, panel 5 (main image)
page 34, panel 2 (head shot)
page 39, panel 2 (hurling the amulet)
She-Hulk in Ceremony#1, page 38, panel 2 (meeting Carlton Beatrice)
Appearances:
Fantastic Four I#51 (June, 1966) - Stan Lee (writer/editor)
Sensational She-Hulk in Ceremony#1 (1989) - Dwayne McDuffie (script), Robin D. Chaplik
& Dwayne McDuffie (plot), June Brigman (pencils), Stan Drake (inks), Bobbie Chase
(editor)
Strange Tales III#1 (November, 1994) - Kurt Busiek (writer), Ricardo Villagran (artist),
Marc McLaurin (editor)
First Posted: 02/26/2020
Last updated: 02/26/2020
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
Non-Marvel Copyright info
All other characters
mentioned or pictured are ™ and © 1941-2099 Marvel Characters, Inc. All
Rights Reserved. If you like this stuff, you should check out the real thing!
Please visit The Marvel Official Site at: http://www.marvel.com
Special Thanks to http://www.g-mart.com/ for hosting the Appendix, Master List, etc.!