The legendary comic hero Zagor was created in 1961. His real name is Patrick Wilding, but the Native Americans call him Zagor or Za-Gor-Te-Nay, "The Spirit with the Axe." The story of Zagor is set in the northeastern part of the United States in the first half of the 19th century, in a swampy, inaccessible area of the fictional Darkwood Forest in Pennsylvania.

Zagor is the legendary hero of the forests, mountains, and lakes who maintains peace between whites and Native Americans and punishes criminals. His parents were slaughtered by the Abenaki Indians, led by a fanatical white traitor. Zagor survived the massacre and was rescued from the river by the wandering hunter, poet, and philosopher "Wandering" Fiji, whose real name is Nathaniel Fitzgeraldson.

Fiji raised him as his own son and trained him as a hunter and warrior. In the classic comic The Return of Helingen (Zagor #275-280, June-December).