Raul Chalmers
Raul Chalmers is a male comic supervillain who features in Marvel Comics.
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Biography
Raul Chalmers
When he was a young boy, his mother was noted to had died where he shortly afterwards came to see a fox with him being enthralled by the animal. (Black Cat v2 #7)
For the next three decades, the master thief robbed and burglarised households across Western Europe and in the United States using an array of fake identities leading to him gaining an infamous reputation. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #255) In time, Interpol decided to give him the code name of Black Fox with the thief deciding to adopt it as his own name. (Web of Spider-Man v1 #14)
He eventually came to be the mentor to Walter Hardy and Castillo Drake who assisted him in his various schemes. At one point, he had a game of cards against Dracula where he leaked the location to Ulysses Bloodstone in order to use the distraction of their fight to steal from the vampire. (Black Cat v1 #1)
Black Fox came to learn that his protégé Walter Hardy had been in jail and decided to look out for his daughter Felicia Hardy who he sought to be his new student. (Black Cat v1 #2)
With her training complete, Felicia Hardy was ready to operate on her own with her meeting Black Fox where she revealed that she would be taking the name Black Cat. He was happy to hear that and learnt that she was assembling a crew that would help break her father out of prison. (Black Cat v2 #5)
One day, he was told of an apartment that was said to contain riches that would allow the Black Fox to become rich and allow him to retire from being a thief. Unknown to him, this was actually a set-up arranged by the Red Ghost who owned the apartment as he had the Black Fox enter so that he could be caught. This was because the supervillain had need of the burglar's talents to secure more funds for him to help him complete his Cosmicizer machine. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #255)
Later on, a major insurance company came to hire Silver Sable and her Wild Pack where they tasked them with capturing the Black Fox after his latest heist cost them a considerable fortune. The Wild Pack came to work in convert with the local authorities in New York City in order to find and locate him. By this point, Fox was looking to sell his loot to his usual underworld fence Andre' Bouillon. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #265)
He tried to escape Spider-Man by moving to Los Angeles, where he occupied the mansion of a rich couple while they were on vacation in Switzerland. Unfortunately Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, was in Los Angeles at the same time for a book signing event and defeated him again, although he showed mercy and let the Black Fox avoid prison. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #305)
Following his capture, Black Fox came to be imprisoned at Seagate Prison. (Thunderbolts v1 #53)
During an attack on New York City, the Black Fox decided to steal from ruined buildings whilst the Avengers handled the threat. In this time, the elderly thief thought that he was being confronted by Spider-Man and opened fire on the hero in order to prevent himself from being arrested. However, the person turned out to be the new Ant-Man Eric O'Grady who had stolen the Ant-Man Suit. Fox attempted to deal with the masked hero in order to allow himself to escape but O'Grady instead shrunk using Pym Particles and knocked the Black Fox out. Rather than arrest him though, O'Grady proceeded to rob the Black Fox of his stolen wealth when he encountered Damage Control. (Irredeemable Ant-Man v1 #7) Fox had attempted to use the opportunity to escape back with his wealth but O'Grady prevented him from doing so thus forcing the elderly thief to leave the scene rather than risk being arrested. Black Fox though had placed a tracker on the rug sack containing the stolen jewels and later came upon O'Grady's apartment where he placed a gun to his head in order to get back the stolen wealth. O'Grady though had already sold it to a pawn ship and for under the projected cost of the jewels. This nearly led to Black Fox shooting O'Grady until Eric suggested an alternative where the two worked together to rob the pawn ship and get all the money for the stolen jewels. As Ant-Man, he succeeded in the task where he took a 20% cut whilst the rest he gave to Black Fox. (Irredeemable Ant-Man v1 #8)
Black Fox later anonymously hired Black Cat to steal a painting from the Frick Collection, then came to her in her hideout, evading all her security measures. (Black Cat v1 #1)
Black Fox came to meet with the doctors who informed him that he was dying and only had months left to live. He tried various means to circumvent this including the Infinity Formula and Krakoan medicinal's. In desperation, he tried other options including meeting the dreaded Yi Yang who sent him away whilst Zheng Zu was long dead. He even went to Dracula but the lord of the vampires did not forget how the thief had swindled him in the past. Upon learning Black Fox was dying, he became amused and wanted the human to suffer so he commanded that no vampire were to turn him. His options were then nearly exhausted as he knew no gods or demons to bargain with to extend his life. It was then that he hatched on a plan to make a deal with the Gilded Saint who was a patron for the New York City chapter of the Thieves Guild. He intended to offer all of Manhattan to the entity in exchange for immortality for himself and Felicia Hardy. He kept this scheme hidden from Black Cat as he knew she would never agree with it but orchestrated events to achieve immortality. (Black Cat v2 #5)
He was at his home when he was attacked by the Thieves Guild where despite his efforts he was caught and taken to Odessa Drake. (Black Cat v1 #6)
Afterwards, the now young Black Fox was surprised to see Felicia approach him where she revealed that she had gone into the vaults of the Gilded Saint. Once there, she came to remove the immortality placed on her and told the entity that the Black Fox intended to betray them. After being allowed entry back to Earth, Hardy detonated an explosive on the deed to Manhattan making the Gilded Saint believe that the master thief had indeed betrayed them. Thus, the city was returned to Earth and the wrathful being claimed Black Fox as compensation for their collection. Before disappearing, Black Fox told Felicia that he was proud of her and that he loved her as he disappeared from the world. (Black Cat v2 #7)
Overview
Personality and attributes
He was noted to use a range of different aliases to cover his true identity. (Black Cat v1 #1)
Raul was not above cheating repeatedly and frequently in card games. (Black Cat v1 #1) Fox had said that he had always been very honest about his cowardice and that he never played being a brave man. He said that he never wanted to die and would do anything to cheat it. (Black Cat v2 #7)
He had said that he lived an extraordinary life but one filled with difficulty and had been unkind to him. (Black Cat v2 #5)
It was shown that he was a mentor to Felicia Hardy with the two genuinely loving one another as teacher and student. Chalmers believed that it was the teacher's lot to watch their students outgrow the mentor. His heart was broken when Felicia Hardy began to operate away from him but accepted this as part of her own path in being a thief. (Black Cat v2 #5)
Black Fox was enthralled by foxes with this stemming when he saw one of the animals when he was a boy. He came to identify with the animal not because of its grace or eyes or cleverness but rather that the one he saw had only three legs after chewing off one of them to escape a trap. It was then he came to see that he himself would do anything to avoid death and his mortality. (Black Cat v2 #7) He said that he loved Coney Island as it reminded him of growing up in Brighton Pier. (Black Cat v1 #6)
His mother was noted to had died when he was young. (Black Cat v2 #7)
Powers and abilities
Chalmers had a long history as a skilled thief and burglar. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #255) He made use of a range of gadgets with some of them having been made by Walter Hardy. (Black Cat v1 #1) The Black Fox wore a skin-tight costume that allowed him to adhere to surfaces making it easier for him to scale buildings in order to gain entry. In addition, he had gadgets such as specialised custom-designed glass cutters that allowed him to break cut through glass without making a sound. Pockets in his suit contained special electronic devices that he could use to neutralise security systems. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #255)
He was tech savvy enough to plant trackers on items of interest allowing him to find them at a later time. (Irredeemable Ant-Man v1 #8)
By the current day, he was an old man where his frail body was slowly dying as a result. (Black Cat v2 #5)
Notes
- The Black Fox was created by Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz where he made his first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man v1 #255 (August, 1984).
Appearances
- Amazing Spider-Man v1: (1984)
- Web of Spider-Man v1:
- Thunderbolts v1:
- Irredeemable Ant-Man v1:
- Black Cat v1:
- Black Cat v2: (2021)
External Links
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