Old Man Otto surely knows how to pack a punch despite the age.
Yeah. He's actually one of the very few villains that managed to match up against Zagor in one on one and actually win. While it isn't unusual for Zagor to be beat down, it usually involves people ganging up on him, some hidden advantage or something. Otto is one of the few that went up against Zagor in his own element and won. Of all comics I've read, until now, the only people that could make a similar claim are Super Mike and maybe Togo.
As a side note, in a fight between Otto and Togo, I'd bet on Togo if they were unarmed, Otto if he could use his weapons. Togo feels a bit more durable in a storyline sense and his pressure point strikes to the neck are absolutely ridiculous, but Otto is more skilled, and they are close enough that, just like how Zagor beat Togo once he got his hands on the hatchet, Otto could beat him the moment he started using his whip, knife or revolver.
This is a rather interesting and wise thing, it surprised me: Otto fully believes that one should never fight fairly against an unknown opponent
I fully agree with him, and not only that, he kind of used that to teach Zagor a point. Zagor is so used to demolishing absolutely everyone in a straight fight with their fists that he doesn't consider the possibility of losing and ends up more overconfident. When Zagor discovered that Otto, even when tired and mentally exhausted, was actually way tougher a cookie than the other crooks he was used to beat, well... It went badly.
Cus D'Amato, the boxing coach who famously trained Mike Tyson, once remarked something interesting about this, and it went something like: In a contest between two men with equal skill, the one who will win is the one with the superior will to win.
Unless his skill is so far above the opponent that his will isn't tested, the one with a greater will to win will always win.
Zagor was used to, at that point of the story, fighting people who rarely tested his will in melee combat, so when that finally happened, the desperate, better-trained and far more brutal Otto won.
Also, what's with all these people slicing things apart with chops, it's weirdly frequent.
Yeah, it's one of the things that made them remarkable to me. In Zagor comics in general, eastern, particularly chinese, martial arts are usually associated with people being able to chop things with their hands.
The profiles are good, Togo's image just has to be bigger and maybe centered.
Sadly, Togo is really lacking in good images. I combed the whole issue twice, but all of his images are really small. The best I found on the second combing is
from this panel but it's still small. Maybe the profile itself will be image-less and have a gallery of moments, but I dunno.
Also, the Black Wolves remind me of the Blue Wolves, an organization in Dampyr, although they are completely different, at least from what I read of the Black Wolves.
Curious. What are the Blue Wolves about?
I wonder how much of this is due to actual writing decisions or the fact that most stories have to begin and end in a single issue, but most likely is both of them.
That's also frequent in Dampyr (and Tex had a lot of influence in the series), some villains return, but realistically you can't keep all of them.
To be honest, I feel like it's more of a statement about Tex's character in general and the kind of story he usually is depicted. Realistically, Tex would rarely if ever meet villains more than once, even if they survived his wrath, as he is usually travelling all around the world and most people are not vengeful enough to stalk someone like Tex, and surviving is harder because, just like real life, people tend to stay down when shot. His stories are also more about an episodic thing, not that dissimilar to series like Supernatural, with a "villain of the week".
And yeah, I kind of prefer that way, really. While I can appreciate the colorful cast that, say, Zagor has and how much they reappear, I favour a type of story where the consequences are more set in stone. If for some reason a character gets popular, a side-story or something can be done.
