Welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders Presents: East of West, Issue #1 – “Out of the Wasteland”!

And welcome to Ghostliness & Nerfherders in general! It’s a new feature dedicated to documenting my comic book reading journey with respect to the not-entirely-mainstream fantasy, sci-fi, horror, mystery, and thriller series on independent and lesser-known publishers.

For Marvel and DC superhero stuff, that will continue to be Loneliness & Cheeseburgers. I want to keep this shit separate, son.

I begin with East of West from Image Comics. I don’t know anything about it except that it’s supposed to be good, and that’s good enough for me. Here’s the brief synopsis per its official Image Comics webpage:

“A Sci-Fi Western set in a dystopian America where all hope for the future rests in the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse…who just happen to be trying to kill the President of the United States.”

Whoa mama! I’m moist in the undercarriage already! East of West ended its run on Christmas Day, 2019, after 45 issues. There was also a stand-alone story called “The World” that fits in right after this particular story arc.

Without further ado (because saying “without further ado” just furthers the ados), let the ghostliness and the nerfherders commence.

East of West, Issue #1 [March, 2013]
Written by: Jonathan Hickman
“Out of the Wasteland”

“This is the world. It’s not the one we were supposed to have, but it’s the one we made. We did this. We did it with open eyes and willing hands. We broke it, and there is no putting it back together.”

The first scene shows some Stonehenge-looking arrangement of rocky pillars surrounding a round Zelda: Ocarina of Time Temple of Light-style stone platform. You know exactly what the fuck I’m talking about, nerd. Don’t even pretend.

A big, spherical electric burst of light suddenly emanates from the thing with a cartoony “KRAKA BOOM”. Creepy, nude, childlike zombie things burst through the ground at three out of the four triangle-shaped spots around the perimeter of the platform. One of them is reddish, one is blueish, and one is yellowish. The fourth triangle-shaped spot remains intact. Another one didn’t show up!

Ah, I know this place. Bust out your ocarina!

“This isn’t right. He should be here.” says Red. They’re all panicky and confused. They roll some random bones and objects on the ground, which makes it clear to them, somehow, that it is indeed true. The fourth one is gone. Now it is just the three of them.

Red declares that they must now kill the fourth one, and the world can follow.

CHILLING!

Prologue over! The comic jumps into some fake Civil War history: a dude named Elijah Longstreet became some evangelist prophet after spending time in Stonewall Jackson’s confederate army. A year later, a Native American chief dude named Red Cloud was chiefing around and something called the Endless Indian Nation was created. There was much fighting! Oh man, the fighting! So much fighting. Fighting for decades! And then a comet came and hit Earth.

This cosmic catastrophe spurred an agreement among the Native American tribes and the buttfucking white people. November 9, 1908, the Seven Nations of America was born. “It was the third most important thing to happen that day.”

The second most important? Prophet Elijah Longstreet pens the Second Book of Revelation.

The most important? Red Cloud shares a vision he had with other chieftains. We, the reading audience, don’t get to know what the vision was yet. But it’s the most important thing to happen on that day, and don’t you forget it!

Also, both Prophet Longstreet and Red Cloud collapsed and died that day! LOL!

This event is known as “the Message”. Longstreet wrote it. Red Cloud spoke it. Two pieces of a puzzle stymieing historians for nigh on 50 years! UNTIL TODAY!

And that “today” was when Chairman Mao, yes THAT Chairman Mao (do you know any other Chairman Maos?), wrote some extra shit in his Little Red Book while on his deathbed. This extra shit was the third, and final, piece of the puzzle. The final bits of the Message. The story of the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine).

Really, a Triforce? Are you kidding me?

“Then there was a lone man. A broken sparrow. One apart. A son of Night. The first of four. The end of everything.”

CUT TO THE PRESENT! Whatever the “present” may be, who the hell knows? It still looks like the past to me! It looks like the Old West, in fact, with some steampunky future shit around. A mysterious figure and two companions enter a saloon called the Atlas. The barkeep asks what they’ll have, and the figure asks for “three of the Blue”.

Once the barkeep realizes what these three new guests look like, he starts faltering and stammering. “It don’t matter one bit who’s vouchin’ for the unclean, I’m afraid their kind get no service here.”

Keep it coming, barkeep. I’m losing color over here.

These mysterious monochrome guests draw the ire of the ugly-ass American Union soldiers who comprise the rest of the bar’s clientele. “Gentleman. Soldiers.” toasts the so-far-unnamed cowboy guy, “To the fall of empires, and the illusion of republic.”

The soldiers look like nothing has ever pissed them off quite as much as this toast has today, but obviously Wolf and Crow and Mr. Cowboy Bebop are not the kind of folk you just start fucking with in a saloon, know what I mean?

The barkeep KINDLY (and by “KINDLY” I mean it looks like his eyes are twitching out of their sockets) reminds his guests that the bar is full of Union soldiers and to please stop being so motherfucking deranged. At this point, some of the Union soldiers collect their testicles and start approaching these scary black and white mofos.

One points an ugly finger at Wolf, the big tall Native American chief. “This here is the modern world, and progress has a way of rolling right over the indigineous. Understand me? Chief.”

Something fucked up is now happening to the Union soldier. Cowboy’s back is turned to the carnage, but the barkeep looks on wide-eyed like Hank Hill was just told by Bobby that he’s wearing a dress to the middle school dance! “Now that…is a fierce look of dread your face is wearin’. You see somethin’ scary? That’s okay. It’s all right to be afraid — you should be. As these are fear-producin’ times.” Cowboy tells the barkeep nonchalantly. He shotguns the three little drinks and sets down the empty glasses on the bar one at a time. He tells the barkeep that this land was once whole, now it’s broken. And the fear lives in the cracks between the broken pieces. It’s very much real.

Welp, there goes my lunch.

But there are things even worse than fear. Cowboy forces the barkeep to look at him in his steely blue eyes, and recognition sets in. Even the barkeep’s eyeball recognizes him! It plumb jumped out of the barkeep’s eye socket, it did!

The rest of the patrons have been massacred. The saloon looks like a dang mass grave.

Cowboy Jones sticks his gun in the barkeep’s mouth and warns him not to say his name out loud…because if you say his name, he will show up. And he wouldn’t want that unless he really, really meant it.

Crow speaks up for the first time. “This place is not what it seems. Something is hidden here.”

Cowboy JimBob says he doesn’t give a shit, he already has what he came here for. He’s got the barkeep’s head pressed against the bar, gun right at his temple. Not a good day for this poor sucker, that’s for sure. Cowboy Curtis calls him “Hunter” and asks if he really thought he could hide from him. Hunter stutters and desperately tries to talk his way out of getting his brains blown across the whole establishment! Says he’ll give him anything! Cowboy Woody says pffffffft. He can’t give him what he really wants (sex).

So Hunter bargains some more: “I could give you the next best thing — who hired me.” At this, Cowboy Red Ryder says pffffffft again, but Hunter shakily hands him a piece of paper with a list of names and predicts that he’s going to get killed anyway.

Cowboy Annie Oakley thinks about this for a second.

“Crossed me once and lived. That’s mercy you won’t find again. Remember that.”

Then they leave. As they head out, Crow informs Hunter that she would’ve taken his eyes. Probably would’ve just pecked them right out of his head!

The monochrome threesome discuss their agenda. Something about White Tower, “Bones and Bonded”, and the Chalice (which is hidden somewhere and perhaps it’s something the three of them are looking for). Cowboy Smokey Joe only recognizes two names on the list. He instructs the other two to find him the other names on the list, and they’ll meet “on the second day at the Golden Bridge”. He gets on his giant robot bughorse and hoofs off.

Yee-haw!

We get a nearly blank-paged spread showing the upside-down Triforce with the following caption: “2064: THE APOCALYPSE: YEAR ONE”

We return to the three rude children from the beginning of the issue. They are clad in clothes now, at least! They’re sitting and standing on top of a pile of corpses and/or not-yet-corpses?

A.J. Soprano is right, let’s fit ’em all with cement shoes and feed them to the fishes.

Red says “I hate this part.” Yellow says “Killing people? It’s kinda what we do. I like this part. The Killing.” Red says that he/she is talking about the rebirth part. The whole being-a-child thing they have to do before the transition. It’s not savory! Blue says he loves it. It blindsides the people to get all murdered by a six-year-old!

Red says that’s all well and good for Famine and Conquest, but what about him?! Her?! It?! War! Red is War. For 1500 years, War was a glorious warrior with “amazing lady parts”. And now War is stuck in the body of a “dirty little boy”. Shit sucks!

Something moves within the pile of dead bodies. It’s an alive body! One that’s not dead yet! Oh rats, they missed one!

They start fucking with the guy. He asks for help, but Blue asks him if he knows any good jokes. Yellow and Blue do a knock-knock joke in front of him.

“Knock Knock.”
“Who’s there?”
“The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”
“And then he would say ‘Four Horsemen who…’ and then there’s a funny bit at the end.”
“Got it?”
“Jokes.”

The not-dead-yet guy gibbers. “But…but…there’s only three of you.”

The three of them are not happy to hear this. They do a bit of curb-stompin’.

Crunchin’ skulls in the Bone Yard. Ahh, it’s great to be alive.

The scene pans out to show that the corpses are arranged in that Triforce symbol.

THE WHITE TOWER! The White Tower is next. We’re at the White Tower now. It’s huge and cylindrical and creepy. There are a bunch of futuristic hover-vehicles flying around it.

The White Tower is the future White House, the residence of the American President of America of the United States of Future America! Cowboy Whozits shows up at the Oval Office. “Hello, Mister President.” he says to the frowning leader of the free world. The President looks like Keith Morrison from Dateline NBC, but not as horny about murder. He asks Mr. Cowboy who he is and how he got in here, and Mr. Cowboy tells him to keep racking his brains. “It’ll come to you.”

You mean YOUR VIRGINITY!!?! HA!!

Cowboy makes himself at home and sits up on the President’s desk. After waxing philosophical about the fragility of the republic, he asks the President if he believes in Hell. This angers the President! “HURBLURHRBRHURBRUB!” he says! Eventually, he tries to run out of the room, but the hallway is riddled with dead soldiers. As the President attempts to trudge his way through the bodies, Cowboy Texas Jack shoots him in the leg.

After Mr. Cowboy informs the President that he took something from him in the Badlands. Finally, finally the President knows who he is. He looks at him in horror and disbelief. “You? We killed you.” he says, looking more and more like a demented Gary Busey with each passing panel. “No, what you did was worse.” Cowboy Lone Ranger grits through his angry teeth.

Cowboy gets right in his face and tells him he has a message. He has been called many names: Abaddon. The Reaper. Fool’s Bane. The Grey Walker. He tells the President to say his real name. Now! Do it! Do it! Spit it out, son!

Death. The Cowboy’s name is Death. Good, because I was running out of cowboy names.

Then he shoots the President so many times that his head is completely gone from the rest of his body. “You wanted the End Times? Well here they are” he thinks as he strolls away.

Final Thoughts

This is fucking excellent so far. We’ll see where it goes, I’ve read a fair amount of apocalypse-related fiction in my day! The bar is high for apocalypse fiction.

Looking forward to seeing just how not-Marvel/DC this is going to get. Maybe we’ll get some titties! I bet Death has a nice pair just waiting to be set free.