All Star Western #6

Bat, Giant. Frequency: Uncommon. No. Appearing: 3-18. Armour Class: 8. Move: 3"/18". Hit Dice: 1-4 hit points or 1. % in lair: 50%. Treasure Type: Nil. No. of Attacks: 1. Damage/Attack: 1-2 or 1-4. Special Attacks: Nil. Special Defences: See below. Magic Resistance: Standard. Intelligence: Non-. Alignment: Neutral. Size: S. Psionic Ability: Nil. Attack/Defence Modes: Nil. Level/X.P. Value: I/5 + 1 per hit point or I/10 + 1 per hit point.

I had to dig out the Fiend Folio to find a Giant Bat. How the hell could a Giant Bat be overlooked in the first Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual? Some Module writer or Dragon Magazine writer had to make one up. You know Dungeon Masters were demanding it. They probably made up their own while waiting for some official version. And I'm willing to bet all of the homemade versions of Giant Bats were way more bad-ass than this official version. This Giant Bat sucks! 1-4 or 1 hit point?! Really? A normal sized fucking bat is going to have 1 hit point! Wait wait wait. I'm digging out Monster Manual II now.

Ordinary Bat. Same armor class (except without the 'u' in armour). 1-2 hit points! So I guess it's half the size of a giant bat. Meaning a giant bat is really more of a fat, overfed bat. An ordinary bat is the same size, S. You would think the Giant Bat would be an L. It does only 1 point of damage which is half as much as the wimpy Giant Bat. I think somebody really fucked up on the official version of the Giant Bat. I'm sure absolutely nobody ever used one with those stats.

Now let's see if Jonah Hex can easily defeat this Giant Bat attacking him and Amadeus Arkham. I think Jonah Hex is at least Level Six, so he should take care of it with a casual backhand.

Okay, it took a hit from a torch (improvised weapon, negligible damage), a kick (probably 1-3 damage) and a punch (again, 1-3 damage) to take it out. This must have been one of those 4 hit point Giant Bats. Which means 40 XP for Jonah Hex!

The underground natives are impressed by Jonah Hex's ability to kill one of the weakest monsters ever created in Dungeons and Dragons. This whole underground tribe must be Level 0 Natives. Since Jonah Hex managed to kill such an enormous threat to their people, they show him and Amadeus the way out. A giant hole hundreds of feet above their heads with vines hanging down. Time to start climbing!

The hole opens up in the backyard of Wayne Manor. What a surprise!

Luckily, the Waynes are a few of the nice people of Gotham. Nice People of Gotham: Frequency: Very Rare.

The Waynes suggest going to the police and for once, Jonah Hex agrees with this plan. Does he agree because someone other than Amadeus Arkham suggested it? I think he agrees to this plan because that big fat child kidnapper still has Hex's guns and what the fuck is Hex going to do without his guns? Bringing the police in at least gives Jonah some borrowed guns. And possibly he was deputized as well. Wait. Was he already deputized? I don't think so. The original sheriff hated him. But now that sheriff is dead because he wouldn't join the Crime Bible Criminals. I wonder who the new sheriff is?

This is the song I hear in my head during this scene entire raid.

While Amadeus helps corral the kids, Jonah Hex goes after his hat. While he's recovering his hat, he tortures the fat guy and asks him about Thurston Moody's kid.

It doesn't make sense to me either! I hope the next few pages will be exposition telling me why the story I just read occurred!

Jonah Hex tracks down the family he met at the orphanage with the sick boy that escaped the mines. They kidnapped Thurston Moody's kid because nobody cared about poor or orphaned kids disappearing. They didn't hurt the boy and the boy acted as if it were nothing more than a vacation. But the parents knew that people would listen if a rich kid's son went missing.

I just took a look back at Issue #4 to see how this all started since remembering this shit is sometimes hard. Thurston Moody was the guy who first approached Jonah Hex to find his missing child and he offered Hex 50,000 dollars for the job. It was at that moment that I should have realized Moody was lying! No way Hex was going to earn fifty thousand dollars! And the only way Hex wouldn't get the money is if Moody were a big fat stinking liar. Because everyone knew Hex was going to get the job done once he accepted.

Sean and Moody's kid have gotten close during the kidnapping. But Sean, the poor people's child that escaped and gave Jonah all of the information he needed to find the children forced into building Gotham's sewers, dies. And Hex tells Moody's kid that it was his father's fault that Sean is dead.

I don't know enough about Gotham's major players. Is Moody a big name in the present? I bet the name was in the list of people the Talons are killing and I just don't remember. It's probably a name I've read multiple times but I've just forgotten. Or it's nothing. But I doubt it's nothing!

When the boy is brought back to his mother, Jonah Hex and Amadeus Arkham discover that Moody has fled to New Orleans. Jonah fixes to go after him for two reasons: Moody promised him money and the trip will get Hex the fuck out of Gotham. Road trip!

The Barbary Ghost back-up story ends with Yanmei Tsen (the Barbary Ghost!) killing the man who killed most of her family. But while doing this, she learns that her mother is still alive and has been sold to a circus as a prostitute. That's a pretty good attraction! So the story ends with The Barbary Ghost and her grandfather riding off to search for Yanmei's mother.

All Star Western #6 Rating: No change. Next issue is going to introduce Nighthawk and Cinnamon to Jonah Hex's adventures. I wish I knew more about DC's cavalcade of western heroes. If only I had my old Who's Who comics with me, I could probably look up a lot of these characters. I guess I could look them up online but that just doesn't interest me as much as digging through old comic book boxes to pull out comics I haven't looked at in over twenty years. The main story was decent enough. But the back-up story has been really vanilla. I'm hoping for something a little more exciting next time.