Tomahawk and the Dinosaurs? The brave frontiersman met dinosaurs eight times in his lengthy career in the Old West. The character began as a back-up feature to Robin, The Boy Wonder in Star Spangled Comics #69 June 1947) to #130 (July 1952) before getting his own series, Tomahawk in September-October 1951. That comic ran for 140 issues, ending in May-June 1972. That’s two hundred and one issues between the two series. And in all those tales, most of are on ordinary Western/Revolutionary War themes, but there were the odd ones: tales with robots, aliens, giant apes, giant men, native sorcerers and, of course, dinosaurs.
What is almost as fun is the types of dinosaur tropes that writers like Dave Wood, Ed Herron and Bill Finger used in these comics. You get the frozen dinosaur, the lost valley of the dinosaurs, lonely dinosaurs, cavemen riding pterodactyls, etc. The writers were doing something unusual bringing in giant reptilian monsters into a Western but they weren’t re-inventing the comic book wheel. Since Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a bestseller with The Lost World in 1912, why change anything?
A big part of Tomahawk’s success is the consistent artwork of Fred Ray. Fred drew almost every story over the two decades the comic was published. Fred drew pretty good dinosaurs too. It is obvious he took the time to look at current dinosaur models. He doesn’t add a lot of dragon-esque fantasy flourishes but sticks to the facts most often.
“The Lost Valley” (Star Spangled Comics #83, August 1948) was written by an unknown author. Tomahawk and his junior sidekick, Dan Hunter, hear of a valley filled with monsters from a dying pioneer. They journey to the hard-to-find valley and find White Eagle and his people starving. A fire drove away all the game. Tomahawk solves their problem first by serving up giant eggs then by trapping and killing T. Rex and brontosaurs. Bronto steaks! Shades of Fred Flintstone.
“The Frontier Dinosaur” (Tomahawk #58, October 1958) was written by an unknown author. This story features one of comics’ favorites tropes: the frozen dinosaur. The Horror comics used it a lot (along with the frozen mammoth and frozen caveman.) No matter what you choose to freeze, it always thaws out and comes back to life. A local tribe discovers a T. rex frozen in the ice. It gets free and threatens the village. The animal’s hide is too tough to kill it with guns, though Tomahawk does stun it by exploding his entire powder horn in its face. The men attack it with catapults and rocks. Finally it chases the hunters and falls in a ravine and dies. It is strange that Tomahawk and Dan don’t mention their previous experience with dinos in this story or any of those that follow.
“The Beast From the Deep” (Tomahawk #67, March-April 1960) was written by an unknown author. Trouble begins for Tomahawk when a brave named Tall Tree frames him. The natives chase the duo to a remote island where a dinosaur lives. The beast threatens the pursuers, but Tomahawk saves them by using the same catapult trick. With the dino dead, Tall Tree’s lie is exposed.
“Secret of the Indian Sorceress” (Tomahawk #73, March-April 1961) was written by Dave Wood. A group of settlers want to get to Hidden Valley but their way is blocked by a sorceress who can summon pterodactyls (monster birds) and other dinos. Tomahawk sets up a con where he has a giant wolf sniff out the real culprits, settlers wanting gold from the valley. He returns the valley to the native people, who welcome the settlers in. (I won’t get started on the political silliness of that ending. I’ll stick to dinosaurs.)
“The Beast From the Labyrinth” (Tomahawk #74, May-June 1961) was written by Ed Herron. H’Dawa the medicine man doesn’t want peace with the palefaces. He unleashes a monster from a cave. This is a stegosaurus. Rather than just eat plants, it attacks everyone. The English shoot the beast with cannons but its hide is so tough the cannon balls bounce off. They finally destroy it by digging a pit trap.
“The Lost Land of the Paleface Tribe” (Tomahawk #82, September-October 1962) was written by Ed Herron. Tomahawk and Dan discover another lost valley with dinosaurs. (What are the odds!) This valley is inhabited by a race of blond Indians. (They are actually white folk who adopted the native dress and language.) A tribe that time forgot! Their valley paradise is haunted by a T. rex that Tomahawk kills by tipping him over a ravine. (It worked before!) The blond natives lose their valley to a great flood. Plenty of Edgar Rice Burroughs in this one. The only thing they forgot was to make them survivors of Atlantis.
“The Prisoner in the Pit” (Tomahawk #90, January-February 1964) was written by Ed Herron. A statue of Big Anvil, the ranger hero, is stolen by the British. Anvil himself disappeared when some mysterious creature takes him away to its cave. The creature is a T. rex that does not eat the Ranger but befriends him. The creature is lonely because it is the last of its kind. (No foghorn here. Ray Bradbury wrote that dino story in 1951.) Tomahawk escapes the beast by rolling down hill in the rib cage of its dead mate. The T. rex dies in the end, hugging the stolen statue of Big Anvil. A bittersweet ending and a more convoluted story than previously, as DC drops the standard ten page story for longer ones.
“The Caveman Ranger” (Tomahawk #109, March-April 1967) was written by Bill Finger. Tomahawk and his crew (he has a crew now, including Stovepipe and Big Anvil) go to a ruined town where cavemen on pterodactyls attack. Afterward he meets Gog, one of the cavemen, who has a slugfest with Big Anvil. Tomahawk makes Gog a temporary Ranger. Using the pterodactyls, Tomahawk and his gang defeat the Red Coats. The British kill all the pterodacyls with their cannons. Gog blows himself and the ship apart by lighting the gunpowder stores.
Conclusion
You might think Tomahawk and the Dinosaurs is a silly idea but The Valley of Gwangi (1969), a film with Ray Harryhausen animation, would prove these comic book creators’ instincts right, pairing dinos and cowpokes. Right out of the first Tomahawk comic we get a valley filled with the creatures that time forgot and trusty cowpokes roping and riding them. The juxtaposition of dinosaurs with modern times (relatively speaking, compared to 65 million years) is certainly what made Jurassic Park a billion dollar franchise. Anyone who has stood next to a dinosaur skeleton has thought, what would it be like if that dinosaur was alive!
For a tour of dinosaur comics from the 1930s to today go here.
