Back in the days of World War II, Albanian soldier Kreshnik Veton chose to turn against the Axis forces that had occupied his homeland. Donning a garish red costume and a busted old Fokker D.VIII, he called himself the Red Owl, and through some combination of luck and ingenuity, managed to make trouble for the Nazis (it should be noted that historically, Albania was the only country occupied by the Nazis that managed to kick them out without help from the Soviets.)
Years later, "Nick" Veton is the owner of a small gym in in Little Yugo, a slum in Boston inhabited by former residents of the Balkan countries, and finds his new home being invaded, this time by a pair of gangs at war with each other. Tired of watching all the punks walking around in front of his gym, Nick considers putting on the old costume, but he is beaten to the punch by his granddaughter Donjeta who, having found out about his past, has decided to try and follow in his footsteps, calling herself the Red Howlet. To say that Nick is displeased by this turn of events is probably an understatement...
(Artist's notes: This began as my attempt to write a story about obscure Golden Age superheroes, but since Alex Ross and Jim Krueger have cornered the market on that with Project Superpowers, I decided it would be easier to just create some new ones from scratch. I would also say that any resemblance between Howlet's costume and that of the Golden Age Nite-Owl in the "Watchmen" movie is purely coincidental; I was just trying to give her a classic Golden Age mysteryman-type look...) |