I could have combined this with the previous comics, but they seem disconnected enough for me to review them separately Hex takes down two of the Trapper clan, and is torturing a third by shooting his fingers off. The survivor refuses to tell him where to find the others. Wow, how many of these guys are there? Anyway, he gets interrupted by a man named Moody who wants Hex's help in finding his missing son. Moody is a rich developer in charge of building Gotham's sewers, so when Hex rebuffs his offer, he offers $50,000 and Hex changes his tune immediately. I checked, and that's about $1.26 MILLION in today's money. For that sort of money, I'd stay in Hell itself for an extra week. Might need to go up to $2 million to get me to stay in Gotham.
Hex takes the logical step and checks an orphanage first, where he runs into his old pal Amadeus Arkham. Since the nun who runs the orphanage won't let Hex in otherwise, he's once more forced to work with Arkham. Arkham was here to tend to a boy named Sean O'Grady who had been missing for three years and recently reappeared. The boy is horribly malnourished rat-bitten, sick, dying, and insane. The boy father informs the duo that a lot of kids have been disappearing from the slums, kidnapped by a hooded figure. From the nature of the boy's illness and aversion to light, Hex deduces he's been held underground. Going through the newly built sewer system and following clues like human skulls, they find a labor camp. The kidnapped children are being forced to build the sewers. Hex moves around taking out the guards with stealth while Arkham rescues all the kids. Unfortunately, Arkham is caught by the slavers, and Hex shortly thereafter.
The huge man makes a mistake of taking both Hex's guns and his hat, which Hex says he will be back for as he's tossed down a raging underground river. Arkham proves his continuing uselessness by being unable to swim but Hex rescues them both. They spend some tense time in the dark with a dwindling supply of matches and no obvious escape from the ledge they find themselves on, until a horrible screech echoes out through the cavern. They are swarmed by a small horde of morlocks, who Arkham recognizes as the lost Miagani tribe. The Miagani were bat-worshiping natives who used to live here but vanished shortly after white settlers arrived. Turns out they literally went underground. Nice use of DC lore here.
The Miagani reveal a way out during the fight, which Hex and Arkham follow until they are stopped by a giant prehistoric bat. The Miagani worship it as a god, but Hex manages to slay it. This garners the respect of the Miagani who bow down before him and show him a way out. The adventurers emerge-where else?-at Wayne Manor. They were in what would one day become the Batcave.
Wow. Okay. So...are the Miagani still down there these days? Did the last of them die out (they were looking kinda pale and inbred)? If they're all gone, when did the last Miagani die? If they aren't, does Bruce have a deal with them? All of this is kinda important information that I would like to see addressed.
Anyway, Arkham shows he's not completely useless by getting help from the Waynes. They're less perturbed by the presence of CHUDs and giant bats under their mansion than they are the slave ring. They eat and get cleaned up, then the scene shifts to a siege on the slave ring. Damn, Arkham can get things done here. Gotta love how non-useless the Gotham police were back in the 1870s. Another pretty freaking awesome gunfight ensues, with Jonah Hex chasing the slavers' leader down a side tunnel. He tortures him with a pickaxe, asking where the Moody boy is, but the now-crippled giant whimpers that they don't have the Moody boy. It'd make no sense if they did, since the whole thing was Mr. Moody's idea. Arkham forces Hex to stop, but Hex has all the info he needs.
With the nun's help, Hex tracks down Mr. O'Grady and demands he see the Moody boy. Realizing he's been caught, Mr. O'Grady agrees. The boy is safe. Better than safe, the O'Gradys have been treating him like one of their own. Sean has just died of his injuries and illness, so the nun and Arkham both promise Mr. O'Grady they will stand with him at trial. Hex decides there is more to be done here. He tells the young Moody boy everything. About the kidnappings, the child slavery, everything. The boy understands, he already knew his father was a cruel man and he does not want to grow up like him. He's returned to his mother, and the police come to arrest Thurston Moody. The backgrounds of his mansion practically beat you over the head with owl motifs so you know who this guy was probably connected to. Unfortunately Moody's already left town, heading down to New Orleans, which is where Hex says he's going next to collect the money owed. He sends an advance telegram to two allies he has down there: Cinnamon and Nighthawk.
Again, All Star Western delivers. This story was lots of fun, with excellent action scenes, an intriguing plot, and nice hints of the future and deeper conspiracies. It doesn't shy away from some really horrible stuff either. The interlude with the Miagani is a little out of place, but is a good "lost world" short and a nice tie-in to some rather obscure DC lore. Unfortunately, Arkham continues to be a mostly useless load. I hope he gets left behind in Gotham.
Almost considered 5, but since Arkham is really starting to grate on me I'm only giving 4/5. So far I'd say ASW is a must-read. Now for the B-story.
The Barbary Ghost #1-3
The story opens with a woman in very revealing robes attacking Chinese gangsters. She is pale as a ghost and summons fire in her hands to burn and explode them. She demands to know where she can find a man named Bo Long, but the guy she chooses to interrogate is killed and she is forced to detonate the others who killed him. Disappointed, she rides off into the hills outside San Francisco. The woman, named Yanmei, meets with her grandfather and they talk about her quest for vengeance against Bo Long.
The grandfather flashes back to how this all began, with him bringing his entire clan over from Canton to America, hoping to build a better life. However, things go bad immediately with Bo Long's gang demanding protection. Yanmei's father, Wei Tsen decides to stand up to him and pay only half of what he demanded. Bo Long, however, is not a reasonable man. He throws Wei's corpse through the window of his family shop. One of Yanmei's brothers charges out for vengeance, and kills one of the gangsters with a thrown axe before he is shot in the head. The gangsters flee, but it's far from over.
In two weeks eight of Bo Long's gang members are killed, but so are all five of Yanmei's brothers. Numbers are not on their side, so her grandfather and mother decide to flee. Her mother stays one extra day to pay off some debts and get prepared before they leave, but she's caught in the store. The store is burned with her inside.
Yanmei swears vengeance herself, and with her grandfather's help fakes her death in an explosion (taking out several of Bo Long's men in the process). Her act as a ghost has continued ever since. Now she prepares for an attack on Bo Long's headquarters, which she opens by detonating his right-hand man with an explosive arrow. As she fights through the horde of gangsters, Bo Long decides this is too much and escapes. Yanmei finds Bo Long's harem of prostitutes and frees them, and in the process finds out her mother is still alive. She also finds out where the gangster is heading.
Dressed in an expensive dress, she meets Bo Long on a train. He lets the pretty Chinese woman sit with him, and tells her that he had to pay a lot of money for this seat. More than a white man would have, but in America even racism can be bought off for enough money. She informs him that she is the Barbary Ghost he's been scared of, and shoots him under the table. The car erupts in panic and she threatens to shoot him in the head. She asks where her mother is, and he doesn't tell her but makes a reference to a carnival which she says is "good enough." She murders him, and jumps off the train onto her horse running alongside with her grandfather.
Very good story. The Barbary Ghost is a new character, yet feels old somehow. Like she's a character who should have existed from a previous series of Westerns. Of course, the times were too racist in the heyday of Westerns to actually have a Chinese protagonist (David Carradine notwithstanding), but she seems like a character who could have existed had that not been the case. As an origin story it's good, though like most origin stories it left me wanting more both in a good and bad way. Too much story was, by necessity, taken up with the background.
Overall though I really hope to see more of Yanmei, the Barbary Ghost. 3/5 stars.
One last note: I'm going to stop here with All-Star Western because the next arc kinda merges with its Owls tie-in. I'll review the next arc first when I'm ready for Night of the Owls.
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