I’ve been around for .. well I think maybe forever, something I’ve learned is that heroes never die. Oh sure the people grow old ( some do ), or end up at the wrong end of a blunt instrument , or bladed, or a chunk of metal moving between 600 and 1500 mps. But really is the Hero the person behind the mask or is the Hero a symbol, as much of a symbol as the mask, or the emblem? As an example we can look at one of the most enduring of the modern heroes. But lets do more than look at the lineage, let’s talk about what happens when you combine mythology with urban legend, throw in familial responsibility and public perception just for fun.
It’s starts , if you can believe the gossip ( and I assure you , you can ) In the Habsburg Monarchy as early as the 10th century, and It starts with Vampires.
To understand the Myth of the Vampire you don’t need to understand what they are, just that they are, and since they feed on people, then to feel safe, people need protection. In some villages, if a person was born on a Saturday, if they had a strong attraction to eating the meat of a sheep killed by a wolf, and if they showed any sort of special talent… if all of these conditions were met, they were sent to a monastery of sorts.
These individuals were trained to hunt and kill Vampires. One of the things they were taught is how to embrace the power of natural hunters in their task. The most powerful natural hunter in the region was the wolf. So they would dress in wolf skins when they hunted, and fashion helmets that resemble the wolf silhouette , some were said to be able to turn into a wolf. Follow me so far? For the record they were often referred to as Kresniks. You can still see some of their armour if you go to a certain home deep in the Croatian wilderness. But call first , the caretaker has an itchy trigger finger. If you do manage to get a chance to see their armour note the long ears on the helmet.
Lets jump ahead a lot shall we, to more recent events ( from my perspective ). The 1920’s, The Great War is well underway, and in a rare example of wisdom the Empire has enforced the rule of rationing, the staples of living are carefully doled out, certain things are reserved only for military use, like booze. Actually, it makes sense, alcohol is not only useful as a mind number it also is a quick way to disinfect. A war means casualties, casualties mean surgery , and for that you need a lot of disinfectant. Distilleries quickly converted from making whiskey and rum to making giant bottles of medical alcohol. The barley used for beer went to make bread for the troops, the sugar used was diverted to foodstuffs. The Empire had become like a stern aunt, responsible and thrifty.
Of course the average man still needed to get drunk. He always will. And since booze was no longer available legally it became available illegally. Now a days we all know about the gangsters of that time, Capone and Segal and Luciano, we know about the crime fighters who went up against the big boys. But in Chicago at the time of Capone there was a smaller family. A group straight out of hell’s sitting room, They never rose much higher than street level, and in a way that suited them fine. The street was where their food was. Of course they were vampires, organised, hidden … they maintained their position by appearing as low level bootleggers, pickpockets, thieves… they chose their victims carefully from the poor and the disenfranchised. No one cares about poor people getting disappeared. Well no one but the poor.
So , in 1921, it was in a back alley in Chicago ( that toddling’ town ) that a young Roberto Cancuso saw his parents killed and fed upon by a small group of these vampires. The 12 year old would have been a snack as well but the feeding was interrupted by a British recruiting officer on his way home.
I have spoken about how it just takes one trauma to turn a regularly sane person into the type who would dress up and go hunt criminals, watching your family get fed upon is such a trauma, and Rob Cancuso had been set on that path.
In his research, he learned about the Kresniks, and their methods. In time he fashioned his own helmet that matched theirs, painted it black, and started his own vendetta. The symbol he used was a vampire bat as seen through the crosshairs of a hunting rifle. It all seems fairly straight forward, doesn’t it? But then it gets muddled up. The truth is one thing, what people see is another.
This is what people saw, there was a guy dressed entirely in black, with a helmet that covered the top of his face that had large pointy ears on it. He had a long coat that looked like a cape when he ran, The only color was on his chest. It was a yellow circle with a bat in the center ( it was a brass plate used to protect his heart .. The bat was etched in , so were the lines of the crosshairs.. But they were not very large and people never saw them , well… they never remembered them ). And this guy only came out at night to clean up the streets…
If any one had asked he would have told them that his name was Knight Wulf, ( after Jarl Wulf, the last great leader of the Kresniks ). He would have told them that he had carefully crafted his image to put fear in the hearts of the vampires of Chicago. But no one asked him, and you know what they called him.
Cancuso was incredibly religious, he would go to the same cathedral before and after every mission, to pray for success, to pray for forgiveness. In time, one of the alter boys ( Paul Valli ) became curious about this man. That curiosity led to the boy learning Cancuso’s secret. A young boy can be very impressionable. Valli put together his own costume using colors of the Cardinals of the church and a cloak similar to the one he wore as an alter boy, and a few things he had laying around from Halloween. Where Cancuso wanted to be unseen Valli wanted the spotlight, over his breast he sewed an ‘R’, it symbolised “ REPENT/REDEMTION” something he would say as he beat on criminals…. “Repent sinner, Redemption is in my hands!” One would argue that Valli didn’t have all the sandwiches needed for a proper picnic, one might also wonder why an alter boy had such a strong attraction to strange older men. ( I will not delve too deeply into these topics )
Cancuso saw in Valli the hopeful youth he was at a time, he also saw potential. They both shared a strong conviction in the church, despite his age Valli was an exceptional acrobat and fighter, and on top of it all Valli was useful as a distraction, a decoy.
The first time they met, Valli told Cancuso that his name was “Redeemer”, but the papers had a different name for him as well. And so a legend had been born.
Knight Wulf and Redeemer actually had a good run. They were never caught, despite being higher up on the ‘Wanted List’ than the people they stalked. Time told that they didn’t always hunt Vampires, in fact by the end of his career Knight Wulf actually brought more regular criminals to justice than vampires turned to dust. In the end Cancuso was bitten, the last act that Valli did as the Redeemer was to drive a stake of hawthorn through his heart. That was in 1940. And that seemed like an end of Chicago’s Knight and his sidekick.
By ‘45 Valli was 29 and living in Philadelphia working as a night watchman. He was approached by A young woman named Karen Burton. Burton had been a star in the Empire’s Child Battalion, and had returned after a short tour in the European theatre ( women were not allowed in combat until ‘47). She offered Valli another chance to be a Hero, this time for the War effort. Burton knew who Valli was because her Grandfather was the man who had rescued and raised Cancuso. Burton guessed ( correctly ) that while Cancuso was just a man, Valli was one of the enhanced.
Strings were pulled and the two were outfitted in special armour based ( loosely ) on the original costumes of Chicago’s Duo. Valli and Burton were given the code names Knightstrike and Harrier ( respectively ) The yellow and crosshairs were taken out of Valli’s symbol ( and the vampire bat given a little more style ) and the “R” of the Redeemer was replaced with the small hawk’s profile.
The two worked together for seven years until Harrier became pregnant with Knightstrike’s child. Both were granted a 5 year leave and returned to live in Philly. Knightstrike still fought crime while Karen raised the child.
The spring of 1957, the Valli home was broken into, Paul Valli and his son were killed in their sleep. Karen was away at a rally for the war effort. Once again trauma plays it’s role. Karen Valli slipped into drug addiction and paranoia, she was certain that the two were killed by the Empire to ensure that she would once again take up the costume of the Harrier and serve her country. She disappeared from Philly.
Two years later Knightstrike was seen again , this time in California. With him was another costumed hero called Knightbird, and an older heroine calling herself Bahdra, Goddess of the Hunt. Knightstrike and Knightbird were the Vanus brothers, Rhys Vanus was the young Knightbird and Thomas was Knightstrike, and of course the return of Karen Valli who had taken up a skimpier costume and the name Bahdra.
The goal of the three was to fight against any threat against the new country that was California. Bahdra was quite driven and a little unbalanced by this point. However, they were successful as vigilantes and lauded as heroes. In ‘64, Thomas was killed and Karen was captured in an effort to assassinate a visiting member of the Royal Family. A few months before the failed attempt , 19 year old Rhys disappeared from California. Suggestions of a love triangle with Karen in the center abounded.
In 1967, a random incident changed the life of Rhys and, in retrospect , the world. The incident involved an attempt on the life of Donald Krae, his twin brother Roland, and their families. The Krae family were often targets of enemies of the Empire, and when the train they were travelling on was attacked and forced off the rails into a river, Rhys (Travelling under the name of Bryce Van) jumped in and managed to pull only two people out before the train disappeared under the brown waters. Bryce’s face was terribly injured during the rescue and the two men were taken to the same hospital. Donald died a year later, finally succumbing to pneumonia, but not before leaving the whole of the Krae Conglomerate to the young man.
The fall of 1970, saw Bryce Van moving to the Krae estates in Boston. He brought with him controlling shares of the Krae Conglomerate, and the other survivor from the train wreck, 8 year old Richard Gordon. Boston saw the first appearance of the New Knightstrike and the Redeemer on Halloween of 1972.
Many crime historians view the next twenty- five years as the golden age for the Knightstrike family ( it doesn’t matter what the media called them ). Van and Gordon prowled the streets and roof tops of Boston, often travelling to New York and Chicago and most of the eastern sea board. Van built a massive base of operations under the Krae estates, and used the varied companies to develop gadgets, weapons and other mechanisms to help in the task. The role of the Redeeemer passed from Gordon to a few other children after an adult Gordon took the mantle of Knightbird. A young woman ( Kasey Kane ) went from Redeemer, to the previously unseen role of Knightharrier. And eventually the role of Redeemer landed on the shoulders of Damian Todd.
The way the KnightStrike family ( no matter what they were called ) was perceived often slipped over the line from hero to vigilante to criminal. Van had his own set of morality, and often found himself on the wrong side of the Empire. The last 5 years of his career as Knightstrike he was dubbed the Dark Knight Terrorist and made the #2 slot of the regulators wanted list. Despite that, he was still considered a hero by many and his counterpart in comics and radio plays ( under that very well known name based on his insignia ) never wavered in fame. During his time as the patriarch of the family, Bryce gathered every scrap of information on the history of the ‘family‘, even visiting an elderly Karen Valli in a rockhall sanatorium.
Bryce Van was gunned down on the Krae estates in 1997 by Ghostface, A high ranking official of the regulators. Before the Empire’s Legion responsible for Enhance Control found the caves, the remainders of the family took all they could from the headquarters under the estate and disappeared into the world.
Again the world believed that that was the last they would see of the KnightStrike family. Gordon, Todd and Kane disappeared without a trace, but they took al of Van’s files ( thoughtfully copied on microfiche ) and over ten million in funds ( thoughtfully stashed in safe houses in the form of gold and jewels ). The files in the caves had been torched and much of the technology had been destroyed before the Regulators could get to it. More importantly, the survivors were angry.
When they did come to public attention in 2001, it was with a vengeance, literally. Gordon wore the costume of KnightRage, Kane took the name Felina, Todd became Crimson Harrier, and they were joined by a young lady named Jane Jones who took the name ‘1450’ ( the muzzle velocity of her sniper rifle ) mostly she was called ‘four’ . It seemed like their only task was to hunt members of the Regulators. And they were armed for it.
This incarnation of the Knightstrike family were dressed for urban warfare and armed with the most advanced fire power their money could buy. They were fairly successful in their quest of hunting down regulators who showed a lust for too much violence, but he violence itself took it’s toll. Even though Gordon eased back on the killing, and became more proactive in crime fighting ( as opposed to revenge ) the obsession with killing Ghost face ate away at them all.
In 2009 Gordon failed to kill Ghostface and while the regulator was seriously wounded it was the end of KnightRage. Gordon convinced Kane to go with him to California where they started a fairly successful Motion Picture company. Damian Todd spent a little too much time on the wrong side of the law and developed a taste for it. When Kane and Gordon quit he went all the way to the other side and is running a small gang of villians on the eastern seaboard He‘s using the name of Krasnyi and wears a red helmet. Jones abandoned the costume and name ‘1450’ taking up the mantle of Felina, and started the task of foiling Todd’s plan. But that’s not the end.
The current Felina has two sidekicks, a young man she calls Wulf, and a young lady wearing the colors of the Redeemer. They have no solid base of operations but seem to go wherever Krasnyi goes. The cycle continues.
In gathering all the facts of this tale I encountered many other names , places and incidents. Sure only Bryce Van is known publicly as Knight strike, but there are government files on many of the others, and other files on everyone who tried to take up the cowl and cape. It should be noted that not only the people I mentioned here were effected by the Mythos surrounding the “family”. Others, enhanced and not , have been encouraged by the tales ( the true and the media made ) and have tried to make a difference outside of the law, or inside of the morals held by most of the family.
And while we know them by different names, we all know the symbol, and it calls from us a belief that even tragedy can lead to something greater ( for better or for worse )
-the Macedonian.
