Wild Dog is a 1987 comic book series by DC Comics. The series was writted by Max Allan Collins with art by Terry Beatty.
The series stars Jack Wheeler, a former military vet whose girlfried is killed in front of him. Furious at all the death he has experianced over his life, and with a sizeable amount of money inherited from his deceased girlfried, decides to become a viliglante to kill criminals.
The character was adapated in the series Arrow, as the original character Rene Ramirez, a reckless vigilante brought in to Team Arrow by the Green Arrow to train him to be a better hero.
Wild Dog provides examples of:
- Academic Athlete: Wild Dog went to college on a football scholarship.
- Appropriated Appellation: Wild Dog gains his name from the police, after a SWAT captain orders his men to shoot the vigilante "like a wild dog in the street".
- Balls of Steel: In one issue, Wild Dog takes a shot to the crotch from a female reporter that drops him to the ground. One or two issues later, circumstances repeat, but Wild Dog informs the reporter that he now wears a metal cup. Apparently, none of Wild Dog's male criminal targets would even think of using this maneuver, so he never thought of incorporating that piece of protective gear before.
- Career-Ending Injury: Wild Dog was forced to drop out of college after being injured and thus couldn't play football.
- Casual Sports Jersey: Wild Dog wears a college football jersey emblazoned with a snarling red dog as part of his costume, which hides his protective body armor.
- Death by Origin Story: Wild Dog's girlfriend Claire is shot dead in front of him while the pair were on a date.
- Secretly Wealthy: Claire was secretly the daughter of a Chicago crime boss, and thus had a large amount of money from her families shady dealings.
- Shock and Awe: Wild Dog's gloves are electrified, allowing him to shock people.
- Sole Survivor: Wild Dog left the military after being one of the only survivors after his squad was killed by a terrorist bomb.
- Superhero Packing Heat: Wild Dog, who looks like he should be a parody of the trope, but sadly isn't. Max Allan Collins noted in Amazing Heroes #119 that he created Wild Dog as a sort of modern update of Zorro, The Green Hornet, and The Shadow, who all predated Superman and Zatara, and Collins carefully distinguished between a costumed hero and a metahuman hero. Collins did not intend Wild Dog as "super".
- Terrorists Without a Cause: The series had an example of this, in a terrorist group that was a coming-together of factions from the fringes of the left and right. ("We're going to destroy the current order. What will we replace it with? That's for later - first things, first!")
- Unexpected Inheritance: After his girlfried Clair was killed, Jack unexpectedly is named the sole benificiary of her will, who was Secretly Wealthy, making him a considerably wealthy man.
- Vigilante Man: Wild Dog's basically, per his creator Max Allan Collins in Amazing Heroes #119, a modern version of the Shadow, Zorro, the Lone Ranger, and the Green Hornet.
- White Mask of Doom: Wild Dog conceals his identity beneath a white hockey mask.
