Warzones!: 1872

Comic Info

1872 #1 Variant

Reprints 1872 #1-4, Marvel Comics Presents (1) #170, and Avengers (1) #80 (September 1970-December 2015). Hell has come to Timely. Sheriff Steve Rogers is trying to keep the town together under the crooked leadership of Wilson Fisk, but the arrival of a Native-American named Red Wolf threatens to disrupt the peace. When Fisk calls in his own “Dead Man’s Hand”, Rogers could be facing insurmountable odds…and not everyone will get out alive!

Written by Gerry Duggan, Warzones!: 1872 is a Marvel Comics limited series that is part of the Secret Wars events series. Featuring art by Nik Virella, the collection also contains the first appearance of Red Wolf in Avengers (1) #80 (September 1970) by Roy Thomas and John Buscema and a Red Wolf story from Marvel Comics Presents (1) #170 (December 1994) by Alan Cowsill and Jimmy Chung.

Marvel Westerns have a soft spot for me. I like the idea of the western heroes as precursors to the superheroes of today, and this volume flips the heroes of today into the role of the heroes of yesteryear. It has been done multiple times before (like 1602), and it has been done better…but 1872 is still a fun ride.

1872 #3 Variant

The comic takes some unexpected turns. Normally in a comic like this Steve Rogers (aka Captain America) would be the hero of the batch. His shiny and perfect view of right and wrong paints him as a Gary Cooper from High Noon type of sheriff. He faces odds that seem impossible but he wins…but Rogers flames out as a victim of Bullseye’s attack. It was a nice twist to have Red Wolf be the hero since Red Wolf also has always been a favorite.

Like many of these Battleworld/Warzone series, I feel that the story could have been extended. It has to be frustrating for writers to create rich and rounded worlds (or at least to attempt to) and have to wrap it all up in an issue or two. 1872 has a ton of potential and ton of characters that they could “de-tech” for some fun storyline…I wish it was possible to follow more of these worlds for another four issues.

1872 isn’t revolutionary. The concept has been played with before and it might have been more interesting to see something like Marvel’s western heroes if they lived today or in the future (which they did for a follow-up to this series). It was good to have some Red Wolf background in the reprint issues since some of the readers might not be entirely familiar with the character (who also is a bit confusing since there is historic Red Wolf and modern-day Red Wolf in the original Marvel canon). If Marvel ever decided to revisit Doom’s Battleworld and 1872, I’d be up for it. Red Wolf did get to continue on from this story in his own solo series which ran for six issues and was collected as Red Wolf: Man Out of Time.