DC Westerns

[Tzigone]

For discussion for anyone who might actually care about the Westerns.

I decided to make headcanons for them. I thought it would be funny for Walt and Wayne Trigger to invest in Sears with some of that reward money (once it went public in the early 1900s). Because catalogs were sometimes thought of general-store-killers, and Wayne had a general store and he wants to hedge his bets even though it's a very successful store. So I looked up old stock prices and dividend rates and splits and they wound up absurdly rich. :lol: May need to rethink that. But I really did like the idea of incorporating the end of the west, the rapidly changing world, etc. by having them in a city that grows a bit (maybe up to 30k by time they die) and having them have electric lights and plumbing before they hit 30 (original stories put them in the 1880s), and having movies and cars and just so much change in life. And, alas, not foreseeing the stock market crash in 1929 and then thinking it would rebound in a couple years. It didn't. If they actually did that Sears investment, they'd still die wealthy men, but far less so than they were in 1928. I put them in Colorado, but have absolutely no idea why - I may have been thinking about the Rocky Mountains, but there are several states to choose form there.

I like John Tane, too. Honestly, I think he'd be a better choice than the twins for really enjoying seeing the world change around him and seeing technology progress. But he lives in Montana (well, Swift Deer is there, and Cheyenne were only in Montana and Oklahoma then and Oklahoma wasn't open to settlers yet), and while he can see technology change the world, it just seems like a stretch to give Montana a city of that size. Then again, Metropolis is in Deleware. Either way, he's going to end up well off because his dad was sheriff there for a long time and Montana sheriffs made crazy money and John's going to inherit that. I know there is a real Mesa City in Arizona, but he definitely is not there.

Swift Deer is the hardest one to handle. If I don't send him packing off to the (real) Northern Cheyenne reservation, and let a reservation be formed where his group actually settled (so he can stay a part of the story and have less horrible Indian agents and be happier like I like for my characters), then his experience is absolutely totally unrepresentative of any real Cheyenne on a reservation at that time. I mean, they are near Mesa City (that will have a railroad, and then a second before 1910) of a decent size (see all the businesses) that actually tolerates them. Economically, it'd be much less grim than actual reality, but they'd likely assimilate a bit more, and I hate to send the message that the two go hand-in-hand. It's just both are caused by proximity to the town and the shops and the jobs. I don't really care about matching reality, because it's a headcanon for a silver age comic book and I like the good-defeating-evil-and-people-basically-being-happy. And the DC world isn't our world, anyway. But, though it's not something I'd ever write, worry people would think I think that's really how it could be. Also, I started him with a decent income writing adventure stories for young boys in pulp magazines after entering a contest. Cheap, disposable entertainment with repetitive plots and a formulaic structure, uncoincidentally like silver age comic books - I didn't know how much writers' pay was going to go up over the next 20 years (looked at old newspapers) while deflation was happening. He ended up making more than three times what John did. It's ridiculous and unrealistic. But I gotta admit, it's kinda fun.

Tony Barrett ended up completely unrich, though. She's running a stagecoach, which is going to pretty much die off (or greatly decrease) soon because of trains, and she refuses to accept reward money. I just can't deal with the city in her comic being Laredo. Because it's so not anything like Laredo was then. I know, I know, DC is a different universe than ours. But it's so hard to wrap my mind around.

Still, I do need to come up with some other versions with less money, I guess. But I was fond of Becky Tane being into to finance and stocks and making a fortune and moving to Gotham and bumping into a Wayne. Then I thought maybe Swift Deer's youngest could make a fortune speculating in the market in the 1920 - partially because I couldn't come up with a unique job for him. Already had five cattlemen in the extended family - it really was such a common job in the area and on the real Northern Cheyenne reservation. Also two auto mechanics, a butcher, and a few part-time laborers (mostly for the railroad or railroad shops).