SHOWCASE #72; Jan-Feb. 1968; DC Comics; Robert Kanigher, editor; featuring
"Top Gun"-- a blanket title for reprints of Western stories from DC's
1940's-50's Western line. The cover by Russ Heath depicts gunslinging hero Johnny
Thunder shooting a silhouetted bad guy at point blank range (and it looks like
he's shooting him in the stomach, which is kind of nasty). According to the
cover blurb, "The Real Old West EXPLODES to Life Again! Featuring JOHNNY
THUNDER and the TRIGGER TWINS!"
Review by Bill Henley
By the latter part of 1967, when this book appeared, the Silver Age of
Superhero Comics was already showing signs of tarnish. The BATMAN TV show was no
longer a national craze and was heading towards cancellation in early '68.
The smaller comics publishers that had jumped on the superhero bandwagon were
jumping back off. And even DC, which started it all, was taking another
look at comics genres it had abandoned during the hero boom-- genres such as
horror, teen humor....and Westerns. I believe this SHOWCASE issue was DC's
first attempt to test-market a Western revival, though I don't know if the
issue's reprint content was an atttempt to do so on the cheap, or because (as
sometmes happened with SHOWCASE) something else planned for the issue fell through
at the last minute.
Even during the Western genre's comics heyday in the 1950's, DC wasn't
really a major player compared to other publishers such as Atlas-Marvel, Dell, and
ME (Magazine Enterprises). DC had a few licensed cowboy-star comics such as
DALE EVANS and JIMMY WAKELY in the late 40's, and HOPALONG CASSIDY (taken
over from Fawcett) in the mid to late 50's. And there was TOMAHAWK, which ran
unbroken through the 50's and 60's but wasn't really a conventional Western
(at least till the end; see my recent review of SON OF TOMAHAWK #131). But as
far as staright, original Western titles were concerned, DC was limited to
three anthology titles, ALL-AMERICAN WESTERN, which ran 1948-52 before
converting to a war book; ALL-STAR WESTERN, which broke diehard superhero fans'
hearts when it went west and evicted the JSA, and ran till 1961; and the
generically titled WESTERN COMICS, which ran 1948-61. The stories reprinted in this
SHOWCASE come from the ALL-AMERICAN and ALL-STAR titles.
First, we have the Trigger Twins, in "Sheriff on a Spot!", originally
published in ALL-STAR WESTERN #101 from 1958. The story was written by Robert
Kanigher, pencilled by Carmine Infantino and inked by Joe Giella. (Incidentally,
credits and original publication dates in this review are courtesy of the
Great Comic Book Database, which I finally figured out how to access...though
the artistic credits, at least, are pretty obvious.) On the splash page,
Sheriff Walt Trigger is confronting a shadowed gunman who is shooting at his feet
and warning, "Next shot-- I raise my sights!", but though he has lost his
own gun, the sheriff refuses to retreat; "Can't let the law fall-- before a
killer's guns!"
In a scene highly (and probably consciously) reminiscent of the classic
movie "High Noon", the assorted townspeople of Rocky City hide inside buildings
as their sheriff, Walt Trigger, waits for the arrival of a killer known as (no
kidding) Doc Doom on the 3:23 pm train from Pecos. Or *is* it Walt Trigger
waiting for the showdown? Evidently not, for in back of the general store
owned by his brother Wayne Trigger, the real sheriff thinks, "I've got to stop
that twin brother of mine from being a bull's eye target for me!" Dressed in
Wayne's civilian clothes, Walt goes out on the street and tries to dissuade
Wayne, who is wearing Walt's distinctive buckskin sheriff's outfit and badge,
from taking his place yet again. But Wayne insists; "The Sheriff of Rocky
City can't run from a killer sworn to get him-- the moment he's released from
prison!" "There is no Sheriff of Rocky City, Wayne-- since I've resigned!",
Walt points out. Not so; Wayne informs him; he tore up Walt's letter of
resignation before anyone saw it, and now he, Wayne, is going to uphold Walt's
reputation as "a hero-- a legend!" "You know I'm a fumbler, Wayne! You know
I'm just not good enough to tackle Doc Doom! I don't care about myself, but
it's not fit for the law to fall before Doc's guns!", Walt says, explaining
why he isn't facing the danger himself. Walt goes on to recount past exploits
of "his" which were actually made possible only by Wayne's secret help....
such as escaping from a quicksand bog while under fire from the "Cactus Gang".
Back in the present on the Rocky City street, Walt is about to carry out his
threat to resign publicly, when a young boy darts out to cheer him on; "No
badman can beat you, Sheriff Walt! All of us kids are going to be like you
when you grow up!" "Well, Walt? Want to break a kid's heart by resigning?"
his brother asks. Apparently not, for Walt agrees to change clothes with
Wayne again, and, clad in his official "uniform", take up the vigil for Doc Doom
himself.
"And then, like a black shadow spreading its wings across the prairie....the
3:53 FROM PECOS..." "A lone figure gets off-- before whom the prairie seems
to shrink... His face is the face of Doom (but no, it's not covered by a
metal mask)....His hands are the hands of Doom... His steps are...(well, you get
the idea). As Doc advances on his target, unknown to Walt, Wayne has
changed back into his duplicate sheriff's outfit, just in case Walt needs some
behind-the-scenes help. And it's a good thing, for Wayne soon discovers why Doc
Doom is so confident of victory; he has a couple of gang members backing him
up from hiding. Not wanting to attract attention by gunfire, Wayne allows
himself to be lassoed by the two gunmen, but then, "with a mighty effort,"
yanks them off their horses with their own ropes and "hurtles into them like a
twin-fisted thunderbolt," putting them out of action. But now, it is up to the
"fumbler" Walt to face Doc Doom himself. And at first he seems to justify
his own low opinion of himself, as his fast draw is too slow and the Doc shoots
his twin guns out of his hands. Doc shoots at the ground by Walt's feet
and orders the now unarmed sheriff to "Dance!" But no dancing for Walt today;
instead, he advances steadily toward the outlaw, repeating to himself
mentally, "Can't let the law fall-- before a killer's guns--!" Presumably all his
determination would be of little use if Doc actually fired at point-blank
range, but he is so unnerved by the lawman's fearless advance that he lets Walt
get close enough to take him out with a punch to the jaw. And so, Walt
justifies his young fan's confidence after all; "I told you no gunman could stop
you, Sheriff Walt!"
Though the series ran for nearly the whole run of ALL-STAR WESTERN, the
Trigger Twins had possibly one of the silliest premises of any Western strip, or
indeed any kind of strip. It was an example of writer Robert Kanigher's
tendency to take a premise and absolutely pound it into the ground. It never was
clear why the two brothers didn't do the sensible thing and exchange roles
permanently and publicly, with the crack-shot Wayne taking on the job of
sheriff and the well-meaning but inept Walt becoming a peaceable storekeeper.
(Another oddity was that when the series was cover-featured in ASW, the covers
invariably featured both twins in their identical sheriff outfits-- even
though the whole premise depended on their never being seen together in "uniform"!)
The next, short (3 page) feature is "Panhandle Terror!", an "Epic of the
Texas Rangers!", originally from ALL-AMERICAN WESTERN #125 published in 1951.
The artist-- and according to the GCD, the scripter as well-- is Joe Kubert.
On the splash panel, the figure of outlaw Joe Freitas stands with smoking
gun atop a symbolic outline of the state of Texas, shaking his fist and
warning, "I OWN TEXAS! And if anybody tries to stop me from collectin' my
rightful tribute-- I'LL KILL 'IM!" Freitas, it seems, may not have dominated the
whole state of Texas, but he cut a swathe in the Panhandle section. shooting
dead a prospector who refused him a share of his fiind, and burning the house
and barn of a recalcitrant rancher. The Texas Rangers', the state's
legendary police force, are out to get Freitas, since local lawmen have been unable
to bring him to book due to the reluctance of local witnesses to testify
against him. One Ranger promises he has a plan to bring Freitas in within two
weeks. "Several days later, along the Red River in the panhandle," Freitas
spots a prospector who looks like he has a good haul of gold nuggets. He accosts
the prospector, demanding, "I see you've done well on MY LAND... I'm here to
collect MY RENT!" When the prospector protests that the area is United
States territory, not "his" land, Freitas expresses his resentment; "IT'S MY
LAND! i tilled this Texas soil for years and it yielded me NOTHING! Now I'm
collecting for my labor...WITH INTEREST!" Suddenly, the prospector-- who is, of
course, the Ranger going undercover-- hurls the pebbles from his gold sluice
pan into Freitas' face; Here's PART of your land...CATCH!" Freitas's shot
goes wild and then, "in a blind rage," he rushes at the Ranger without his
gun; "I'LL TEAR YOU APART WITH MY BARE HANDS!" only to be taken out by a punch
from the Ranger; "You're not so much a terror when the odds are EVEN, are you,
Freitas?" "And so ended the reign of the Panhandle's terror... Ranger John
Kelson brought in his man, and Freitas paid his penalty-- IN FULL!" (This is
presented as if it were a true story, but I don't know if it actually is or
not.)
Finally, we have a tale of Johnny Thunder-- the double-identity Western
gunslinger, of course, not the earlier dimwit JSA'er with the magic Thunderbolt.
The story is "Unseen Allies!" from ALL-AMERICAN WESTERN #104, 1948 (just a
couple of issues after that title went all-Western and dumped Green Lantern),
written by Kanigher and drawn by Alex Toth. The splash page is a generic
shot of Johnny riding to the rescue on his horse Black Lightning, with gun bla
zing. "Raze Ruin and his gang thought they could make an outlaw paradise of
Mesa City! One man stood in their way-- JOHNNY THUNDER! When they trapped
him, they thought they had won! But they didn't know until the battle at Blind
Man's Canyon of Johnny Thunder's UNSEEN ALLIES!" (Incidentally, one thing
making me think that last Texas Ranger story may be true is the bad guy having
the mundane name of Joe Freitas rather than something overtly villainous
like Raze Ruin or Doc Doom.)
Riding with his gang into the vicinity of Mesa City, "the only law west of
the Pecos," (I thought that was Judge Roy Bean), one-eyed Raze Ruin reflects
how the town would make a perfect base of operations if it weren't for the
town's pesky sheriff and his even peskier unofficial aide, Johnny Thunder. But
Raze has a plan to neutralize them. "We'll KIDNAP SOMEONE SPECIAL from Mesa
City and leave an easy trail t'foller!"-- and then lure the sheriff and
Johnny into an ambush. Meanwhile, in town, Sheriff Tane is engaged in an old
argument with his blond, bespectacled son John. The Sheriff wants John to
abandon "this woman's work o' teachin' kids" and join him as a lawman. But John
insists, "If these kids learn to keep law and order in schoo, it'll stay with
them all their lives! Sometimes WORDS are STRONGER than bullets, Dad!"
Unimpressed, the sheriff rides away snorting, "BAH! You're not fit to bear the
name of Tane!" Some time later, while preparing lessons for his class, the
schoolmaster is captured by Raze Ruin's mob. He puts up a better fight than
the gang expects-- "He mus' think HE'S JOHNNY THUNDER instead of a sissy
schoolmaster!" but is subdued and dragged along. Along the way, Tane keeps
whistling loudly, though "Whistlin' for help won't do yuh no good! Who'd yuh
expect to ride up... JOHNNY THUNDER?" Leaving John Tane tied up and under guard
in Dead Man's Canyon, Raze and his gang ride back to make sure the Sheriff and
Johnny Thunder are riding into their trap. The lone guard with a sadistic
streak removes John's gag to hear him "squeal for mercy", but instead of
squealing, he hears more whistling. And then, a fiery horse with the speed of
light....no, wait a minute, that's somebody else's horse. But anyway, a white
horse gallops up and head-butts the guard into unconsciousness. "I knew you'd
hear my whistle, Black Lightnin'" (Why is the horse Black Lightnin' if he's
white? Because of a black lightning-shaped blaze on his forehead.) "Now
you've got to untie my ropes before that owlhoot comes to!", and, in an animal
feat worthy of Rex the Wonder Dog, the horse does so. Leaving the guard
bound and blindfolded, John Tane assumes his other guise of Johnny Thunder-- for,
of course, Raze and gang never knew they had already captured one of the men
they sought to trap. Back in Mesa City, the gang attaches a taunting note
to the sheriff's office challenging the lawman to follow the trail and rescue
his son. Despite his lack of regard for his offspring, and the absence of
Johnny Thunder, Sheriff Tane sets off immediately; "'Tain't my son that's been
kidnapped, but the PEACE! The law's been challenged, and I'm hittin' back
for it!" Atop a high bluff, Johnny spots his father riding into ambush, but he
is too far away to help-- until he and Black Lightnin' take a long leap into
the river below. Surfacing safely, they join the sheriff, and Johnny tells
Tane that he has already freed his son (true, in a manner of speaking) but
now they both are caught in Raze Ruin's ambush. The Sheriff is shot from his
horse and Johnny is also thrown when Black Lightnin' takes a bullet. Firing
at the gang, Johnny gets one of them but falls to the ground himself. Two of
the outlaws approach him, only to find that he is playing possum and shoots
them down. Those are his last two bullets, though, and Raze Ruin himself
faces an unarmed foe; "Johnny Thunder's cold meat when he ain't got lead to
throw!" But, getting to his feet, Johnny advances boldly in the face of Raze's
loaded guns, haranguing him; "YOU CAN'T KILL ME, RAZE! I'M NOT A PERSON, I'M
AN IDEA! AND YOU CAN'T SHOOT AN IDEA! I'M FIGHTING FOR THE IDEA THAT MEN
CAN LIVE IN PEACE WITHOUT FEAR! IF I FALL A MILLION MEN ARE READY TO TAKE MY
PLACE! BUT MEN LIKE YOU-- ARE ALONE!" The discombobulated Raze finally
fires, but misses at point blank range, and is felled by Johnny's punch.
(Curiously, *all three* of the stories in this book involve the hero psyching the
bad-guy gunman out from using his gun in time, rather than outshooting the bad
guy. This doesn't exactly encourage the idea that good always wins over evil.
It more suggests that good wins over evil only when evil is too dumb to
shoot while it has the chance.) As Johnny patches the wounds of the Sheriff (and
his horse), the Sheriff gripes that he's going to have to apologize to his
son when he sees him. "He said WORDS CAN BE MIGHTIER THAN BULLETS -- 'n YOU
JUST PROVED IT!"
There were no further SHOWCASE issues of "Top Gun", though a few years
later, in 1971, DC published several "Super DC Giant" and "DC Special" issues of
Western reprints, and a couple of them carried the logo "Top Guns of the
West". And in 1973, there was a three-issue JOHNNY THUNDER reprint series and a
TRIGGER TWINS one-shot. But in the meantime, in issue #76, SHOWCASE did go
west again with an all-new feature, BAT LASH. That led to a series of its
own, which is regarded by many fans (including me) as a classic, but only lasted
seven issues. It took the grim'n'gritty Jonah Hex, starting in 1972, for DC
to find a Western star who was a long-term success. (And he *wasn't* in the
habit of facing down gunmen armed only with his sense of moral superiority.)
"Top Gun"-- a blanket title for reprints of Western stories from DC's
1940's-50's Western line. The cover by Russ Heath depicts gunslinging hero Johnny
Thunder shooting a silhouetted bad guy at point blank range (and it looks like
he's shooting him in the stomach, which is kind of nasty). According to the
cover blurb, "The Real Old West EXPLODES to Life Again! Featuring JOHNNY
THUNDER and the TRIGGER TWINS!"
Review by Bill Henley
By the latter part of 1967, when this book appeared, the Silver Age of
Superhero Comics was already showing signs of tarnish. The BATMAN TV show was no
longer a national craze and was heading towards cancellation in early '68.
The smaller comics publishers that had jumped on the superhero bandwagon were
jumping back off. And even DC, which started it all, was taking another
look at comics genres it had abandoned during the hero boom-- genres such as
horror, teen humor....and Westerns. I believe this SHOWCASE issue was DC's
first attempt to test-market a Western revival, though I don't know if the
issue's reprint content was an atttempt to do so on the cheap, or because (as
sometmes happened with SHOWCASE) something else planned for the issue fell through
at the last minute.
Even during the Western genre's comics heyday in the 1950's, DC wasn't
really a major player compared to other publishers such as Atlas-Marvel, Dell, and
ME (Magazine Enterprises). DC had a few licensed cowboy-star comics such as
DALE EVANS and JIMMY WAKELY in the late 40's, and HOPALONG CASSIDY (taken
over from Fawcett) in the mid to late 50's. And there was TOMAHAWK, which ran
unbroken through the 50's and 60's but wasn't really a conventional Western
(at least till the end; see my recent review of SON OF TOMAHAWK #131). But as
far as staright, original Western titles were concerned, DC was limited to
three anthology titles, ALL-AMERICAN WESTERN, which ran 1948-52 before
converting to a war book; ALL-STAR WESTERN, which broke diehard superhero fans'
hearts when it went west and evicted the JSA, and ran till 1961; and the
generically titled WESTERN COMICS, which ran 1948-61. The stories reprinted in this
SHOWCASE come from the ALL-AMERICAN and ALL-STAR titles.
First, we have the Trigger Twins, in "Sheriff on a Spot!", originally
published in ALL-STAR WESTERN #101 from 1958. The story was written by Robert
Kanigher, pencilled by Carmine Infantino and inked by Joe Giella. (Incidentally,
credits and original publication dates in this review are courtesy of the
Great Comic Book Database, which I finally figured out how to access...though
the artistic credits, at least, are pretty obvious.) On the splash page,
Sheriff Walt Trigger is confronting a shadowed gunman who is shooting at his feet
and warning, "Next shot-- I raise my sights!", but though he has lost his
own gun, the sheriff refuses to retreat; "Can't let the law fall-- before a
killer's guns!"
In a scene highly (and probably consciously) reminiscent of the classic
movie "High Noon", the assorted townspeople of Rocky City hide inside buildings
as their sheriff, Walt Trigger, waits for the arrival of a killer known as (no
kidding) Doc Doom on the 3:23 pm train from Pecos. Or *is* it Walt Trigger
waiting for the showdown? Evidently not, for in back of the general store
owned by his brother Wayne Trigger, the real sheriff thinks, "I've got to stop
that twin brother of mine from being a bull's eye target for me!" Dressed in
Wayne's civilian clothes, Walt goes out on the street and tries to dissuade
Wayne, who is wearing Walt's distinctive buckskin sheriff's outfit and badge,
from taking his place yet again. But Wayne insists; "The Sheriff of Rocky
City can't run from a killer sworn to get him-- the moment he's released from
prison!" "There is no Sheriff of Rocky City, Wayne-- since I've resigned!",
Walt points out. Not so; Wayne informs him; he tore up Walt's letter of
resignation before anyone saw it, and now he, Wayne, is going to uphold Walt's
reputation as "a hero-- a legend!" "You know I'm a fumbler, Wayne! You know
I'm just not good enough to tackle Doc Doom! I don't care about myself, but
it's not fit for the law to fall before Doc's guns!", Walt says, explaining
why he isn't facing the danger himself. Walt goes on to recount past exploits
of "his" which were actually made possible only by Wayne's secret help....
such as escaping from a quicksand bog while under fire from the "Cactus Gang".
Back in the present on the Rocky City street, Walt is about to carry out his
threat to resign publicly, when a young boy darts out to cheer him on; "No
badman can beat you, Sheriff Walt! All of us kids are going to be like you
when you grow up!" "Well, Walt? Want to break a kid's heart by resigning?"
his brother asks. Apparently not, for Walt agrees to change clothes with
Wayne again, and, clad in his official "uniform", take up the vigil for Doc Doom
himself.
"And then, like a black shadow spreading its wings across the prairie....the
3:53 FROM PECOS..." "A lone figure gets off-- before whom the prairie seems
to shrink... His face is the face of Doom (but no, it's not covered by a
metal mask)....His hands are the hands of Doom... His steps are...(well, you get
the idea). As Doc advances on his target, unknown to Walt, Wayne has
changed back into his duplicate sheriff's outfit, just in case Walt needs some
behind-the-scenes help. And it's a good thing, for Wayne soon discovers why Doc
Doom is so confident of victory; he has a couple of gang members backing him
up from hiding. Not wanting to attract attention by gunfire, Wayne allows
himself to be lassoed by the two gunmen, but then, "with a mighty effort,"
yanks them off their horses with their own ropes and "hurtles into them like a
twin-fisted thunderbolt," putting them out of action. But now, it is up to the
"fumbler" Walt to face Doc Doom himself. And at first he seems to justify
his own low opinion of himself, as his fast draw is too slow and the Doc shoots
his twin guns out of his hands. Doc shoots at the ground by Walt's feet
and orders the now unarmed sheriff to "Dance!" But no dancing for Walt today;
instead, he advances steadily toward the outlaw, repeating to himself
mentally, "Can't let the law fall-- before a killer's guns--!" Presumably all his
determination would be of little use if Doc actually fired at point-blank
range, but he is so unnerved by the lawman's fearless advance that he lets Walt
get close enough to take him out with a punch to the jaw. And so, Walt
justifies his young fan's confidence after all; "I told you no gunman could stop
you, Sheriff Walt!"
Though the series ran for nearly the whole run of ALL-STAR WESTERN, the
Trigger Twins had possibly one of the silliest premises of any Western strip, or
indeed any kind of strip. It was an example of writer Robert Kanigher's
tendency to take a premise and absolutely pound it into the ground. It never was
clear why the two brothers didn't do the sensible thing and exchange roles
permanently and publicly, with the crack-shot Wayne taking on the job of
sheriff and the well-meaning but inept Walt becoming a peaceable storekeeper.
(Another oddity was that when the series was cover-featured in ASW, the covers
invariably featured both twins in their identical sheriff outfits-- even
though the whole premise depended on their never being seen together in "uniform"!)
The next, short (3 page) feature is "Panhandle Terror!", an "Epic of the
Texas Rangers!", originally from ALL-AMERICAN WESTERN #125 published in 1951.
The artist-- and according to the GCD, the scripter as well-- is Joe Kubert.
On the splash panel, the figure of outlaw Joe Freitas stands with smoking
gun atop a symbolic outline of the state of Texas, shaking his fist and
warning, "I OWN TEXAS! And if anybody tries to stop me from collectin' my
rightful tribute-- I'LL KILL 'IM!" Freitas, it seems, may not have dominated the
whole state of Texas, but he cut a swathe in the Panhandle section. shooting
dead a prospector who refused him a share of his fiind, and burning the house
and barn of a recalcitrant rancher. The Texas Rangers', the state's
legendary police force, are out to get Freitas, since local lawmen have been unable
to bring him to book due to the reluctance of local witnesses to testify
against him. One Ranger promises he has a plan to bring Freitas in within two
weeks. "Several days later, along the Red River in the panhandle," Freitas
spots a prospector who looks like he has a good haul of gold nuggets. He accosts
the prospector, demanding, "I see you've done well on MY LAND... I'm here to
collect MY RENT!" When the prospector protests that the area is United
States territory, not "his" land, Freitas expresses his resentment; "IT'S MY
LAND! i tilled this Texas soil for years and it yielded me NOTHING! Now I'm
collecting for my labor...WITH INTEREST!" Suddenly, the prospector-- who is, of
course, the Ranger going undercover-- hurls the pebbles from his gold sluice
pan into Freitas' face; Here's PART of your land...CATCH!" Freitas's shot
goes wild and then, "in a blind rage," he rushes at the Ranger without his
gun; "I'LL TEAR YOU APART WITH MY BARE HANDS!" only to be taken out by a punch
from the Ranger; "You're not so much a terror when the odds are EVEN, are you,
Freitas?" "And so ended the reign of the Panhandle's terror... Ranger John
Kelson brought in his man, and Freitas paid his penalty-- IN FULL!" (This is
presented as if it were a true story, but I don't know if it actually is or
not.)
Finally, we have a tale of Johnny Thunder-- the double-identity Western
gunslinger, of course, not the earlier dimwit JSA'er with the magic Thunderbolt.
The story is "Unseen Allies!" from ALL-AMERICAN WESTERN #104, 1948 (just a
couple of issues after that title went all-Western and dumped Green Lantern),
written by Kanigher and drawn by Alex Toth. The splash page is a generic
shot of Johnny riding to the rescue on his horse Black Lightning, with gun bla
zing. "Raze Ruin and his gang thought they could make an outlaw paradise of
Mesa City! One man stood in their way-- JOHNNY THUNDER! When they trapped
him, they thought they had won! But they didn't know until the battle at Blind
Man's Canyon of Johnny Thunder's UNSEEN ALLIES!" (Incidentally, one thing
making me think that last Texas Ranger story may be true is the bad guy having
the mundane name of Joe Freitas rather than something overtly villainous
like Raze Ruin or Doc Doom.)
Riding with his gang into the vicinity of Mesa City, "the only law west of
the Pecos," (I thought that was Judge Roy Bean), one-eyed Raze Ruin reflects
how the town would make a perfect base of operations if it weren't for the
town's pesky sheriff and his even peskier unofficial aide, Johnny Thunder. But
Raze has a plan to neutralize them. "We'll KIDNAP SOMEONE SPECIAL from Mesa
City and leave an easy trail t'foller!"-- and then lure the sheriff and
Johnny into an ambush. Meanwhile, in town, Sheriff Tane is engaged in an old
argument with his blond, bespectacled son John. The Sheriff wants John to
abandon "this woman's work o' teachin' kids" and join him as a lawman. But John
insists, "If these kids learn to keep law and order in schoo, it'll stay with
them all their lives! Sometimes WORDS are STRONGER than bullets, Dad!"
Unimpressed, the sheriff rides away snorting, "BAH! You're not fit to bear the
name of Tane!" Some time later, while preparing lessons for his class, the
schoolmaster is captured by Raze Ruin's mob. He puts up a better fight than
the gang expects-- "He mus' think HE'S JOHNNY THUNDER instead of a sissy
schoolmaster!" but is subdued and dragged along. Along the way, Tane keeps
whistling loudly, though "Whistlin' for help won't do yuh no good! Who'd yuh
expect to ride up... JOHNNY THUNDER?" Leaving John Tane tied up and under guard
in Dead Man's Canyon, Raze and his gang ride back to make sure the Sheriff and
Johnny Thunder are riding into their trap. The lone guard with a sadistic
streak removes John's gag to hear him "squeal for mercy", but instead of
squealing, he hears more whistling. And then, a fiery horse with the speed of
light....no, wait a minute, that's somebody else's horse. But anyway, a white
horse gallops up and head-butts the guard into unconsciousness. "I knew you'd
hear my whistle, Black Lightnin'" (Why is the horse Black Lightnin' if he's
white? Because of a black lightning-shaped blaze on his forehead.) "Now
you've got to untie my ropes before that owlhoot comes to!", and, in an animal
feat worthy of Rex the Wonder Dog, the horse does so. Leaving the guard
bound and blindfolded, John Tane assumes his other guise of Johnny Thunder-- for,
of course, Raze and gang never knew they had already captured one of the men
they sought to trap. Back in Mesa City, the gang attaches a taunting note
to the sheriff's office challenging the lawman to follow the trail and rescue
his son. Despite his lack of regard for his offspring, and the absence of
Johnny Thunder, Sheriff Tane sets off immediately; "'Tain't my son that's been
kidnapped, but the PEACE! The law's been challenged, and I'm hittin' back
for it!" Atop a high bluff, Johnny spots his father riding into ambush, but he
is too far away to help-- until he and Black Lightnin' take a long leap into
the river below. Surfacing safely, they join the sheriff, and Johnny tells
Tane that he has already freed his son (true, in a manner of speaking) but
now they both are caught in Raze Ruin's ambush. The Sheriff is shot from his
horse and Johnny is also thrown when Black Lightnin' takes a bullet. Firing
at the gang, Johnny gets one of them but falls to the ground himself. Two of
the outlaws approach him, only to find that he is playing possum and shoots
them down. Those are his last two bullets, though, and Raze Ruin himself
faces an unarmed foe; "Johnny Thunder's cold meat when he ain't got lead to
throw!" But, getting to his feet, Johnny advances boldly in the face of Raze's
loaded guns, haranguing him; "YOU CAN'T KILL ME, RAZE! I'M NOT A PERSON, I'M
AN IDEA! AND YOU CAN'T SHOOT AN IDEA! I'M FIGHTING FOR THE IDEA THAT MEN
CAN LIVE IN PEACE WITHOUT FEAR! IF I FALL A MILLION MEN ARE READY TO TAKE MY
PLACE! BUT MEN LIKE YOU-- ARE ALONE!" The discombobulated Raze finally
fires, but misses at point blank range, and is felled by Johnny's punch.
(Curiously, *all three* of the stories in this book involve the hero psyching the
bad-guy gunman out from using his gun in time, rather than outshooting the bad
guy. This doesn't exactly encourage the idea that good always wins over evil.
It more suggests that good wins over evil only when evil is too dumb to
shoot while it has the chance.) As Johnny patches the wounds of the Sheriff (and
his horse), the Sheriff gripes that he's going to have to apologize to his
son when he sees him. "He said WORDS CAN BE MIGHTIER THAN BULLETS -- 'n YOU
JUST PROVED IT!"
There were no further SHOWCASE issues of "Top Gun", though a few years
later, in 1971, DC published several "Super DC Giant" and "DC Special" issues of
Western reprints, and a couple of them carried the logo "Top Guns of the
West". And in 1973, there was a three-issue JOHNNY THUNDER reprint series and a
TRIGGER TWINS one-shot. But in the meantime, in issue #76, SHOWCASE did go
west again with an all-new feature, BAT LASH. That led to a series of its
own, which is regarded by many fans (including me) as a classic, but only lasted
seven issues. It took the grim'n'gritty Jonah Hex, starting in 1972, for DC
to find a Western star who was a long-term success. (And he *wasn't* in the
habit of facing down gunmen armed only with his sense of moral superiority.)
