[Investigation] Who is the Captain Ironhook?

[Captain Fortune]

Who is this man?

When is was a child I always considered it the second in command after Captain Redbeard. The reason is that in spanish catalogs he was never named nor given the condition of "captain".

It seems I was wrong, because I found a little of information about him:

"The Renegade Runner is crewed by Captain Ironhook's band of renegade pirates, a splinter faction Captain Ironhook absconded with the vessel and its crew after failing to overthrow his brother Captain Red Beard in a coup d'etat."

http://brickset.com/sets/list-4120

The brother of the Captain Redbeard? Hahaha that would have been a BANG! if I knew this in my childhood. It seems reasonable, given their similar appearance.

The Brickipedia also suggests that he could be a renegade, but says nothing about the family links with RedBeard. Anyway, the word Renegade is interesting: it seems that the name of that little ship -The Renegade Runner- was given for that reason. Again, in spanish that ship was called "Estrella del Mar" -Sea Star-.

"Captain Ironhook is the second main Pirates captain in theLEGO Pirates theme. His red, black, and white clothes are more ripped up then the other two, and not as neat. He and his pirates were the first to encounter the Islanders. He can also represent pirate renegades faction."

http://lego.wikia.com/wiki/Captain_Ironhook

So, here are my questions:

What intentions do you think Lego had with this fella?

Are Redbeard and Ironhook enemies? I don't think so, since we've never seen any confrontation between them...

Who are the members of his crew? Are they distinguishable?

Any more ideas or information about the matter?

[Captain Dee]

I'm far from an authority on this subject, but I do know this: one of the old commercials shows the Renegade Runner (Ironhook) and Skull's Eye Schooner (Redbeard) pulling up in battle formation and then duking it out over a chest of gold, which I think was swiped by a shark at the end. I think most of the "facts" about Ironhook were just made up by fans who simply had to have a juicy story for every character.

[VintageLegoEra]

I believe this is same Captain Roger/Red Beard with his second Torso

[Capn Frank]

I would look in A Guide To The Pirates Minifigures - Part I - The Pirates.

Ironhook

Often mistaken for the Pirate Captain in a different outfit, Ironhook is the second

captain in the pirate theme. His face uses the same print as the Captain, but with a

brownish beard and mustache. Like the Captain, Ironhook has a light gray pirate hook,

but he managed to keep his leg intact in most sets. The most distinctive thing about

Ironhook, however, is his ragged appearance. Whereas most of the LEGO pirates appear

to be well dressed, Ironhook wears a torn red shirt that looks as though it’s about to fall

off. Why is his outfit in tatters? Perhaps it’s due to many failed attempts at grabbing that

inconveniently placed dagger with his hook.

Ironhook nearly always wears the skull-and-cross bones hat previously seen only

on the Pirate Captain, though in the only set in which they appear together, the Red Beard

Runner, Ironhood wears a brown tricorne in order to make the command hierarchy

clearer. He most often wears black pants, though he lost a leg at one point and was

forced to wear a peg. Before this, he could also be seen wearing blue pants. In one set,

1788 Pirate’s Chest, Ironhook gained a pair of blue epaulets, presumably taken from a

murdered Imperial Guard.

[Runamuck]

The German audio dramas feature some information about Captain Ironhook.

He doesn’t appear in “Die Insel der schaurigen Masken” but we get a little info about him.

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=76762entry1544698

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=76762entry1545298

He does though appear in person in another audio drama, Piratensegel am Horizont.

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=76762entry1547449

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=76762&st=25#entry1549099

Captain Ironhook is the leader of a different faction of pirates. His ship is the Renegade Runner, which is also referred to as the Sea Star or Sea Vulture in some languages. While he is a pirate, he also participates in slave trading and using slave labor to mine sliver on an island he owns. Ironhook also gets called The Scourge of the South Sea. He has a somewhat friendly rivalry with Captain Roger, and they occasionally play cards with high stakes. He once won an island with a silver mine on it in a card game against Captain Roger. He has a voice like an earthquake. He occasionally suffers from malaria. He’s a pretty nasty piece of work.

I also wrote a little about him when I made a list of named pirate characters:

http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=2917&st=125#entry1717687

That Roger and Ironhook are brother is not something I have heard before, that’s interesting.

[Captain Fortune]

The German audio dramas feature some information about Captain Ironhook.

He doesn’t appear in “Die Insel der schaurigen Masken” but we get a little info about him.

http://www.eurobrick...2

http://www.eurobrick...2

He does though appear in person in another audio drama, Piratensegel am Horizont.

http://www.eurobrick...2

http://www.eurobrick...25#entry1549099

Captain Ironhook is the leader of a different faction of pirates. His ship is the Renegade Runner, which is also referred to as the Sea Star or Sea Vulture in some languages. While he is a pirate, he also participates in slave trading and using slave labor to mine sliver on an island he owns. Ironhook also gets called The Scourge of the South Sea. He has a somewhat friendly rivalry with Captain Roger, and they occasionally play cards with high stakes. He once won an island with a silver mine on it in a card game against Captain Roger. He has a voice like an earthquake. He occasionally suffers from malaria. He’s a pretty nasty piece of work.

I also wrote a little about him when I made a list of named pirate characters:

http://www.eurobrick...25#entry1717687

That Roger and Ironhook are brother is not something I have heard before, that’s interesting.

Wowowowowwww stop man, stop! That's too much for me hahaha!

Official dramas of Lego Pirates! Holly s**t, lucky germans! Fascinating!!!

Well, it seems that I missed lots of information in my life haha! Can I ask you some questions?

- How would yo describe Captain Roger, based on those stories? Is he cool and not a nasty guy, like you described on your list of named pirates?

- What is the relationship between de Islanders and the soldiers? In the 1995 catalog we see a combined attack from the Imperial Guards and the Islanders against the Pirates in the Skull Island so, are they friends?

- What is the relationship between the Islanders and Roger, and Ironhook?

- What about Kahuka? Do they say something in the drama, about his son and the islander girl, who is supposed to be his daughter?

- Some interesting information about the Governor of the Imperial Guards? Is he a fair man? And the soldiers, are they good or bad?

Thank you so much for your info!

[Mister Phes]

Ironhook is actually me in disguise, so there, mystery solved.

[Runamuck]

Yes, it is quite interesting what can be found with a little research, and the LEGO Pirates have a surprisingly large number of stories about them from all sorts of sources.

The descriptions of various characters varies a bit between sources, but there are often a surprising amount of consistency in things.

While Roger is occasionally portrayed as a villain he’s normally more of a lovable rogue kind of guy. He is though still a pirate, and often has a comically hypocritical egoistical streak. A good example of that is that he once accuses Bo ‘sun Will of egoistically jeopardizing their plan because he jumps into the water to save someone who was drowning. He is though genuinely kind to children, and more or less functions as an adoptive father for Will. While he can be a bit reluctant, he will often help people if he thinks there is something to be gained from it. Roger appears to be against slavery.

The Imperials relationship with the islanders varies a lot from faction to faction.

The Imperial Soldiers, the bluecoats, want to capture them, steal their treasures and sell them as slaves for a good profit. This is only shown in a very obscure source though, an old unreleased comic where the Islanders were still Aztecs, for further information ask TalonCard. A lot of that comic was though reused for one of the audio dramas.

The Imperial Guards, the redcoats seem to be mostly neutral towards them. They don’t interact much in the audio dramas, but Admiral Woodhouse was embarrassed to have disturbed them.

The Imperial Armada, the Spaniards, are surprisingly enough on very friendly terms with the Islanders, as their commander The Admiral was raised by them.

While Roger originally wanted to steal the islander’s treasures he ended up in a relationship of great respect with them. He has helped them in keeping slavers away from their island a couple of times. A short text story also revealed that Roger and King Kahuka (often called Chief Quextil in European media) share their birthday.

http://www.miniland.nl/LEGOclub/Bricks%20n%20pieces%201%201994/2.jpg

http://www.miniland.nl/LEGOclub/Bricks%20n%20pieces%201%201994/3.jpg

http://www.miniland.nl/LEGOclub/lego%20magazine%20lezen%20eng.htm

Ironhook is not on particularly good terms with the Islanders, he wants to steal their gold, and his helmsman Scarred Johnny wants to sell them as slaves.

King Kahuka/Chief Quextil does speak in the audio dramas, but he speaks in a native language in them. He has two sons, Thu, who serves a translator, and Kothu. There is a named female Islander in the stories too, but she is not Kahukas daughter, but his wife, who is named Amaritza (spelling is a little uncertain as it’s only from audio dramas).

Ah, yes, the Governor…. He is anything but fair and good. Governor Broadside is one of the biggest villains in the audio dramas, and has a list of crimes a mile long; Roger even calls him the biggest pirate of the south sea. He is a fat, lazy, incompetent, pompous megablocks, who spends most of his time eating fancy meals and sentencing people to get hanged. He taxes the citizens of Sabatina heavily, and embezzles money for himself rather than sending it to the king as he is supposed to. He tried to marry off his niece Camilla to another governor for a huge amount of money once. He trialed and executed Bo ‘sun Will’s father unfairly. He wants to sell the islanders as slaves. He even once committed piracy himself as he captured a Spanish treasure ship and intended to keep the gold for himself.

The governor’s men vary a bit. His right hand man lieutenant de Martinet is almost as bad as he is, and the troops ae not particularly fond of him. The common soldiers are far more reasonable than their leaders.

Admiral Woodhouse who leads the Imperial Guards is very different. He doesn’t appear much, but seem so be a rather noble man. He is very hard on piracy, but does not seem to have much luck in actually finding the pirates most of the time.

I hope this is helpful.

Oh, by the way, it might be an idea to take the info on Brickipedia with a grain of salt, a lot of the stuff about the older pirate characters is lacking and occasionally even factually wrong, although it might have been updated since I last looked.

[Captain Pirate Man]

Yes, it is quite interesting what can be found with a little research, and the LEGO Pirates have a surprisingly large number of stories about them from all sorts of sources.

The descriptions of various characters varies a bit between sources, but there are often a surprising amount of consistency in things.

While Roger is occasionally portrayed as a villain he’s normally more of a lovable rogue kind of guy. He is though still a pirate, and often has a comically hypocritical egoistical streak. A good example of that is that he once accuses Bo ‘sun Will of egoistically jeopardizing their plan because he jumps into the water to save someone who was drowning. He is though genuinely kind to children, and more or less functions as an adoptive father for Will. While he can be a bit reluctant, he will often help people if he thinks there is something to be gained from it. Roger appears to be against slavery.

The Imperials relationship with the islanders varies a lot from faction to faction.

The Imperial Soldiers, the bluecoats, want to capture them, steal their treasures and sell them as slaves for a good profit. This is only shown in a very obscure source though, an old unreleased comic where the Islanders were still Aztecs, for further information ask TalonCard. A lot of that comic was though reused for one of the audio dramas.

The Imperial Guards, the redcoats seem to be mostly neutral towards them. They don’t interact much in the audio dramas, but Admiral Woodhouse was embarrassed to have disturbed them.

The Imperial Armada, the Spaniards, are surprisingly enough on very friendly terms with the Islanders, as their commander The Admiral was raised by them.

While Roger originally wanted to steal the islander’s treasures he ended up in a relationship of great respect with them. He has helped them in keeping slavers away from their island a couple of times. A short text story also revealed that Roger and King Kahuka (often called Chief Quextil in European media) share their birthday.

http://www.miniland.nl/LEGOclub/Bricks%20n%20pieces%201%201994/2.jpg

http://www.miniland.nl/LEGOclub/Bricks%20n%20pieces%201%201994/3.jpg

http://www.miniland.nl/LEGOclub/lego%20magazine%20lezen%20eng.htm

Ironhook is not on particularly good terms with the Islanders, he wants to steal their gold, and his helmsman Scarred Johnny wants to sell them as slaves.

King Kahuka/Chief Quextil does speak in the audio dramas, but he speaks in a native language in them. He has two sons, Thu, who serves a translator, and Kothu. There is a named female Islander in the stories too, but she is not Kahukas daughter, but his wife, who is named Amaritza (spelling is a little uncertain as it’s only from audio dramas).

Ah, yes, the Governor…. He is anything but fair and good. Governor Broadside is one of the biggest villains in the audio dramas, and has a list of crimes a mile long; Roger even calls him the biggest pirate of the south sea. He is a fat, lazy, incompetent, pompous megablocks, who spends most of his time eating fancy meals and sentencing people to get hanged. He taxes the citizens of Sabatina heavily, and embezzles money for himself rather than sending it to the king as he is supposed to. He tried to marry off his niece Camilla to another governor for a huge amount of money once. He trialed and executed Bo ‘sun Will’s father unfairly. He wants to sell the islanders as slaves. He even once committed piracy himself as he captured a Spanish treasure ship and intended to keep the gold for himself.

The governor’s men vary a bit. His right hand man lieutenant de Martinet is almost as bad as he is, and the troops ae not particularly fond of him. The common soldiers are far more reasonable than their leaders.

Admiral Woodhouse who leads the Imperial Guards is very different. He doesn’t appear much, but seem so be a rather noble man. He is very hard on piracy, but does not seem to have much luck in actually finding the pirates most of the time.

I hope this is helpful.

Oh, by the way, it might be an idea to take the info on Brickipedia with a grain of salt, a lot of the stuff about the older pirate characters is lacking and occasionally even factually wrong, although it might have been updated since I last looked.

Interesting read

[Captain Fortune]

...

Man, this is more than helpful, this is AMAZING! Thank you so much! :cry_happy: :cry_happy:

It's funny because some things are similar to what I imagined when I was a child. To me, Roger was never a bad man. He was tough as you said, but a relatively noble man.

Regarding to what you said about Brickipedia... I think that you definetely should! You can be the author of the Bible of Classic Pirates!

You made an amazing job with your list of named pirates, like TalonCard also did. Classic Pirates is also contributing to this, but I think that all this information should be explained and organized somewhere. Of course it is only a general suggestion, but there is a lot of very interesting stories that could be easily lost, and that would be a real shame.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Captain Fortune

[Reidnex]

We all know that we have Ironhook on RBR. He wears a tricone hat. Probably he is a first mate. He tried too kill Roger,but didn't succed. Than Ironhook was left on the island. There he met islanders,who tried to kill him,but he somehow escaped. He captured a small merchant ship and renamed her into ,,Renegade Runner". Than ironhook tried to steal islanders gold,but met Roger. SES had a battle with RR. RR was sunk,and ironhook lost his leg.

Roger ended up with one of the most powerful,beatiful and well built ships of the Carribean(BSB)

Ironhook ended up being a captain of a small raft with no firepower at all.

[VintageLegoEra]

We all know that we have Ironhook on RBR. He wears a tricone hat. Probably he is a first mate. He tried too kill Roger,but didn't succed. Than Ironhook was left on the island. There he met islanders,who tried to kill him,but he somehow escaped. He captured a small merchant ship and renamed her into ,,Renegade Runner". Than ironhook tried to steal islanders gold,but met Roger. SES had a battle with RR. RR was sunk,and ironhook lost his leg.

Roger ended up with one of the most powerful,beatiful and well built ships of the Carribean(BSB)

Ironhook ended up being a captain of a small raft with no firepower at all.

The Iron hook man in sets 6289 and 6290 is different from other sets except for same Torso. The one in 6289 and 6290 is indeed an Iron Hook man, but in other sets, he is the same Captain Roger with different Torso.

[Reidnex]

The Iron hook man in sets 6289 and 6290 is different from other sets except for same Torso. The one in 6289 and 6290 is indeed an Iron Hook man, but in other sets, he is the same Captain Roger with different Torso.

Wow. Now i now that Redbeard began with commanding a raft.

[VintageLegoEra]

To support my Theory, Check the Below Story-line on right of the top lid from my set 6268 ( I have made an underlining ) stating what you call him Captain Iron-hook is Captain Red beard

111 by Lego Master, on Flickr

[Captain Fortune]

To support my Theory, Check the Below Story-line on right of the top lid from my set 6268 ( I have made an underlining ) stating what you call him Captain Iron-hook is Captain Red beard

111 by Lego Master, on Flickr

I think that you misinterpreted the text. They speak about Captain Redbeard, but they don't say that is that minifig that represents Ironhook. They also speak about Broadside, who's not in the box either. The whole text seems to be a general description of the theme, not the box.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Captain Fortune

[VintageLegoEra]

I think that you misinterpreted the text. They speak about Captain Redbeard, but they don't say that is that minifig that represents Ironhook. They also speak about Broadside, who's not in the box either. The whole text seems to be a general description of the theme, not the box.

It says: Captain Redbeard os the leader of the Renegade and the set's name is the Renegade-Runner so my guess is that he is the same.

Plus i didnt say that: captain Redbeard represents Ironhook. Cos there is no Captain Ironhook. He is Captain Redbeard with another Torso...

Edited February 13, 2016 by VintageLegoEra

[TalonCard]

I just want to step in and clear up what could lead to some misconceptions: whoever wrote the brickset list linked to seems to have used some of the Pirate names from LEGO, and used them to make up their own story. There's nothing wrong with this, and indeed this is the way most of us grew up playing with the sets--I love the different ideas that Ironhook is Captain Roger's brother, or his second in command, or even Red Beard in disguise.

Without judging whether one is better or worse, though, I think it's useful to distinguish between what AFOLs have come up with vs. the original '89-97 mythology created for the Pirate theme by LEGO itself. The brickset contributor is pretty darn good at capturing the feel of the skimpy flavor text favored by LEGO, which makes it convincing. His addition of new story points and character names makes it compelling, though he gives himself away by using the name "Tarkin". And I may be wrong, but I believe that the flavor text from the 1993 boxes was the same on every set, so the Renegade Runner's reference to Red Beard doesn't indicate that he was intended to be a Redbeard variant. (On the other hand, the figure called "Admiral Woodhouse" in other countries was absolutely treated as a Governor Broadside variant in the USA--the box does indicate that--so it wouldn't be unusual.)

The extended Pirate mythology created by LEGO was a deliberate early attempt at the kind of extended storytelling you see today with Ninjago, and Runamuck's post does a great job of summarizing the relevant information. (He's a bit of an expert, having translated the German audio dramas and collecting lots of info for his own Pirate guide.) It wasn't consistently rolled out worldwide, and many of the products continuing the storyline ended up being either cancelled or were only released to certain countries. This is the case with the "Island of Mist" comic Runamuck mentioned, which was a sequel to the better-known "Golden Medallion". Sadie Meowsalot was instrumental in uncovering this hidden piece of Pirate past, and posted the uncolored pages for this comic here.

I don't know if it can be considered part of the "official" mythos, given that it was never released, but its group of Aztec descendants living on an island deliberately shrouded by mist pretty clearly provided the inspiration for the Islanders, even though LEGO ended up going with a different direction visually with a South Seas vibe. The 1994 Islander themed "Treasure Hunt" traveling LEGO exhibit even featured an Aztec pyramid and lots of Aztec-inspired treasures.

There are a couple of things missing from Runamuck's summary, one of them a pretty recent discovery: Pereki recently obtained a 1995 run of LEGO Klick Magazines, which had a proto-Time Cruisers comic featuring Redbeard (here called Roger, a common substitution), Ironhook (here called "Blackbeard" for no apparent reason) and the Islanders. Ironhook/Blackbeard has initially fooled the friendly Islanders into helping him rob Captain Redbeard/Roger of his grandfather's treasure, until a time traveler convinces them to side with Redbeard instead. Ironhook is treated as Redbeard's nemesis here.

In addition, the tricorned pirate Reidnix pointed out from the Redbeard Runner was given a name in a 1996 LEGO Mania Magazine: Jake "the Snake" Blake. Whether this is a different character or just another name for Ironhook is up for debate. I am kinda digging the reverse set-release chronology Reidnix proposes, though it's somewhat at odds with LEGO's storyline.

Finally, (and I saved this for last because I didn't want to confuse the issue) Redbeard actually does have an evil brother. His name is Captain Kragg from the 4+ Pirate theme. Here's his bio from the old LEGO website:

"The clever and greedy Captain Kragg leads a small band of pirates on spooky Skull Island. He's always bragging about what a great pirate he is, but although he's good at coming up with nasty plans, he's secretly not very brave. He's obsessed with gold and will do anything to get his hook on it. There are only two things Captain Kragg likes almost as much as treasure: his pet bat and his shiny silver tooth. He doesn't like rules and he never plays fair, so it's a good thing his nicer brother Captain Redbeard has the other half of the treasure map!"

Whether this influenced the brickset writer I have no idea, but Kragg looks an awful lot like Ironhook, at least as far as their clothes (or lack therof) go. We always seem to be uncovering new information about the official Pirate mythology (weird, considering much of it is over twenty years old). It's possible that we'll one day learn that the original background for Ironhook was that he was Redbeard's brother (thus the resemblance), and that made it into the 4+ sets eventually. I'd also be willing to bet that he sprang from the concept for Captain Foul, an antagonist that appeared throughout the early Pirate stories but never made it into a set. That's all speculation, though.

TC

Edited February 14, 2016 by TalonCard

[Captain Braunsfeld]

I learned so much from this - thanks a lot to all contributors!

[Blackheart Brit]

Either way they are both TERRIBLE Pirates. They both have lost an eye and wear the eye patch, the both have a hook AND a Peg leg. It seems all the Pirate captains have these maladies and none of the regular Pirates seem to have these issues. They should MUTINY and install more capable Pirates in charge.

[Captain Dee]

I've learned more than I cared to know by reading all this but it's been interesting.

Regarding the captains' appearances: I'm guessing the peg leg is a nod to Long John Silver (even though he used a crutch) and the hook is obviously inspired by Captain Hook. And none of them are able-bodied seamen as a result.

[TalonCard]

Upping due to the recent interest in Ironhook. 

[Mister Phes]

1 hour ago, TalonCard said:

Upping due to the recent interest in Ironhook. 

Yes, interesting how old topics can become relevant again.,,

Anyway, for those who haven't been following the forum, a discussion about Ironhook has emerged in Official Pirate Names (1989-1990 line) topic from this post onwards.