Indian Chief (titled simply The Chief for its first two
issues) was published by Dell Comics and ran through most of the 1950s. They
were stories involving various Native American tribes and usually didn’t
involve white men at all. I’m not sure of the time frame—whether the stories
were set before any Europeans were on the scene or if they recount adventures
that just didn’t happen to involve any white men. But whatever the case, they
were great stories, with strong art work and equally strong characterizations.
Most of the time, an issue of Indian Chief would recount an adventure featuring White Eagle, a clever Sioux chief. And White Eagle was a pretty cool guy, so we’ll take a look at one of his adventures next week.
But a few of the early issues didn’t involve White Eagle.
The Chief #2 (April-June 1951), for instance, contained three stories, each
with a different protagonist. It’s one of these, titled “The Exile,” that we’ll
be looking at today.
The title character here is Fleet Hawk, a young Arikari brave
about to be initiated into the Wolf Clan.
Now I’ll admit right away that I have no idea if the Arikari
culture is being presented accurately. I
did only a little research when I
decided to review this story, simply looking the tribe up in the Encyclopedia
Britannica. I learned they lived near the North/South Dakota border and they both
farmed and hunted. That’s pretty much all I know. Their location does mean it
makes sense that they’d be enemies of the
I didn’t dig any farther because I am reviewing this story
for its entertainment value, not its historical veracity. And, by golly, it’s
certainly not lacking in entertainment value.
Part of the initiation is to beat Fleet Hawk with a stick to
see if he cries out. He endures this stoically until the stick hits a recent
injury, forcing him to give a yell. For this failure, he’s exiled from the
tribe for one year.
But he stays busy. It’s not long before he’s jumped by a wolf and kills it with his knife. Wearing the wolf skin as a trophy, he then rescues an Arikari woman from some
He soon discovers that the Cheyenne are planning a mass attack on the
Arikari village after approaching along a river in canoes. To save his people, Fleet
Hawk improvises a rather devastating naval-warfare weapon and takes on the Cheyenne single-handedly.
Alberto Giolitti does a perfect job with the art, giving us
one riveting action scene after another, while the script (by Gaylord Du Bois) provides
us with a realistic and likeable hero in Fleet Hawk.
This is, as far as I know, Fleet Hawk’s only appearance. That’s
too bad. Wearing his unique wolf skin and carrying on a secret war against the
enemies of his tribe—well, that’s the formula for more than one epic adventure.
But if we’re only going to get one story about the young warrior, then this one
will do. “The Exile” is a grand adventure tale. It’s available online, so read
it yourself at comicbookplus.com (though you may have to register at the site to access it).
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