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Thread: DC Westerns

  1. #1
    Astonishing Member Tzigone's Avatar
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    Default DC Westerns

    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).
    Last edited by Tzigone; 06-13-2021 at 05:42 PM.

  2. #2
    Black Belt in Bad Ideas Robanker's Avatar
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    The Palmiotti/Gray Jonah Hex run is incredible. Love those books.

    The Van Meter Cinnamon mini is on my to-read list. Always wanted more to be done with her and Nighthawk (not specifically together but that would be cool too).

    It's a shame the books don't sell well. I miss some of DC's Western IP.

  3. #3
    Astonishing Member Tzigone's Avatar
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    The Van Meter Cinnamon mini is on my to-read list. Always wanted more to be done with her and Nighthawk (not specifically together but that would be cool too).
    Ooh, I didn't even realize there was a Cinnamon mini - may have to check that out, myself.

  4. #4
    Three Legged Member married guy's Avatar
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    As Robanker mentioned, the Jonah Hex books by Palmiotti & Gray are simply BRILLIANT. Every damn issue was a fantastic read and I hated seeing it end.
    "My name is Wally West. I'm the fastest man alive!"
    I'll try being nicer if you try being smarter.

  5. #5
    Uncanny Member MajorHoy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tzigone View Post
    Ooh, I didn't even realize there was a Cinnamon mini - may have to check that out, myself.
    I wasn't buying comic books at the time that series came out.
    But I own / read her back-up features from Weird Western Tales in the late 1970s.




    Sadly, the feature didn't last very long.

  6. #6
    The Spirits of Vengeance K7P5V's Avatar
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    A personal favorite would be...

    "The Last Bounty Hunter"
    (DC Special Series, Vol. 1 #16)

    Last edited by K7P5V; 06-13-2021 at 07:20 PM. Reason: Made Adjustments.

  7. #7
    Mighty Member jb681131's Avatar
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    Have you read "Batman Universe" where at one point he goes back in time and teams up with Jonah Hex ?
    Here is a page where they talk about it: https://jonahhex.blogspot.com/2019/04/?m=0

  8. #8
    Black Belt in Bad Ideas Robanker's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by MajorHoy View Post
    I wasn't buying comic books at the time that series came out.
    But I own / read her back-up features from Weird Western Tales in the late 1970s.




    Sadly, the feature didn't last very long.
    That ARTWORK! Thank you for putting these on my radar, Major!

  9. #9
    Astonishing Member batnbreakfast's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by married guy View Post
    As Robanker mentioned, the Jonah Hex books by Palmiotti & Gray are simply BRILLIANT. Every damn issue was a fantastic read and I hated seeing it end.
    Especially the Darwyn Cooke and Jordi Bernet issues. I even liked the follow-up All Star Western more than most but I hated the really dark (like Ennis' Punisher Max dark) issues (Sawbones? etc)

  10. #10
    Astonishing Member signalman112's Avatar
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    Forgotten DC Western Character, The Wyoming Kid.

    http://siskoid.blogspot.com/2015/02/...oming-kid.html


    WesternWyomingKid.jpg

  11. #11
    Ultimate Member Riv86672's Avatar
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    I’d like to give a shout out to something characters like Jonah Hex have way too few of.
    A recurring villain!

    El Papagayo was a slippery bastard, and a colorful, fun loving cad; a great foil for the often dour Jonah.
    And look, Bernie Wrightson art, that’s never not good!


    El Papagayo even managed to bedevil Jonah in the far future…


    …kind of!
    Someone wrote into the letters page a couple months later and posited that the El Papagayo droid had been so accurate, because the bad guys had brought the real deal to the future prior to Jonah, and that he was out in the post apocalyptic landscape somewhere, having adapted to his circumstances quite well (villains usually take time travel in stride, but that’s another subject), and that Jonah would run into him when least expected. I thought was a brilliant idea but, nothing ever came of it.

    Anyway, yeah. El Papagayo!

  12. #12
    Astonishing Member Tzigone's Avatar
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    I’d like to give a shout out to something characters like Jonah Hex have way too few of.
    A recurring villain!
    There aren't many. The Trigger Twins have the Green Bandanna gang, but I don't recall much on individual characters there. And was Silk Black recurring for John Tane?

  13. #13
    small press afficionado matt levin's Avatar
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    Long, long-time Jonah Hex fan, one of the most 'real' of DCs characters. Michael Fleisher's scripts and the host of fine artists lead naturally into the, yes, wonderful Palmiotti/Gray series, which end brilliantly tying the entire decades-long story together not only neatly but happily (!). Really like Cinnamon, and Bat Lash as characters, too. (And a totally OT nod to Signalman 112's icon of Mr. Price as (radio's) The Saint!)
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  14. #14
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    When I was making my Fall and Rise of the Supers list for the 1950s, I debated with myself whether to include western heroes. I mean, aren't they the guys that replaced super-heroes--so they don't count as super-heroes, or do they?

    I decided that if a western hero had an alter ego and/or wore a mask, then he was kind of a hybrid. You already had Zorro and the Lone Ranger, but in the late 1940s, there started to appear a lot of others of this type. Johnny Thunder and Nighthawk were the big guns from National Comics--edited by Julius Schwartz. These cowboy vigilantes could follow the tropes of the standard mystery man, combined with the popularity of westerns in the 1950s. So the transition from the modern day crimefighters to those in the Old West wasn't such a stretch.

    I wonder if there's a good label for this type of hybrid hero?

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Robanker View Post
    The Palmiotti/Gray Jonah Hex run is incredible. Love those books.

    The Van Meter Cinnamon mini is on my to-read list. Always wanted more to be done with her and Nighthawk (not specifically together but that would be cool too).

    It's a shame the books don't sell well. I miss some of DC's Western IP.
    Yeah. Maybe I'm biased and not thinking right but I believe it's mostly just due to people's preconceived notions of what a western is, including a preconceived notion that it would be boring.

    Because I think if people actually tried reading P&G's Jonah Hex (especially the pre-New 52 version), it would be virtually impossible for most people to stop reading it. It's one of DC's great runs in history and very addictive.

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