The Lost Frontier
If you look at the Wikipedia page for the 1950’s in comics you will see something interesting in the titles that started that year, there are around 20 or so Western titles that were being released over that decade. Apache Kid, Rawhide Kid, Cowgirl Romances, Texas Kid and more, and all those were just from Marvel. I find it interesting to look at this and see how one dimensional the comics market has become as of late, even more so since the passing of Tony DeZuniga who helped create one of the only surviving western characters, Jonah Hex.
While Jonah Hex wasn’t created until 1971 he was one of the later additions to a rich history of cowboy heroes and comics that are now lost to the world of capes and tights. The only major cowboy books still on the market are DC’s All-Star Western and Dynamites’ Lone Ranger title. Marvel recently tried a modern western themed book but it wasn’t exactly burning up the sales charts. It’s interesting to look back and see that there was a time when westerns were so popular that they held every child’s imagination and kids couldn’t get enough cowboy media.
Westerns and the like were the proverbial superhero mythology, there was the dastardly villain who kidnapped the girl and had some evil plot, the loner hero who was a stranger in a different land, the outlaw anti-hero, the returning villains and more that would evolve over the last 50 yrs into the superhero genre we know and love today, something modern kids cannot get enough of.
Marvel published more western books than sci-fi titles, Journey Into Mystery was just starting and Thor had yet to appear, westerns were the in-thing in Hollywood and it was a race to see who could capture that admiration of fans in every media possible. Sound familiar? It’s the same with modern superheroes. Studios are burning up trying to capture the next big summer blockbuster, The Avengers made $1 Billion in 19 days, kids are dressing up as Iron Man and the hulk and playing with the same passion their parents or grandparents did with pop-guns and cowboy hats. It’s the evolution of the media and also a sign that nothing lasts forever.
You are hard pressed to find any type of western in modern media, comics, books, movies, etc. Other than Justified (I would count this, dude wears a stetson), 3:10 to Yuma and All Star Western there are not many options available to modern kids to explore the old west. It’s a shame to see the genre that kept the comics market afloat in the early days be tossed aside for the new kids in town, but that seems to be the evolution of the business, evolve or die.
And that is what the few remaining westerns have done. Jonah Hex being a prime example has a supernatural twang to him that sets him apart, any of the backups in his book have a twist to them, it’s not the old man with a code mentality saving a small town from a corrupt land barron anymore. All Star Western is crossing over with the Batman event going on! The Lone Ranger shoots silver bullets and wears a domino mask, he’s a superhero in the same way that Batman or Hawkeye is. Maybe the Johnny Depp movie will push cowboys back into the mainstream like the pirates trilogy did for their namesake, but I cannot help but think we are long past the wild frontier that was the western archetype for stories.
Culture tends to shuffle around in cycles, what is hot today is not tomorrow and in media this is an absolute truth. Its dard to imagine but comics could one day take another stye change and superheroes might fall to the wayside as some new genre takes off. You could even argue sci-fi/supernatural themed books are already on the rise. The Walking Dead is a cultural phenomenon, Chew is a hit book, Marvel is pushing their cosmic sector hard for the first time in a while here soon. Fatale is a noir/supernatural mashup and cannot seem to be kept in stock anywhere. Saga is a sci-fi magnum opus in the making and indie books are becoming more diverse than ever and a major factor in the marketplace.
They say those that dont learn from the past are doomed to repeat it and we need accept that what we have may not always be in, cycles happen and one day the books could change, we might be hard pressed to find a western today, but who knows what tomorrow will bring. Publishers need to diversify their lines and try a little bit of everything, you never know what will be the next big hit. It could even be a western.