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"Far enough, Yankee dog. As you say... this is the end of the line."
―Dunkelvolk to Indiana Jones.[src]

Dunkelvolk was a fanatical follower of Doctor Matthias Jäger and eagerly helped him during the search for the Philosopher's Stone in 1947.

Biography[]

Following the end of World War II, Dunkelvolk was hired by Doctor Matthias Jäger to help him and his goons search for the Philosopher's Stone to resurrect an army of Nazi soldiers and allow for the Nazi Party's rebirth. By 1947, Dunkelvolk was the prime suspect behind an attempted theft of Adolf Hitler's ashes by the Soviet Union, whose forces managed to capture Dunkelvolk.[1]

He was arrested and locked up in a prison where he met the American archaeologist Indiana Jones. Upon seeing the contents of Jones' satchel, Dunkelvolk realized that one of the artifacts was King Solomon's scroll, so Major Nadia Kirov demanded him to tell everything he knew and had him taken for interrogation, though Dunkelvolk refused to tell anything, so Kirov had her men throw him back into his cell some hours later. Accompanied by Jones from the other cell, Dunkelvolk talked with him and confessed that he knew what the scroll hide and how the answer could lie on Albert de Groot's margins, but declined to not tell Jones anything more and went to sleep. The next morning, during dawn, awakened by Jones knocking a guard out to escape, Dunkelvolk pleaded the American to release him as well, promising him a great reward from his master, but Indy denied him his freedom as he correctly deduced that Dunkelkov was up to not good. However, Dunkelvolk managed to get out eventually.[1]

Dunkelvolk ran afoul of Indy in Ireland after Jones escaped from a fanatic naturalist cult with a fragment of the Philosopher's Stone in his possession. Desiring to take the fragment for Jäger, Dunkelvolk stole a truck full of brew and tried to shoot Jones dead as he tried to escape riding in a horse. However, Jones was ultimately able to escape by shooting at the truck and incapacitating it, leaving Dunkelvolk behind in the highway.[1]

Dunkelvolk would cross paths with Jones again in Berlin, Germany when Jones and his friend Marcus Brody were momentarily detained by Kirov and her men after Jones discovered and retrieve the Stibe's third fragment. Accompanied by two henchmen, Dunkelvolk stole the third piece from Misha and his fellows before one of Dunkelvolk's accomplices gunned all of them down, after which the two men got back into their vehicle and fled for the Bahnhof Berlin Zoologischer Garten, being pursued by a vengeful Kirov. At the station, Dunkelvolk arranged two sealed cars for his men to carry his baggage and follow him behind the train. Once aboard, Dunkelvolk retreated to his cabin for a late supper while his men checked the boxes stored in the freight wagon. A while later, Dunkelvolk found that Kirov had knocked out one of his men and hold her at gunpoint, taking her prisoner. As the two left in a car, Dunkelvolk and Nadie witnessed how Jones blew up a wagon full of Jäger's weaponry and ammunitions with a grenade, to which Dunkelvolk immediately accused Kirov of sabotage and promised to take her to Jäger for retribution, hoping to please his master.[1]

On their way to Koblenz's townhouse to meet with Jäger, Dunkelvolk made sure the three fragments of the Philosopher's Stone had remained intact, hoping that they would be enough for his boss to forgive him for losing all his ammo. Once at the townhouse, Dunkelvolk took Nadia inside the building and presented her to Jäger, intervening to stop Kirov when she wanted to attack Jäger. He was then congratulated by Jäger for bringing him the three fragments and departed the townhouse with him for the tower in which they would conduct the resurrecting ceremony. Once Jones reached them, Dunkelvolk shot at him as he closed the tower's door.

Dunkelvolk came across Jones one last time in the tower's stairs after the latter sneaked into the tower in an attempt to stop Jäger from starting the ceremony, preparing himself to shoot him dead. Jones disarmed him with his whip, so Dunkelvolk lunged at him, grabbed a medieval axe and tried to strike him with it, cutting off a candelier. Completely berserk, Dunkelvolk ended up being thrown off a balcony by Indy and fatally impaled on the crucifix of a statue below. His body was presumably crushed by falling debris when the tower collapsed thanks to Jäger.[1]

Personality and traits[]

A fanatical loyalist to the Nazi cause, Dunkelkov considered himself Doctor Matthias Jäger's most trusted aide, praising him as a genius and feeling insulted when Indiana Jones suggested that Jäger may not tell him everything due to possibly distrusting him. His loyalty was so big that he even refused to tell his enemies any information of Jäger's activies, even laughing at them if they got frustrated for not getting what they wanted to learn, even though that cost Dunkelvolk a beating. Regardless, Dunkelvolk was implied to feel some fear for his master, as he was concerned when Jones blew up his weaponry and assured himself that Jäger would only forgive him if he got the Philosopher's Stone's fragments.[1]

Dunkelvolk wasn't above coldly murdering people in order to accomplish his tasks: he massacred all of Major Nadia Kirov's men, including Kirov's right-hand Misha, to retrieve all of the Stone's fragments that Jones had recovered. He was also quick to draw to conclusions without enough proof, such as when he accused Nadia of blowing up the ammunition for his boss despite that explosion not actually being her fault. Dunkelvolk didn't like to be bested either, as when Jones disarmed him as he prepared to shoot him, Dunkelvolk did everything at his disposal to desperately kill the American archaeologist.[1]

Another one of Dunkelvolk's most apparent characteristics were his immense arrogance, thinking himself as a better archaeologist than Jones and boasting about his abilities and knowledge while imprisoned by the Soviets, rudely refusing to talk with Jones when he asked him about his knowledge on Solomon's scroll. Surprisingly, once Jones found a way to escape, Dunkelvolk dropped all his arrogancy and plead him to rescue him in exchange of money. His own men didn't even seem to respect him, calling him a "big cheese" behind his back. Like most Nazis, Dunkelvolk was also a racist, referring to Kirov as a "stupid Slav" and referring to Jones as both a "Mongrel dog" and a "Yankee dog", suggesting a strong hatred for Americans and Europeans.[1]

Behind the scenes[]

Like most of the characters present in Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix, Dunkelvolk was originally meant to appear in the game of the same name shelved by LucasArts from which the comic was adapted.[1]

In the third Iron Phoenix issue, a dying Misha refers to Dunkelvolk as "Dunkel Volk", separately. It's unknown if this was a mistake from Lee Marrs' part, a way to show how Misha couldn't speak properly due to being expiring or actually the exact pronunciation of Dunkelvolk's name.[1]

Original Iron Phoenix role[]

While Dunkelvolk's role in the original Iron Phoenix story was largely the same as that of the comic book,[1] there were some differences that didn't make it into the published story. The game's design documents originally identified the character as a muscled, ruthless, dead-eyed thug,[2] but in the comic, Dunkelvolk is a less physically imposing figure.[1]

Dunkelvolk also had two henchmen named Hans and Fritz (the former taking a swim care of Nadia Kirov) and his death was different.[2] Instead of killing Dukelvolk from the balcony,[1] Indiana Jones was to simply defeat Dunkelvolk in their fight and leave him unconscious to face the resurrected Adolf Hitler. His demise was likely to be implied when the Bolivian tower in which the Philosopher's Stone's ceremony took place collapsed following Hitler's ultimate destruction.[2]

Appearances[]

Notes and references[]

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