Midnight Theater- Lone Ranger XXX

It was only a matter of time.  Anyone think this will be better than the recent Hollywood film?

There Is So Much Wrong with All-Star Western 21

As I have recently begun to recall my fondness for westerns I took a chance and picked up a copy of All-Star Western.  I have glanced at it occasionally in the last few months, enough to see that the story had truly moved West (yay!) while also including Booster Gold from mainstream DC (weird).  I picked up All-Star Western 21, hoping to see a return to the old days of the Jonah Hex comic, even if men in tights occasionally strolled through.  I read through and found myself asking one simple question…

WHAT THE FUCK?

It starts off fine, with a gun fight and a chase in the desert, but soon enough the whole story gets transported to something that appears to be modern day Gotham City.  Not only that, Hex ends up in a throwdown with Batwing (whoever the fuck that is) and thrown in Arkham Asylum.  All-Star Western remains firmly entrenched in the Batman family of comics, but now not only does it not take place in the West, it doesn’t even take place in the 19^th century.

You want Jonah Hex to time travel?  Fine, do that.  It worked great in the 16 issue run of Hex, where Jonah briefly went to a Mad Max future and became a badass biker.  But no one had the balls to call that comic a Western.  Fuck, DC, what are you doing?

My preferred style of time traveler Jonah Hex.

One good note- cameo of the Mutants from Dark Knight Returns.  Those fuckers are always fun.

Johnny Yuma, Black Widow, and the Allure of a Nice Backside

When The Avengers came out last year there was a great political cartoon calling attention to Scarlett Johansson’s role in the movie, or more appropriately the role that her posterior played in the movie.  Joss Whedon may be a feminist 99% of the time, but he sure did spend an extraordinary amount of camera time of the Black Widow’s backside.  It’s even featured prominently on the poster.  Artist Kevin Bolk speculated what the poster would look like if the gender roles were reversed (see below).

Pretty funny, and as a comic reader I am very familiar with super heroines bending into odd positions with less than fully covered rear ends.  I was not familiar, however, with the same pose happening with ex-Confederates.  Once upon a time Johnny Yuma, Rebel was advertised in a similar pose.  Perhaps in the late ‘50s / early ’60 rebel ass was advertising gold.

Lone Ranger and Tonto Out of the Closet

It’s been six months since I’ve written in this blog.  What got me back?  It turns out that the Lone Ranger and Tonto may be gay after all.

It’s an old joke that the Lone Ranger and Tonto were partners by the campfire as well as partners in the saddle.  Two men, alone in the wilderness, forsaking civilization (particularly women) and trusting entirely in each other?  It’s downright romantic. 

The argument against has always been that the 1930’s and 1940’s were simpler times and people didn’t write that kind of thing back then (people who think the early 20^th century was a purer, simpler time may not have heard of things like the Jazz Age or the World Wars).  But what if two clearly gay characters show up in a story?  Can we really dismiss the subtext then?

The 4/13/38 radio episode Reward Money, starts by describing two long time pards:

Jake Caldwell and Lem Purdie had fought hard and work hard through all their years together.  They had seen stampedes, and dusty drives over long trails.  They had known good times and bad.  They quarreled, and each on more than one occasion had saved the others' life. 

They had never been parted, and as they grew old they lived in a small, two room shack, some distance from town, their lifetime savings hidden in their home. It is night as our story opens.  Jake, disturbed by a noise, excited awakens his partner.

(The YouTube link below goes to the same episode, quote above starting around 2:35)

There’s not much subtext here.  Their home, their savings, never been parted, growing old together.  Sounds like a marriage to me.  If we have two male side characters who are in effect married in a story, then maybe all of that burning subtext about the Lone Ranger and Tonto isn’t really subtext after all.

I don’t think it changes a thing about the old stories.  The friendship, trust, and companionship between the Lone Ranger and Tonto are evident in every episode and comic.  The exact physical expression doesn’t matter.  It’s not sex that binds two people together; it’s love.

And no, I haven’t seen the movie yet.  It looks like a train wreck.