The Rook (comics)

The Rook is a fictional, time-traveling comic book adventure hero whose treks have been chronicled for the last 40 years starting in the 1970s under the Warren Publishing's Eerie, Vampirella & Warren Presents magazines. In the 80s, The Rook became popular and gained his own comic magazine title of the same name, The Rook Magazine. In the 1990s, The Rook would be recreated in Harris Comics’ Chains of Chaos and The Rook comic book series. In 2014, The Rook was re-introduced in Dark Horse Comics’ Eerie Archives 17. The Rook returns with all new adventures, written by Steven Grant and illustrated by Paul Gulacy in Dark Horse Presents and The Rook comic book series in 2015.

The Rook was created by Bill DuBay and Budd Lewis during the dawn of Sci-Fi’s Modern Age and was influenced by pulp magazines’ heroic characters like Doc Savage (The Last Hero Pulp*1). Scientific Industrialist Restin Dane has a penchant for dressing as an old west gunslinger as he travels through time in the Time Castle (Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns). Restin Dane is the grandson of Adam Dane, the man who told his story about this adventures in the future to his friend H. G. Wells who turned his account in the book The Time Machine but at his insistence withholding his name out from the book (The Master of Time-Comicvine*2).

Let’s face it, traveling through time is cool but in order to get wherever (or whenever) you're going, you need a bitchin' time traveling device. Dr. Who uses a police call box known as the TARDIS. Others use a hot tub, and even one guy used a nuclear powered DeLorean to splice into time. Restin Dane’s kick-ass time machine is the Time Castle, a dark-energy powered vehicle that resembles a large rook chess piece; which is how Restin became known as The Rook. He is no stranger to the space-time continuum either; having an undergraduate degree from Oxford in Engineering Science and Physics and a PHD from Caltech in both Materials Science and Applied Physics-Quantum Mechanics. While at Oxford, he discovered artificial intelligence with his creation of two sanitation robots, Nuts & Bolts. Restin would later create a more complex robotic servant known as MAN-RS, an acronym for Man’s Robotic Servant. The Time Castle was created by Restin, with help from his grandfather’s, Adam Dane’s (the original Time Traveler*3) journals. The Rook’s journeys through time reveal the illusion of human history and the separation between past, present and future.

The "Master of Time" finds himself alongside iconic figures of history and legend when his exploits take him from the eras of long-lost lore to the fantastic and infinite possibilities of futures yet to unfold. The Rook fights to right history’s wrongs while exploring his own fascinating historical roots and saving those he loves from the ravages of time. W. B. DuBay (Originating Series)

Warren Publishing's Time Traveler

Early in 1976, much like today, American pop culture was being flooded by repeated ideas and otherwise stagnant concepts. Jim Warren saw the opportunity and desperately wanted to be at the forefront of the next big craze. Ironically, many of Warren Publication’s content was geared towards Vampires, Zombies and the sort. Although Jim Warren was captivated by Superman in his youthful years, his real fascination was the adventure more than the superhero characters themselves. (Warren Companion) For this project, Jim would pull in the most talented and creative minds at his disposal; Bill DuBay and Howard Peretz. Peretz had an impressive record of creating children’s toys for large toy manufacturers. Bill had stepped down earlier that year as editor from Warren magazines. Jim wanted a cowboy and Bill realized that his goals were no easy task since Westerns had been out for some time now and seemingly a piece of history more than of the future. Peretz eagerly agreed with Warren suggesting that Mattel could pull out their old toy molds from the 50s. Bill however was not as thrilled with the idea since it was he that would have to create the future from the past. Bill and his creative partner, Budd Lewis began firing off ideas until the shape and substance emitted from their collective minds. The character would be a modern man in search of his roots, setting the story arc for the inaugural series in the old west. This would satisfy Jim and allow them the flexibility to serialize every great adventure trapped in time. The character would also be an inventor of robotic artificial intelligence, traveling through time as a swashbuckler of sorts. To morph the idea into brilliance, Bill would require the assistance of Jim Stenstrum, who Bill viewed as the very best writer that he had worked with. Bill and Jim would establish the first storylines that would thrust the Rook’s adventures into the forefront of the reader’s imaginations. Jim would design The Rook’ costume in all black attire and the character was born.

The Rook’s first adventures were sent for printing in December 1976. Never, in Warren Publishing’s history had a mere comic magazine hero received more fan mail or a more enthusiastic response. By 1979, The Rook gravitated to its own title. Until February 1982, the distribution statistics were held close by the absent Jim Warren. In February, as a matter of federal mandate, circulation statements would be issued for the first and final time for all Warren titles; The Rook, Creepy, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Eerie and Vampirella. In that order, The Rook outsold all other Warren Publishing’s titles. The Rook was the most popular character of all of Warrens’ comic magazine titles and the only character to emerge from Eerie into its own title.

The Rook, the most popular series to ever be introduced in the pages of EERIE, had an ongoing series without a finite life span; the Rook eventually gravitated to his own mag for a few years. (Angelfire)

Internationally Acclaimed

The Rook’s adventures were also syndicated in 24 countries, in many languages, from mid-seventies to the early nineties in Ediciones Delta’s Dossier Negro and Delta magazines throughout Spain and Europe, Ekim’s Vampirella in Turkey, Ibero Mundial de ediciones Rufus magazine throughout South America and last in Eura Editoriale’s Skorpio Anno in Italy.

RESTIN DANE, prolífico inventor aventurero, construye una MÁQUINA DEL TIEMPO con forma de TORRE DE AJEDREZ impulsado por el obsesivo deseo de salvar a un antepasado suyo caído en la BATALLA DE EL ÁLAMO de 1836. Con ayuda de fieles robots, traduce a hechos su obsesión fracasando en su objetivo, al menos como lo tenía originalmente concebido. Salva a su bisabuelo, BISHOP, quien se convertirá en un activo compañero de aventuras a través del tiempo. (Tebeosfera)

Character

The Rook is a Wild West tinged time-traveler whose time machine is shaped like a chess piece and who packs six shooters, not a screwdriver, sonic or otherwise. The Rook is still cool after all these years and the character is still very, very fun. Restin Dane has various ancestors and descendants who are out there, crossing his path at inconvenient moments or sometimes working at cross-purposes to one another, while others are his supporting cast and the like. That’s before we get to his competitors, rivals opponents obstacles and former lovers… It was the richness of the character interaction that made it all work, not the gimmicks or gadgets, though those didn’t hurt any—especially the Time Castle (Netherwerks *4) Restin Dane is cool, no doubt about it. Doctor Who meets Billy the Kid… only better than it sounds- Time Shadows

The Rook is more of an edge of the seat sci-fi story. For those who’ve never read, imagine John Wayne meets Dr. Who- MetalMachine.net

The Time Castle was a time machine invented and built by scientist Restin Dane using information from his grandfather’s journal on time travel. The Time Castle is not designed after The Time Machine, as no design survived into the 20th Century for Dane to copy. Timemachine.wikia.com

During further adventures, The Rook, as he becomes to be called, Bishop and two robots that Restin constructs encounter Sherlock Holmes, Robar the Conquerer, H.G. Wells and his grandfather, the Time Traveler, whom he helps in a final war between the Eloi and the Morlocks (The Master of Time-Comicvine*2).

Alternate Realities - Harris Comics

In 1994 Harris Publications (Comics) would license The Rook for a comic book miniseries, “Chains of Chaos” with longtime Warren Publishing crossover character Vampirella. The following year, Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, Fallen’s creator Tom Sniegoski and Daytime Emmy award-winner Kirk Van Wormer would team up for a five part comic book miniseries, The Rook.

Rook being a scientist and an adventurer, he was recruited into Danse Macabre. One day he was attacked and he bonded with chaos skin as the last resort. Now he has a powersuit-living entity named Slough, and they need each other to survive. He responds to his mental commands and can form any weapon he can think of. (Comicvine) An altogether different proposition from his Warren predecessor; The Rook is now master of the reality flow, involving himself in alternate realities instead of contenting himself with hopping back through time. The first two issues have him fighting the undead in the Old West, though, while the latter two see him fighting hoods, one of whom is possessed by a piece of chaos manifesting as an embedded spider. (AtomicAvenue.com) The Revised Rook is a half-cyborg who travels through time and alternate universes known as the reality stream. The Harris version of the Rook still retains an Old West heritage (Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns)

The Return of an American Legend - Dark Horse Comics

The Rook returns to comics in Dark Horse Comics Eerie Archives makes available dozens of adventures lost in time. Beginning in 2014, the Eerie Archives will feature the titillating time traveler through 2017. Dark Horse Comics is also in production of an archival collection of three years worth of The Rook comics magazine run.

In September 2015, The Return of an American Legend, written by 2Guns Steven Grant and illustrated by the legend, Paul Gulacy will feature all new adventures. Get ready for the future of adventures!

"Seeking his roots, a time traveling adventurer stumbles across history’s darkest secret, Quarb: an immortal genius who has terrorized and shaped human culture since the dawn of man. Though seriously outgunned he begins a lone guerrilla war across time, in pasts unheard of and futures undreamed off, to free humanity from the immortal’s unending grip"

References

External links

• /Official Website
• Eckert, Win Scott. "The Rook Chronology" (fan site). WebCitation archive.