Is the western making a comeback? Maybe so, if you consider that within the last two weeks, DC has published new first issues of Jonah Hex and the Azzarello/Frusin western Loveless, and Deadwood is a buzz-worthy series on HBO. It's still a fringe genre, but it's healthier than it's probably been in a while. This isn't the first time that DC has given the western genre a push, though. Several years ago, Joe R. Lansdale and Tim Truman created an excellent pair of Vertigo miniseries surrounding Jonah Hex, and shortly thereafter, John Ostrander teamed with two of his favorite artists to create The Kents, ostensibly a look at Superman's western ancestors but really just a spectacularly well-researched and beautifully told Civil War/western epic.
This isn't just a comic-book western, or a translation of Hollywood sensibility westerns into comic-book form. This is a story of two brothers, representative of part of a family, played against the backdrop of exhaustively researched, colorful history. The story takes place in a variety of locations throughout the American West during the late 1800s, but it is mostly centered on Kansas, telling the story of how the Kents (ancestors to Superman's human parents Jonathan and Martha Kent) came to be in Kansas. The Superman tie-in is there not just as a promotional concern, but also because, as Ostrander states in the introduction, it "provided a focus for the story." The narrative follows two brothers, Jebediah and Nathaniel Kent, as they move to Kansas with their father and grow up in the middle of a developing Civil War. Nathaniel and Jeb split, as many families did, during this time, allowing the readers to experience the Abolitionist and Pro-Slavery sides of the Kansas-Missouri prelude to the Civil War, the Union and Confederate sides of the war itself, and the side of law and outlaw when the war ends.
Throughout the tale, in addition to the personal story of the Kent family, we are also introduced to a variety of characters pulled from history and from DC's mythology. Ostrander did a lot of research for this story, and it shows, as he places the characters in a realistic setting that makes the whole thing feel more like a historic narrative than a fictional story. It reads like a history book more than a dime novel, but it never gets too dry or boring. In large part, this is due to the clever narrative structure that Ostrander uses. The story has a framing device that finds Jonathan Kent with all the letters and mementos of the Kent family, which he shares by mail with his son Clark. The result is that all the narration is done by letter, whether it is by Jonathan (sometimes filling in historical detail that the past Kents wouldn't know), Nathaniel, Jeb, another of the Kents, or the other characters who enter the story. It makes the whole thing feel like a story of people as well as the story of a part of the nation.
The characters are what make the story move. While the historical detail on battles and organizations are interesting, the heart of the story belongs to the divergent paths that Nathaniel and Jeb take, and the people they meet along the way. Ostrander deftly interweaves a number of real historical figures into this story without making it feel like he's overloading or showing off, and does the same with the sparse DC western cameos, notably Jonah Hex and Scalphunter.
Neither man is portrayed as perfect, and Nathaniel makes his own mistakes while Jeb has his moments of doing the right thing. Nate develops his own quests throughout the book, whether it be tracking down his brother, finding the freed slave who he befriended before he was kidnapped or falling in love with a half-indian woman, just as Jeb does, riding with the notorious William Quantrill and, in turn, the equally infamous Jesse James. In fact, while Nate is unquestionably the hero of the piece, the tone of the book is very much a "warts and all" look at the West, finding brutal and horrific actions on both sides of the war, and showing that sometimes revenge and justice got very confused.
In addition, it never escapes the attention of the creative team that this is a comic book, not a novella. The artwork, first by Truman and then, in the last third of the book, by Mandrake, gives as much a feel for the dusty, lawless lands and the violent, bloody action as the narrative does. Seeing the actions of the people in the letters, sometimes reflecting the letters entirely, sometimes giving them a different slant as we see the reality versus the writer's perception, adds another dimension to the story. And inker Michael Bair, who works with Truman, puts a polish on Truman's style that makes the whole thing feel real, particularly when it comes to the spookily accurate reflections of photos from famous individuals of that time. Mandrake doesn't have the same realism, but what he lacks there he makes up for with the same sense of haunting atmosphere that he brought to The Spectre (also with Ostrander) and the powerful lines of expression he puts in the aging Nathaniel Kent's face.
This is a nice collection, with an introduction by the author, but I found myself disappointed that DC didn't throw a few extras in. This is the kind of series that begs for historical annotations of who everyone is, when everything took place and that kind of thing. At any rate, though, if you're in a western mood these days after checking out Deadwood, Jonah Hex or Loveless, take a stroll through the graphic novel shelves and pick up The Kents. And if you find yourself craving more Ostrander western after that, you might also check out his work on Marvel's western characters with Blaze of Glory and Apache Skies.
