A Yank and a Reb

cover art by Sam Savitt

Dell Comics would often use their anthology book Four Color to try out new characters. Many times,these characters generated enough sales to spin off into their own books. Sometimes, though, good characters in strong stories simply didn't catch on and their one or two Four Color appearances were all they got before disappearing into Comic Book Limbo.

Four Color #779 (March 1957) was the first of two issues featuring Lee Hunter, a former Yankee calvary officer and Reb Stuart, who fought in the Confederate calvary. After the war, the two men end up working together--Lee as a scout and Reb taking care of the horses--at Fort Defiance, deep in the heart of Indian territory. Despite the almost embarassing lack of originality in giving Reb a name, the premise was a good one, the stories (by an uncredited writer) are strong and the art (by Ray Bailey) is clean and effective.

{NOTE: A very knowledgeable member of a Facebook group about Dell & Gold Key comics makes a very compelling case that the Ray Bailey credit (found on the Grand Comics Database) is incorrect and that the artist is Mike Roy, with inks by Mike Peppe.}

The two returned a little over a year later in another issue of Four Color, but apparently sales weren't strong enough to spin them off into their own series. But good characters should not be completely forgotten, so we'll look at their origin story today, then return every two or three weeks to examine the rest of their adventures.

Lee and Reb meet at a waterhole while both are heading out West to for respective fresh starts. Reb is pretty open about his dislike for Yankees and the two men are soon trying to one-upmanship each other in a horse race. This is interrupted, though, when they run into Sioux wearing war paint.

This leads to a very well-constructed action sequence that is both exciting and used to introduce us to important facets of both men. We learn that Lee knows the Indians--their customs and tactics--and Reb knows horses. Also, despite Reb being a bit of an arrogant jerk, he does save Lee's life.

The sequence ends with the two men capturing a Sioux named Standing Bear, who is on the warpath because he wants to kill the chief of another tribe. That chief had killed Standing Bear's father. Since the commander at Fort Defiance is trying to get all the tribes together for a peace conference, this is a particularly dangerous situation.

That commander, Colonel Frost, was Lee's commanding officer during the war. Lee doesn't want to re-up in the Calvary--he doesn't want to deal with the spit and polish any more--but he's happy to take a job as civilian scout. Reb hires on to take care of the horses.

The bulk of the story involves efforts to keep the peace conference going despite Standing Bear's efforts at assassination. When an attempt by Lee to meet with the Sioux doesn't work out, Reb figures that a little "Southern Dash" is needed, but this just leads to getting himself captured. This, though, gives Lee an opportunity to save Reb and resolve the whole Standing Bear mess. The peace conference goes on and the story ends with Lee and Reb... well, actually it ends with them still disliking each other, but willing to work together.

Reb's arrogance and non-stop bad temper is probably a little overdone and--after the story had taken pains to tell us he's an intelligent and capable person--getting himself captured was a moment of plot-driven stupidly that rings false. But despite these flaws, the story flows nicely. Lee and Reb fall into the "buddy cop" template that would eventually become a pop culture cliche. But the reason such things become cliches is because they are effective storytelling tropes when done well.

Within two or three weeks, we'll see what Lee and Reb are doing to annoy each other in the second story from Four Color #779. Next week, though, we'll follow Tarzan and artist Russ Manning in a trip back to the dinosaur-infested land of Pal-ul-don.