Category: Westerns

By Sergio Aragonés, Denny O’Neil, Nick Cardy & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-2295-6

By 1968 the glory-days of comic-books as a cheap mass-market entertainment were over. Spiralling costs, “free” alternatives like television and an increasing inability to connect with the mainstream markets were leaving the industry at the mercy of dedicated fan-groups with specialised, even limited, interests and worse yet, dependent on genre-trends to bolster sales.

Editorial Director Carmine Infantino, a thirty-year veteran, looked for ways to bolster DC business (already suffering a concerted attack by the seemingly unstoppable rise of Marvel Comics) and clearly remembered the old publisher’s maxim “do something old, and make it look new”. Although traditional cowboy yarns (which had ruled both TV and cinema screens since the 1950s) were also in decline, novel alternatives such as Wild, Wild West and Italian “Spaghetti Westerns” were popular, and would be a lot easier to transform into comics material than the burgeoning Supernatural craze that would come to dominate the next half-decade – but only after the repressive and self-inflicted Comics Code was re-written.

Thus Spanish/Mexican cartoonist and actor Sergio Aragonés was asked by Infantino and Editor Joe Orlando to add some unique contemporary twists to a cowboy hero they had concocted with the aid of the legendary Sheldon Mayer. Although many hands had stirred the plot, Aragonés, with dialogue provider Denny O’Neil, rendered the world-weary lonely saddle-tramp archetype into a completely fresh and original character – at least in comic-book terms – by making him a seemingly amoral wanderer with an aesthete’s sensibilities, a pacifist’s good intentions, and the hair-trigger capabilities of a top gun-for-hire. …And they played him for sardonic, tongue-in-cheek laughs.

Roguish, sexually promiscuous and always getting into trouble because his heart was bigger than his charlatan’s façade; Bat Lash caroused, cavorted and killed his way across the West – and Mexico – in one Showcase try-out (#76, August 1968) and seven bi-monthly issues (October/November 1968 – October/November 1969) before poor sales and a changing marketplace finally brought him low. Now this slim black and white tome (only 240 pages) collects those ahead-of-their-times adventures and also includes later revivals from DC Special Series #16 and a short run from the back of rival and fellow controversial cowboy Jonah Hex.

None of the Bat Lash stories had a title – which makes reviewing them a mite harder – but their strength was always that they took traditional plots and added a sardonic spin and breakneck pace to keep them fairly rattling along. It also didn’t hurt that the majority of the art was produced by that unsung genius Nick Cardy, whose light touch and unparalleled ability to draw beautiful women kept young male readers (those who bothered to try the comic) glued to the pages.

The drama begins with the Showcase introduction in which the flower-loving nomad wanders into the town of Welcome in search of a fancy feed only to find a gang of thugs and a mystery poisoner in the process of driving out the entire populace. Bat Lash #1 carried on the episodic hi-jinks as the laconic Lothario narrowly escaped a lynching only to stumble into the murder of a monk carrying part of a treasure map. Was it his finer instincts seeking retribution for the holy man, the monk’s stunning niece or the glittering temptation of Spanish gold that prompted the rootin’ tootin’ action that followed?

Issue #2 began with a shotgun wedding, ensued as the drifter became unwilling guardian to a little girl orphaned by gun-runners and brilliantly climaxed with unexpected poignancy – and calamitous gunplay…

A radical departure – even for this series – occurred in #3 when the easy Epicurean – whilst trying out the temporary role of Deputy Sheriff – encountered a hanging judge who thought he was a Roman Emperor, before Lash crossed the border into revolutionary Mexico in issue #4 to become embroiled in an assassination plot; a tale as much gritty as witty which displayed the emotional depths of the rambling man.

Still in Mexico for #5 the creative team pitted the dashing rogue against his near-equal in raffish charm and gunplay when he met the deadly bandito Sergio Aragones. Of course they were both outmatched by the delightfully deadly Senorita Maribel…

Mike Sekowsky pencilled most of issue #6 for Cardy to ink: a dark, tragic origin tale which revealed the anger and tears behind the laughter, whilst Bat Lash #7 set the far-from-heroic wanderer on the trail of a younger brother he had believed dead for ten years…

And that’s where it was left for nearly a decade. In 1978 the giant sized anthology comic DC Special Series (#16) produced a Western-themed issue for which O’Neil and artist George Moliterni crafted a slick, sly murder-mystery set in San Francisco where an older Bat Lash was a professional gambler enveloped in a deadly war between Irish gangs and Chinese immigrant workers. This compelling, enjoyable yarn eventually led to a four-issue run as back-up in Jonah Hex #49-52 (June-September 1981) wherein the charming chancer won a New Orleans bordello in a river-boat card game and despite numerous attempts to kill him took possession of the Bourbon Street Social Club.

Was he that hungry for lazy luxury and female companionship, or was it perhaps that he knew a million dollars in Confederate gold was hidden there in the dying days of the Civil War – and never found?

Scripter Len Wein and the incomparable Dan Spiegle concluded this criminally under-appreciated character’s solo exploits in fine style; which only leaves it to you to buy this brash and bedazzling book to convince DC’s powers-that-be to give the foppishly reluctant gunslinger another crack at the big time – and no, I’m not forgetting the recent, ill-conceived make-over miniseries…

Enchanting, exciting, wry and wonderful, this is a book for all readers of fun fiction and a superb example of comics’ outreach potential.

© 1968, 1969, 1978, 2006 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

By John Albano, Michael Fleisher, Tony DeZuñiga, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-4012-1817-1

The Western is an odd genre that can almost be sub-divided into two discrete halves: the sparkly, shiny version that dominated kids’ books, comics and television for decades, best typified by Zane Grey stories and heroes such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry – and the other stuff.

That sort of cowboy tale, grimy, gritty, excessively dark, was done best for years by Europeans in such strips as Jean-Michel Charlier’s Lieutenant Blueberry or Bonelli and Galleppini’s Tex Willer which made their way into US culture through the films of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone. Jonah Hex is the latter sort.

DC (or National Periodicals as it then as) had run a stable (sorry!) of clean-cut gun-slingers since the collapse of the super-hero genre in 1949, with such dashing – and highly readable – luminaries as Johnny Thunder, The Trigger Twins, Nighthawk, Matt Savage and dozens of others in a marketplace that seemed limitless in its voracious hunger for chaps in chaps; but all things end, and by the early sixties the sagebrush brigade had dwindled to a few venerable properties.

As the 1960s closed, the thematic changes in the cinematic Cowboy filtered through to a comics industry suffering its second super-hero retreat in twenty years. Although a critical success, the light-hearted Western series Bat Lash couldn’t garner a solid following, but DC, desperate for a genre that readers would warm to, retrenched and revived an old title, gambling once again on heroes who were no longer simply boy scouts with six-guns.

All-Star Western #1 was released with an August/September 1970 cover date, filled with Pow-Wow Smith reprints, becoming an all-new anthology with its second bi-monthly issue. The magazine was allocated a large number of creative all-stars, including Robert Kanigher, Neal Adams, Gray Morrow, Al Williamson, Gil Kane, Angelo Torres, and Dick Giordano, working on such strips as Outlaw!, Billy the Kid and the cult sleeper hit El Diablo, which combined shoot-’em-up shenanigans with supernatural chills, in deference to the real hit genre-type that saved comics in those dark days.

But it wasn’t until issue #10 and the introduction of a disfigured and irascible bounty hunter created by writer John Albano and Tony DeZuniga that the company found its greatest and most enduring Western warrior. This superb collection of the early appearances of Jonah Hex has been around for a few years, with no apparent sign of a sequel yet, so consider this a heartfelt attempt to generate a few sales and lots of interest… But before we even get to the meat of the review let’s look at the back of this wonderfully economical black and white gun-fest where some of those abortive experimental series have been included at no added expense.

Outlaw was created by Kanigher and DeZuniga, a generation gap drama wherein Texas Ranger Sam Wilson was forced to hunt down his troubled and wayward son Rick. Over four stylish chapters – ‘Death Draw’, ‘Death Deals the Cards!’ (#3, illustrated by Gil Kane), ‘No Coffin for a Killer’ and the trenchant finale ‘Hangman Never Loses’ (#5, drawn by Jim Aparo), the eternal struggles of Good and Evil, Old and New were effectively played out, all strongly influenced by Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns.

The series was replaced by one of the best and definitely the most radical interpretation of Billy the Kid ever seen in comics; a sardonic, tragic vengeance-saga that began with the hunt for the killer of Billy’s father and developed into a poignant eulogy for the passing of an era. Billy’s quest (‘Billy the Kid… Killer’, Bullet for a Gambler’ and ‘The Scavenger’ all by Albano and DeZuniga) ran in issues #6-8. The book closes with a classic spooky Western tale from issue #7: ‘The Night of the Snake’ was written by Gil Kane and Denny O’Neil, and strikingly illustrated by Kane and DeZuniga, clearly showing each creator’s love for the genre…

As good as those lost gems are, the real star of this tome is the very model of the modern anti-hero, Jonah Hex, who first appeared in All-Star Comics #10, a coarse and callous bounty hunter clad in a battered Confederate Grey tunic and hat, half his face lost to some hideous past injury; a brutal thug little better than the scum he hunted – and certainly a man to avoid. ‘Welcome to Paradise’ by Albano and DeZuniga introduced the character and his world in a powerful action thriller, with a subtle sting of sentimentality that anyone who has seen the classic western “Shane” cannot fail to appreciate.

From the first set-up Albano was constantly hinting at the tortured depths hidden behind Hex’s hellishly scarred visage and deadly proficiency. In ‘The Hundred Dollar Deal’ (#11) the human killing machine encountered a wholesome young couple who weren’t what they seemed and the scripts took on an even darker tone from #12. The comic had been re-titled Weird Western Tales (aligning it with the company’s highly successful horror/mystery books and ‘Promise to a Princess’ combined charm and tragedy in the tale of a little Pawnee girl and the White Man’s insatiable greed and devilish ingenuity.

From the very start the series sought to redress some of the most unpalatable motifs of old style cowboy literature and any fan of films like Soldier Blue and Little Big Man or Dee Brown’s iconoclastic book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee will feel a grim sense of vicarious satisfaction and redress at most of the stories here. There’s also a huge degree of world-weary cynicism that wasn’t to be found in other comics until well past the Watergate Scandal, when America as whole lost its social and political innocence…

Issue #13 ‘The Killer’s Last Wish!’ again touched the heartstrings in the tale of a lovable old man and his greedy, impatient son, with Hex the unlikely arbiter of final justice. ‘Killers Die Alone!’ is an vicious tear jerker of a tale as Hex’s only friend dies to save him the vengeance of killers who blame the bounty hunter for their brother’s death, whilst ‘Grasshopper Courage’(#16 – Hex didn’t appear in #15) shows a shrewd grasp of human nature as Hex and an inept young sheriff track a gang of stagecoach robbers.

‘The Hangin’ Woman’ in #17 is a classy thriller wherein Hex runs afoul of a sadistic harridan who rules her hometown with hemp and hot lead, whilst ‘The Hoax’ finds him embroiled in a gold-rush scam that as usual ends bloody. With this tale the length of the stories, always growing, finally reached the stage where they pushed everything else out of the comic for the first time. Before too long the situation would become permanent. ‘Demon on my Trail’ in #19 dealt with kidnapping and racism, whilst ‘Blood Brothers’ (written by Arnold Drake) again addressed Indian injustice as Hex was hired by the US Cavalry to hunt down a woman stolen by a charismatic “redskin”.

Albano returned for ‘The Gunfighter’, as an injured Hex at last hinted about his veiled past while tracking a gang of killers, but it was new writer Michael Fleisher (assisted at first by Russell Carley) who would reveal Hex’s secrets beginning with Weird Western Tales #22’s ‘Showdown at Hard Times’. A chance meeting in a stagecoach put a cabal of ex-Confederate soldiers on the trail of their ex-comrade for some unrevealed betrayal that inevitably ended in a six-gun bloodbath, and introduced a returning nemesis for the grizzled gunslinger.

More was revealed in ‘The Point Pyrrhus Massacre!’ as another gang of Southern malcontents attempted to assassinate President Ulysses Grant, with Hex crossing their gun-sights for good measure. Issue #24 was illustrated by Noly Panaligan, and ‘The Point Pyrrhus Aftermath!’ found a severely wounded Hex a sitting duck for every gunman hot to make his reputation, depending for his life on the actions of a down-and-out actor…

‘Showdown with the Dangling Man’ looked at shady land deals and greedy businessmen with a typically jaundiced eye – and grisly imagination – whilst train-robbers were the bad-guys in the superb ‘Face-Off with the Gallagher Boys!’ illustrated by the inimitable Doug Wildey. Issue #27, by Fleisher and Panaligan featured ‘The Meadow Springs Crusade’ as the bounty hunter was hired to protect suffragettes agitating for women’s rights in oh-so-liberal Kansas, ‘Stagecoach to Oblivion’ (drawn by George Moliterni) saw him performing the same service for a gold-shipping company.

Hex’s past was finally revealed in #29’s ‘Breakout at Fort Charlotte’, a two-part extravaganza that gorily concluded with ‘The Trial’ (illustrated by Moliterni), as a battalion of Confederate veterans passed judgement on the man they believed to be the worst traitor in the history of the South.

‘Gunfight at Wolverine’ is a powerful variation on the legend of “Doc Holliday” and the Hex portion of the book concludes with a two-part adventure from Weird Western Tales #32 and 33, drawn by the great Jose Luis Garcia Lopez. ‘Bigfoot’s War’ and ‘Day of the Tomahawk’ is a compelling tale of intrigue, honour and double-cross as the bounty-hunter is again hired to rescue a white girl from those incorrigible “injuns” – and as usual hasn’t been told the full story…

Jonah Hex is the most unique and original character in cowboy comics, darkly comedic, rousing, chilling and cathartically satisfying. It’s a Western for those who despise the form whilst being the perfect modern interpretation of a great storytelling tradition. No matter what your reading preference, this is a collection you don’t want to miss.

© 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.