East of West #13

Thirteen:  Dead Lands Comin'
written by Jonathan Hickman
art by Nick Dragotta
colors by Frank Martin

If the Ranger is a crack sniper, one of few more than a handful that could take off Cheveyo's head from 96 kilometers away—"And, bless their lethal souls...they've all long departed this mortal plane" (East of West #13: 7)—Death is a supernatural one, even with only the one eye and a revolver.  Death's predictably angered by the Ranger's interference, another obstacle in his search for his son.  Their brawl, a rather petulant display of mutually inflicted retribution, as though a little ass-kicking could satisfy or redress the inconvenience, is more braggadocio and hot air, but it's also a slick, humorous, Old West-styled introduction of two men who might just as easily be allies as adversaries.

The other unintended consequence of Cheveyo's assassination:  He was killed in the dead lands, at the border between this world and the other, and whatever the intent of the bullet, it paid the blood price to open the door.  It takes an uncharacteristic exposition dump to establish the rules and the stakes, and it feels a little out of place in Hickman's typically rich but spartan prose.  But it's a fine, very fine and tender exchange between Wolf and Crow, one mourning the death of his father, the other regretfully begging for his help to ward off the coming beasts.  When she gently lifts his face, she gasps at his newly tear-stained face now perfectly mirroring her own, the tattoo of a pain we don't yet know.

"Your father left something of his soul here in the waking world.  It will grow and gather the balance from the ether.  HUAARRK!   In death... he's deceived us all... He's eluded our grasp and paying his due... And he's tricked you in offering up your soul."  (23)

As the dead soul takes the dead witch's body, stalking away with his new bone-skull body, Wolf surrenders something perhaps more than he realizes.

[July 2014]