Real
Name: Woody Wilkins
Condorman
Real
Name: Woody Wilkins
Identity/Class: Normal human armed with high tech gadgets
Occupation: Comic book writer, amateur spy
Affiliations: CIA, Harry Oslo
Enemies: KGB, Krokov
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Mobile
First Appearance: The Game of X (1965 novel by Robert Sheckley)
Other Appearances: Condorman (1981, Walt Disney Pictures)
Powers/Abilities: Condorman employs an array of gadgets, including a winged costume that allows him to fly/glide. He also carried a machine-gun disguised as a walking stick, a speed boat and a sports car full of in-built weapons.
History: Woody Wilkins was a comic book writer and artist who had created the international hit character "Condorman". What made his character stand out from the rest of the pack was Woody's claim that he never had Condorman do anything in the comic that wasn't actually doable in real life, no matter how outrageous it might seem on the printed page. Woody was so proud of this statement that he would personally test any and all stunts planned for the strip before including them - such as when he jumped off the Eiffel Tower in Paris in a makeshift winged Condorman costume to prove that it could be done.
Woody's life became infinitely more complicated when he was asked by a friend in the C.I.A. to do him a favour. Harry Oslo needed someone to act as a courier to deliver documents to a K.G.B. contact, and to avoid them being recognised, he needed to use someone who wasn't an agent. Woody eagerly agreed, and travelled to Istanbul to do the job. The K.G.B. operative proved to be the beautiful Natalia Dobova, and he couldn't help trying to show off and impress her; when she insisted he tell her his codename, he blurted out the first thing he could think of - Condorman.
Soon after Natalia informed the C.I.A. that she wanted to defect, but she demanded that the only agent she felt she could trust be given the job - Condorman. Unwilling to move with anyone else, the C.I.A. reluctantly had Harry ask Woody for another favour. Since this time round the mission was genuinely dangerous, Woody agreed on one condition - the C.I.A. had to build him the vehicles and equipment he had designed for the comic-book version of Condorman.
Thus the stage was set for a daredevil chase across Russia and Europe, with the forces of the K.G.B., led by Krakov, Natalia's ex-boyfriend, pursuing their fleeing agent and her rescuer, the superhero operative known as Condorman.
Comments: While the character was originally created for The Game of X, there is virtually no resemblance between the book and movie version. In the movie version the character of Woody Wilkins is played by Michael Crawford, between his two most famous roles (Frank Spenser in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera).
CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with
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