I mean, we’re talking the end of 1971 — it’s pretty obvious that just as love comics are doomed, the Western comic is on its way out.
Sure, Marvel has several Western books but they’re almost all reprint, except Rawhide Kid (cover by Larry Lieber) and that’s about one-third reprints.
DC’s All-Star Western has new stories of Outlaw and El Diablo but #9 is all reprint behind the Tony DeZuniga cover.
I’m wondering if it would have stayed all reprint had DC not decided the new feature by DeZuniga and John Albano in #10 had promise. Maybe they were overly optimistic but there does seem to be something … different about the guy. You can’t tell on the DeZuniga cover for #10 —
— but the house ads make it clear this is not your father’s Western hero (I wonder if they kept him off the cover because of the Comics Code?).
Still, is being an ugly scarfaced tough guy (drawn, again, by DeZuniga) really enough to make a Western character a hit in the 1970s? I rather doubt it.
Kidding, of course. We all know DC struck gold with Jonah Hex, a much sharper break from the classic comics cowboys than Bat Lash. It’s a useful reminder never to count your genres dead ahead of time.
Even though I’m not a Western fan, I’d look Jonah’s debut over as part of my Silver/Bronze Age reread. Surprisingly DC doesn’t have the series on the app, so I’ll have nothing to say. Still, it seemed respectful to mark the birth of a legend.
