Nite Owl II's soviet counterpart and founding member of the October Guard. He first appears in Red Star over New York. Cossack-Owl is known for being one of the truly sympathetic villains.
Fictional Character Biography[]
Danil Driebergsky was a Russian inventor. Originally he was being held prisoner by the Russian Government for accused treason and was subsequently tortured. Begging for release, Rasputin freed the imprisoned inventor. But not before telling him that Danil would have to repay the smartest man in all the Soviet Union for what he did. Rasputin told Danil to make a bio-engineered formula that would allow anyone to fly, see in the dark and be insulated from the cold Russian winter. Danil chose the best animal he could find, an Owl.
Danil injected himself with a special Owl formula and became known as the dangerous and deadly Cossack-Owl. By day Danil is a normal, yet somewhat shy and bashful scientist but by night he becomes a terrifying winged creature.
Red Star over New York[]
In his first introduction, Daniel Dreiberg and Danil hit it off instantly. The two becoming close friends and buddies. However when Dan confronts his Russian counterpart about his strange disappearances at night he revealed his true form. At first Daniel thought Danil had a case of Werewolf syndrome, in that he was completely out of control of his actions when he transformed. However Cossack-Owl tells Daniel that he is in fact Danil's manifestation of all his darker urges. This leads Nite Owl and Cossack-Owl to get into a high flying fight scene over New York that ends with both Dan and Cossack-Owl supposedly "dying" in a fiery explosion at a local aviary.
However both return, apparently surviving the explosion, just a few issues after the end of Red Star over New York.