Weird West
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Weird West is used to describe a combination of the Western with another genre, usually horror, occult, or fantasy. It was coined to describe the Deadlands role-playing game, and the specific phrase "Weird West" is trademarked by Pinnacle Entertainment Group. However, the weird Western has earlier roots and the phrase is now used more widely to describe the setting of such tales.
DC's Weird Western Tales appeared in the early 1970s and the weird Western was further popularised by Joe R. Lansdale who "is best known for his tales of the 'weird west,' a genre mixing splatterpunk with alternate history Western almost entirely defined by the author in the early nineties. His work reads a little like the sort of folklore in which Mark Twain dabbled (or the gothic in which Flannery O'Connor was involved), but with zombies and gore."
Examples of these cross-genres include Deadlands (Western/horror), Wild Wild West (Western/steampunk), Jonah Hex (Western/superhero), Firefly (Western/space opera), BraveStarr (Western/science fiction) and many others.
Background
Cowboys and gunfighters are iconic American heroes and using them as heroes in other milieus was only natural. The Western uses themes that are compatible with the themes found in other genres. Like science fiction stories set on distant planets, Westerns use the themes of unknown wilderness and the survival of pioneers. Westerns also offer stories of struggles to maintain social order in a lawless environment.
This leads naturally into the science fiction Western where anachronistic science is injected into a Western setting usually in a steampunk manner. Given that space is the final frontier it is also unsurprising that the themes that originated in Westerns re-appear in science fiction too, resulting in the space Western.
The supernatural menaces of horror fiction are easy to inject into this setting, creating the horror Western. Writer G.W. Thomas has described how the two combine: "Unlike many other cross-genre tales, the weird Western uses both elements but with very little loss of distinction. The Western setting is decidedly 'Western' and the horror elements are obviously 'horror.'" [4]
The superhero Western grew out of the horror Western as Jonah Hex first made an appearance in Weird Western Tales before getting his eponymous own series which went very weird in the hands of leading Weird West author Joe R. Lansdale. Hex has appeared alongside more obvious superheroes and has inspired other stories in which the JLA are shown in the wild west (in the animated series and in the Elseworlds outting Justice Riders). Recently, Marvel have introduced their own Western superhero in the shape of Vegas.
The Weird West also accommodates less easily classified genres including alternate history, speculative fiction and more fantastical elements.
If anything, the Weird West genre is becoming more popular. It shows the potential to inject new life at a time when few authors are working with traditional Western stories. Jeff Mariotte's comic book series Desperadoes has been running, of and on, for a decade now and he still remains bullish about the genre:
As far as Mariotte is concerned, the potential for Weird West stories is limitless. “The West was a weird place. There are ghost towns and haunted mines and when you bring Native American beliefs into it, then the possibilities are even greater.”
TV
In the 1960s, the television series The Wild Wild West brought elements of spy stories and science fiction to the Old West. The cartoon adventures of the Lone Ranger followed suit by pitting the famous Western hero against mad scientists and other villains not often found in Western stories. Rod Serling was fond of Westerns and often used them as settings for his The Twilight Zone stories. Kung Fu, which followed the adventures of a fugitive Shaolin monk armed only with the show title's eponymous martial arts skill, is another famous example of an unorthodox Western. But arguably one of the earliest minor examples on the small screen was the anachronistic appearance of the WWII-vintage Jeep "Nellybelle" in the supposedly 19th century adventures of Roy Rogers during his 1950's television series.
Examples include:
- The Wild Wild West (1965-1969)
- Cliffhangers: "The Secret Empire" (1979)
- Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs (1984)
- The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers (1986)
- BraveStarr (1987)
- Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa (1992-1994)
- The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr (1993-1994)
- Legend (TV series)|Legend (1995)
- Cowboy Bebop (1998)
- Trigun (1998)
- Firefly (2002)
- Justice League Unlimited: "The Once and Future Thing, Part 1: Weird Western Tales" (2005)
Comics
In comic books a number of heroes had adventures involving monsters, aliens, and costumed supervillains. Marvel Comics characters such as Kid Colt, Rawhide Kid, and Two-Gun Kid all had such adventures. Where Marvel went in for supervillains, DC Comics added more of a horror element to their stories such as Jonah Hex. The DC character Tomahawk could also be termed a hero of the Weird West, though his adventures were set in the colonies during the time of the American Revolution.
The Amalgam Comics crossover between DC and Marvel produced only one Weird West title, a one-shot Generation Hex: "Humanity's Last Stand" (Jonah Hex crossed with Generation X - mutants in the Old West) but as well as actual titles they also created wider fictional backstories to set them in. So in this case they suggested Amalgam had a whole genre line called "Malformed West" which had been popular and seen a resurgence of interest in the nineties with (fictional) titles including Weird Western Mutant Tales.
