Weird Western Tales #48
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeWeird Western Tales #48 marks the debut of Cinnamon — real name Katherine 'Kate' Manser — one of DC's most durable Western heroines and the only new character introduced during the Scalphunter era of the title to establish a lasting footprint in the DC Universe. As a female bounty hunter in a genre overwhelmingly populated by male leads, Kate Manser represented a genuinely rare addition to Bronze Age DC's roster, and her origin — a sheriff's daughter who trains herself in gunfighting to avenge her murdered father — gave the character a moral drive that writers would keep returning to for decades. Later retcons folded Cinnamon into the Hawkman reincarnation mythology as the Old West incarnation of the Egyptian princess Chay-Ara, anchoring her to one of DC's oldest ongoing cosmological threads and ensuring her continued relevance well beyond the Western genre. The issue also features a Scalphunter story set against the backdrop of the Civil War-era Capture of New Orleans, continuing that character's serialized exploration of identity and belonging between Native and white American worlds.
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We Buy Collections ▸History
By the time issue #48 arrived on stands with an October 1978 cover date, Weird Western Tales was well into its post-Jonah Hex chapter: Scalphunter had taken over as the lead feature starting with issue #39, after Hex graduated to his own solo title. The Scalphunter concept was originated by cartoonist Sergio Aragones and editor Joe Orlando, while writer Michael Fleisher and penciler Dick Ayers handled the bulk of the early storytelling run. For issue #48, writer Roger McKenzie crafted the Cinnamon debut story, with the art credits on that backup story disputed across sources (see Flagged); the Scalphunter lead story carried its own separate creative team. The issue landed during the so-called DC Implosion period — a wave of title cancellations in 1978 — though Weird Western Tales itself survived that purge and ran until issue #70 in 1980.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Cinnamon (Katherine 'Kate' Manser), a Wyoming sheriff's daughter turned bounty hunter, in a story set in Summer 1898.
- Cinnamon was created by writer Roger McKenzie; pencil art on her debut story is credited to either Jack Abel or Dick Ayers depending on the source (see Flagged), with inks by Danny Bulanadi.
- The Scalphunter lead story, titled 'Slaveboat,' is set on April 23–24, 1862, just before and during the Union Capture of New Orleans — one of the Civil War's pivotal naval engagements.
- Scalphunter (Brian Savage / Ke-Woh-No-Tay) had been the title's lead character since issue #39 (1977), conceived by Sergio Aragones and Joe Orlando and written by Michael Fleisher.
- Cover date: October 1978; publication date: August 1978. Cover art by Jim Sherman and Dick Giordano, with Gerry Conway credited as writer on the Scalphunter story.
- Cinnamon's defining trait introduced here — using her dead father's sheriff badge as a thrown weapon (shuriken-style) — became a signature element carried through all her subsequent appearances.
- Years after her debut, Cinnamon was retroactively established as a reincarnation of the Egyptian princess Chay-Ara (of Hawkman mythology), making her the Old West iteration of Hawkgirl's eternal soul cycle — a retcon formalized in Hawkman vol. 4 (2002).
- Cinnamon went on to appear in Justice League of America #198–199 and the 2003 miniseries Cinnamon: El Ciclo, demonstrating the long-term creative utility of the character introduced in this issue.
Cast · 4 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in Tomahawk #4/1979 (1979), Tomahawk #6/1979 (1979)
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