Raven Red is a comic book arch villainess assassin for hire.
Raven Red
Appears in -
The Man from UNCLE comic (USA Gold key 1965 - 8)
Man from UNCLE no 12 - Jet Dream and her Stunt Girl counterspies - The Powder Puff Derby Caper ( Gold Key 1967)
This strip was drawn by Joe Certa (1919 - 1986).
Man from UNCLE no 20 - Jet Dream and her Stunt Girl counterspies - The menace of the feathered warriors ( Gold Key 1968)
The strip artist here is different, it's not Joe Certa.
The Man from UNCLE Annual (UK 1968) The Powder Puff Derby Caper
The Jet Dream stories were short 4 page comic strips about the adventures of a multi national team of Hollywood stunt women who have become vigilantes to fight crime and enemy spy rings. Raven Red appears in 2 stories as the antagonist villainess.
Appearance -
Raven Red is a sophisticated looking, tall white woman of about 30 with red back combed short, bobbed hair. She is beautiful, but predatory and devious looking. She wears a light green jumpsuit /catsuit with green boots in The Powder Puff Derby Caper and a dark green jumpsuit /catsuit with boots in The Menace of the Feathered Warriors.
Character and background -
Raven Red (we never learn her real name, presuming it's unlikely to be "Raven Red") is a greedy and ruthless professional criminal. Raven Red and her female gang can be seen as evil counterparts to Jet Dream and her Stunt-girl Counterspies.
In The Powder Puff Derby Caper Raven has a trio of gun toting female goons and a secret island HQ with hidden hangars for her aircraft as well as a well stocked ammo dump. Raven's island base makes it obvious that she is involved significant major crimes and her attempt to assassinate Jet Dream is not a one off crime.
Raven is completely ruthless and quite prepared to murder for the right price - she's seen as a hired assassin in The Powder Puff Derby Caper, and plans an especially grisly death for Jet in The Menace of the Feathered Warriors, where she's out for vengeance for her earlier defeat. Whether Raven Red has assassinated anyone else before her attempts to kill Jet Dream we aren't told, though it doesn't appear to be unlikely.
Fair play is a concept she has no interest in. When things are going her way she's smug, and crowing and jeering at her intended victim. However, in both stories when things turn against her she's shown as cowardly, quickly losing her cool, raging and panicking. In The Menace of the Feathered Warriors she's seen on the ground, babbling in terror as she thinks Petite's plane is dropping bombs (actually petrol tanks).
In both the stories Jet is quick thinking and brave while facing Raven Red's murderous actions against her, though in The Menace of the Feathered Warriors it's hard to imagine how Jet would have escaped her intended demise without Petite's timely intervention.
Weapons -
In The Powder Puff Derby Caper she uses a jet plane armed with guns to attack Jet's aircraft and the Stunt girl leader as she descends by parachute. When she is trying to kill Jet on the island she carries an automatic handgun. In The Menace of the Feathered Warriors she uses her trained birds of prey as a weapon.
The Powder Puff Derby Caper -
During the annual air race for female pilots from Honolulu to San Francisco, Jet Dream's aircraft is ambushed over the pacific by another contestant's plane , the pilot is a woman called Raven Red. Raven doesn't just want to win the air race - she's also being paid a large amount of money to murder Jet. In one scene we see a woman telling Raven Red not to miss her mark (target) and Raven smugly responding that she shouldn't worry, Jet being a "double score" for her, a "sky rival" she's being well paid to eliminate. The woman is not identified in The Powder Puff Derby Caper, however in The Menace of the Feathered Warriors Jet says she was an "enemy agent."
Having no guns on her plane, Jet is defenceless, and her aircraft is quickly terminally damaged. Bailing out Jet is again attacked by bullets from Raven's plane as she parachutes. Managing to evade the murderous assault, Jet lands atop trees on a small island. But she finds she's fallen into another deadly ambush as from below, jeering voices fill the air and bullets fly up all round her - she's in a trap, her tree surrounded by Raven Red's 3 gun toting henchwomen. Jet fights a single combat on the enemy island against Raven and her gun-girls, determined to defeat them and bring them to justice.
The Menace of the Feathered Warriors -
Raven Red has broken jail and discovered the HQ, No man's land, of the Stunt Girl counterspies. Wanting revenge for her defeat and capture in the earlier encounter with Jet, she flies over the base and radios Jet, challenging her to an unarmed combat in the woods nearby. Jet agrees. But Raven has tricked her - when Jet arrives in the woods, Raven snares Ms Dream in a net, where Red's trained birds of prey are ready to peck the heroine to pieces.
Fate -
In The Powder Puff Derby Jet uses grenades and a flame thrower from Raven's own ammo to attack the villainess and her gang and destroy her planes and hangars. Jet finally snares a stunned Raven and her gang in a fiery trap, the bad women's guns falling from their hands in shock and terror. Soon the rest of the Counterspies arrive on the island and Raven and her women are taken prisoner, to be flown to jail. When being led away by a stunt girl to a plane, Raven turns to Jet and hisses that no jail can hold her and vows to escape and take her revenge (and escape she does).
In The Menace of the Feathered Warriors, a stunt-girl, Petite, in a plane, sees that Jet has fallen into Raven's treacherous trap. She drops down her plane's extra fuel tanks - the gas/fumes break up Raven's bird "army" and rip the net trap. Thinking she's being bombed, the cowardly Raven is down on the ground babbling, beside herself with terror. Jet grabs Raven and radios her rescuer that she's bringing in the defeated villainess for caging up.
Notes -
Raven Red and her gang (and the woman who hires Raven) are the only female villains to appear in the Jet Dream stories. Raven is the only villain to feature more than once. Gold Key published a one off comic book about Jet Dream and her Stunt Girl Counterspies in 1968.
While dealing resourcefully with the perilous situation she's in due to Raven Red's murderous plot, Jet often shows contempt for her evil enemy..
In The Powder Puff Derby Caper she thinks of Red as "that trigger happy dame", and jokes about Raven's name when she says to her after the redhead has been defeated -
"My... is your face red, Raven! Looks like I've clipped your wings, but good!"
-"Quoth Jet Dream.... NEVERMORE! That means never again, sister! Bye bye birdie."
In "Menace of the feathered warriors" Jet tells Raven she has -
"The ethics of an alley cat"
(a) "mind as twisted as a hair curler!"
And also calls her "Miss Cutthroat, "Raven Rat," and "cry baby" when Raven lies on the ground bawling in terror, thinking bombs are falling on her
Thinks she is "as tricky as a killer falcon"
Again makes fun of Raven's name after the redhead's capture by calling her "our wing clipped birdie!"
The story narrations refer to Raven Red as "a sinister beauty" and a "femme fatale."
See also Raven Red's henchwomen
