DCU Continuity Fun: From Jonah Hex to Eco-Catastrophe...?

[dewline]

Prompted by the Blackest Night: Weird Western Tales tie-in, a thread on the Paperfilms BBS run by Messrs. Gray and Palmiotti and Ms. Conner got me wondering.



Susan Hillwig noted the setting of the ghost town of Illumination being on "ancestral Turnbull land", referring to the Turnbull of legend as Jonah Hex's most dedicated enemy over the decades after the American Civil War, and recalled that those particular Turnbulls - until the end of that war, at least - called Virginia home. Said ghost town was surrounded by desertified landscape...which seems out of place for real-'verse Virginia from what little I know and Susan likely knows from more first-hand experience.

Which led to this bit of brainstorming:

"We've seen parts of real estate near Opal City - established in JLA as being in Maryland - that also looked about as desolate as the US Southwestern deserts[1]. Also, Magog's current home base in Ordell, West Virginia was often depicted by Howard Porter as similarly desolation-surrounded.

"So I'm starting to wonder. Was there some sort of eco-catastrophe in that region depicted elsewhere in the DCU canon over the last 70+ years that can account for this?"

[1] - The "Times Past" tale featuring Will Payton vs. a pair of serial killers near Opal, IIRC...?

Comments

[querldox.livejournal.com]

While Maryland may have been the original intended location for Opal, as noted it made less and less sense as more elements were introduced to its history/architecture. There's a French quarter, and the bits with Scalphunter as a westernish marshall, for example.

The only locale I can see possibly fitting it all together is east Texas; close enough to Louisiana for the French stuff, close enough to the western frontier to allow for that sort of thing.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I sometimes wonder if the Acadian Expulsion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acadian_Expulsion)'s survivor-victims didn't stop in more than one place in the DCU version of North American history. You'll recall the original Mayfair Games mapping of Metropolis posited a neighbourhood called "Lafayette" based on that assumption (http://pics.livejournal.com/dewline/pic/0000xasw)?

[madlycool.livejournal.com]

Anywhere up the Mississippi could qualify - plenty of French up in Illinois country. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LouisianeFran%C3%A7aise01.png

[querldox.livejournal.com]

That only covers the French quarter. As noted, you also have to cover the frontier elements in the late 1800s, which pushes it into Texas much more than Illinois.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

And the whole Port o'Souls/Black Pirate angle that led into the "Grand Guignol" arc towards the end of the series? I seem to recall that required a Puritan settlement that started the whole existence of what we now call Opal started...