Predator: Hell Come a Walkin': Comic Overview

Published: February-March 1998, two-issue miniseries (on sale February 25 and March 25, 1998)
Collected: Predator Omnibus Vol. 4 (September 2008)
Script: Nancy A. Collins
Art / Colors: Dean Ormston
Letters: Ellie De Ville
Cover: Dean Ormston
Designer: Corey Stephens
Editors: Scott Allie, David Land
Format: Two-issue limited series
Publisher: Dark Horse Comics
Setting: Ozark Mountains, September 1863, American Civil War

Predator: Hell Come a Walkin' is a two-issue Predator miniseries written by Nancy A. Collins and drawn, inked and colored by Dean Ormston, published by Dark Horse Comics in February and March 1998. Ellie De Ville lettered it. Scott Allie and David Land edited it. Ormston also painted the covers. It follows teenage Confederate bushwhacker Jesse James, his companions, and a small Union platoon hauling a cannon through the Ozarks as a lone Predator turns both armies into prey. Among Dark Horse Predator comics, it is an Earthbound historical hunt set during the American Civil War. Stonewall's Last Stand in Predator: If It Bleeds uses the same war for another Yautja encounter.

The Story

Massacre In The Rain

A Predator lunges through heavy rain with bloody wrist blades and three red targeting lasers across its fist, from Predator: Hell Come a Walkin'

In September 1863 a small Confederate camp in the Ozarks waited for young bushwhacker Jesse James. Rain hit the timber while a sentry hummed The Yellow Rose of Texas. Muzzle flashes and screams cut the song short and left gray-clad bodies in the mud. The attacker was not a Yankee patrol. A masked hunter stepped through the downpour with wrist blades wet and the three red dots of a plasmacaster painted across its own reaching fist. By the time Jesse, Nebediah and Standing Bear rode in, the camp was a slaughterhouse.

Nearby, a Union platoon under Captain Riggs was hauling a stationary cannon through the same wet hills. The two sides found each other before they found the killer. Neb opened fire and dropped Riggs. Lieutenant Hendricks tried to retrieve the body, took a shot that clipped his ear, and woke under the care of a Black Union soldier who insisted his name was Spartacus, not a slur. Corporal Brubaker, a German immigrant the men called Dutch, shared how conscription and chance had put them in blue coats far from home. Jesse's party pulled back into the trees. Something had butchered their own, and it was still walking.

The Cannibal Spirit

A pale feral Predator hunched over a bloody kill in a dark Ozark forest as Standing Bear's cannibal-spirit story unfolds, from Predator: Hell Come a Walkin'

Around a fire the three Confederates argued over what could leave men in pieces without a Yankee boot print to show for it. Standing Bear told of a Cannibal Spirit that climbed from the bowels of the earth when the moon had no face, a beast that walked like a man and drank human blood in the deep Ozark woods. Jesse called it heathen hogwash. Neb half-believed and answered with his own mountain tale of a traveler invited into a solitary cabin, only for the Devil to slaughter the family and burn the place to ash.

When Jesse slipped away to check on the Union cannon, he saw a distant silhouette that sent him back in a hurry. He no longer treated the campfire stories as empty talk.

Hell Come A Walkin'

Jesse came back white-eyed and told Neb and Standing Bear he had seen hell come a-walkin', not a Yankee, but whatever had been hunting them like possums on a bright night. The hunter wore a battered bronze bio-mask and bone and skull trophies on its straps. Jesse said his childhood had been beaten out of him in a Missouri cornfield. The anger that replaced it was still with him when he faced the creature.

The three Confederates approached the Union camp under a white flag. Jesse proposed a truce. Whatever had butchered their men was worse than blue coats, and the cannon in the clearing was the only heavy weapon either side had left. Hendricks, Spartacus and Brubaker had already lost their captain. Jesse had lost a camp. Pride still cracked between them, but the silhouette in the trees pushed both sides into a temporary alliance.

Standing Bear

The truce lasted only until the woods answered. A blue-white plasmacaster bolt punched through Standing Bear's chest and lit his ribs through cloth. The man who had named the Cannibal Spirit died before either army could raise rifles. In its heat vision the survivors glowed as orange prey while the hunter slipped away from the answering volley. Jesse shouted Standing Bear's name. The Union men cursed. Both sides accepted that the devil was real.

With Standing Bear gone, the two sides stopped treating each other as the main enemy in that hollow. They agreed to flush the creature toward the clearing while someone readied the cannon, the same gun that had made the Union column slow enough to meet Jesse in the first place. Racial contempt still flared around the fire. Spartacus refused to be called anything but his chosen name, and Jesse's birthday night nearly ended in a duel among supposed allies. Hendricks held the line. Differences could wait until the thing in the trees was dead.

Was Ist Los

The Ozarks Predator stands in a misty forest with fist clenched and plasma caster ready, from Predator: Hell Come a Walkin'

The hunter showed itself again among misted trunks with fist clenched, caster on the shoulder, and a skull trophy on the chest strap. It mimicked Brubaker's German back at the men: "Was ist los?" Energy cracked from the wrist. A rifle came apart in a soldier's hands. Neb and the others answered with open fire that lit the rocks with muzzle flashes. The Predator did not break. Jesse, Spartacus and Neb pushed into the timber to flush it while Hendricks and Brubaker stayed with the gun. The plan needed bait, timing, and someone willing to stand in the open.

Still Out There

Silhouette of the Predator from behind in a dark Ozark forest, shoulder cannon and wristblade visible, from Predator: Hell Come a Walkin'

After the first volley the soldiers hoped they had blown the thing back to hell. The Predator stood unharmed in the trees with its caster and serrated blade ready. The men admitted it was still out there. Cloak shimmer and forest cover let it vanish between shots.

Jesse, Neb and Spartacus moved by feel through sackcloth dark, reading three-toed prints that belonged to no panther or bear from that neck of the woods. Spartacus felt the old panic of being hunted by men and recognized the same pressure from something that was not human at all. They split to lure it toward the clearing, knowing a bushwhack now would ruin the cannon trap.

The Grizzly

A roaring grizzly bear looms behind a Union soldier in a blue kepi in the dark Ozark woods, from Predator: Hell Come a Walkin'

Spartacus froze under a rifle warning he thought was aimed at him, only to find a grizzly rising at his back in the blue night trees. Neb's shot dropped the bear. Neb then joked about using the Yankee for bait after the war. A wet sslch cut the boast short as the Predator took his head. Jesse and Spartacus answered with gunfire and fell back toward the clearing.

The flush had worked in the worst way. The hunter was moving, and the cannon crew had one chance to end it. Hendricks understood that someone would have to stand in the open and draw the Predator's attention. Brubaker had the gun and the fuse. Jesse and Spartacus had the trail.

Nebediah's Last Joke

The Ozarks Predator waist-up with red eyes and bloody wrist blades, from Predator: Hell Come a Walkin'

After Nebediah fell, the Predator held the kill long enough to throw his own joke back at the survivors. With Neb's head already a trophy, it told them in his voice that they were in a "World O' Hurt." Jesse and Spartacus fell back knowing the flush had shown the hunter which clearing still held a cannon.

Lieutenant Hendricks walked into the open on purpose when the lure failed to put the hunter cleanly on the gun. He drew the Predator into melee with a saber and shouted for it to come and get him, then ordered Corporal Brubaker to fire while both of them were still in the blast line. Brubaker answered "Ja, mein Kommandant" as the fuse hissed. Hendricks's last order was to kill him along with the hunter if that was what it took. The cannon fired into the clearing. Smoke and splintered timber filled the space where Hendricks had chosen to stand. Jesse and Spartacus's trail work had not pinned the Predator alone, so Hendricks became the bait rather than wait for another massacre in the trees.

Hendricks's Cannon

The Predator stands in smoke after the cannon blast with red eyes glowing in a shadowed bio-mask, from Predator: Hell Come a Walkin'

When the smoke thinned, Hendricks was gone and the Predator was still standing, red eyes in a black silhouette, armor scorched, claws open, steam curling off its plates. Brubaker faced it with empty hands and a prayer in German. A pistol shot green-blooded the hunter's shoulder and still did not put it down. The cannon had been their best hope, and it had not been enough. Someone had to finish the job at arm's length.

Jesse James had grown up on hurt for hurt and kindness for kindness in a Missouri the war had already ruined. He picked up what the clearing offered, including cloth that flew the colors he hated, and ran at the thing that would not fall. A Union flag came with him into the kill.

Jesse Spears The Hunter

Jesse James impales the Predator through the torso with a spear as a tattered Union flag hangs behind them, from Predator: Hell Come a Walkin'

Jesse drove a spear through the Predator's midsection from behind. The spear pinned it beneath a tattered United States flag. Green blood ran the shaft. The creature roared. Jesse kept the pressure on until the hunter went down. The Predator clawed for its mask while the survivors closed in around the spear and the flag. Brubaker swore in German. Spartacus stared. Jesse had done what the cannon blast had not finished alone. Then he still had to make sure the devil would not rise a second time.

The Final Shot

Close-up of the unmasked Ozarks Predator roaring with mandibles open, from Predator: Hell Come a Walkin'

The mask came away on a dying thrash and showed the mandibles and mottled face the men had only imagined as Devil or Cannibal Spirit. Jesse put a pistol to its head, asked who it was calling a Yankee, and fired. Green blood hit Spartacus. Jesse said the shot settled things for Standing Bear and the others, as near as anyone would reckon.

They buried what was left of their dead in weary silence as September dawn came up on shovel work. Confederate reinforcements under Jesse's brother Frank James rode in soon after and expected prisoners. Jesse put a rifle on his own blood and gave Spartacus and Brubaker Neb's mule and safe passage until sundown. He owed Yankees his life and would not ship Dutch to Andersonville or see Spartacus shot as a runaway. Kindness for kindness, then back to being enemies.

Mask On The Stake

A Predator bio-mask mounted on a wooden grave stake with a cavalry saber tied across it against an orange Ozark sunset, from Predator: Hell Come a Walkin'

At parting Jesse and Spartacus promised each other no quarter if they met again on a proper battlefield, then rode opposite ways into the timber. Frank did not want to know what the night had really been about. Brubaker muttered that so much anger in someone so young was sadder than anything else the war had shown him. Spartacus answered that he had chosen to build instead of destroy, and that he would still fight to free his people. The truce ended with the sun. Jesse found the Predator's bio-mask wired to a grave stake with a cavalry saber as a crosspiece. He felt as if someone were already walking over his grave.

Characters

Jesse James was a teenage Confederate bushwhacker in the Ozarks in September 1863. He proposed the truce, survived the flush, impaled the Predator with a spear under a Union flag, finished it with a pistol shot, and later held his brother Frank at gunpoint to free Spartacus and Brubaker.
Spartacus was a Black Union soldier who insisted on his chosen name, helped treat Hendricks, walked the flush with Jesse and Neb, and left on Neb's mule under Jesse's safe-conduct.
Lieutenant Hendricks led the Union survivors after Captain Riggs died. He sacrificed himself by goading the Predator into melee so Brubaker could fire the cannon at both of them.
Corporal Brubaker (Dutch) was a German-born Union soldier who manned the cannon, obeyed Hendricks's final order, and walked free with Spartacus after the kill.
Nebediah (Neb) was Jesse's Confederate companion. He killed Captain Riggs in the first skirmish, shot the grizzly off Spartacus, and was decapitated by the Predator moments later.
Standing Bear was Jesse's Native American companion who told the Cannibal Spirit story and died to a plasmacaster bolt during the truce approach.
Frank James led the Confederate reinforcements who expected to take Union prisoners. Jesse forced him to allow Spartacus and Brubaker to leave.
Captain Riggs commanded the Union cannon detail and was killed by Neb before the truce.
The Ozarks Hunter was the unnamed Predator that massacred both sides, killed Standing Bear and Nebediah, survived the cannon blast, and died on Jesse's spear and pistol.

Behind The Scenes

Dark Horse Comics published Predator: Hell Come a Walkin' as a two-issue color miniseries with February and March 1998 cover dates. Nancy A. Collins wrote the script. Dean Ormston drew, inked and colored the interiors and painted the covers. Ellie De Ville lettered. Scott Allie and David Land edited. The book sits in the late-1990s Dark Horse Predator line between Predator: Nemesis and Predator: Captive, and Ormston's Captive interiors arrived the same year with a different writer. Collins puts a historical Jesse James, still a bushwhacker and not yet the outlaw of ballads, into a hunt during the Civil War.

Solicit copy sold a divided nation running red and a Predator drawn to the slaughter, asking whether North and South could stand together long enough to kill something worse than each other. Ormston's painted cover places the hunter on a Confederate battlefield under a pale moon with a tattered Stars and Bars and a cannon wheel. The interiors keep heavy blacks, rain, campfire orange and the cold blue of Ozark night. The same Civil War setting returned later in Stonewall's Last Stand inside Predator: If It Bleeds, where Union cannon fire again ends a Yautja hunt beside a famous Confederate name.

Editions

The story first appeared as Predator: Hell Come a Walkin' #1-2 from Dark Horse in early 1998. Dark Horse collected it in Predator Omnibus Vol. 4 in September 2008, alongside Predator: Primal, Predator: Nemesis, Predator: Homeworld, Predator: Xenogenesis, Predator: Captive and Predator: Demon's Gold. A Dark Horse Digital release later bundled it with Predator: 1718, reusing Ormston's issue-one cover art. After Marvel took the Predator comics license, the story was pulled from the planned Predator: The Original Years Omnibus Vol. 2 lineup along with Demon's Gold, so the Dark Horse Omnibus Vol. 4 printing remains the standard collected edition for this hunt.

The Ozarks Hunter

The Predator of Hell Come a Walkin' has no clan name in the script. Survivors call it devil, spirit, critter or damned Yankee until the mask comes off. Ormston gives it a weathered bronze bio-mask, bone trophies, a working plasmacaster and the willingness to mimic Brubaker's German before the open-fire exchange. It massacres without choosing a side, kills Standing Bear at the moment of truce, takes Nebediah's head after the grizzly, shrugs off a cannon that erases Hendricks, and still dies on a spear and a pistol in human hands. This story is one Civil War Ozarks hunt. The Predator Civil War hub lists the wider Civil War Yautja encounters.

Conclusion

Predator: Hell Come a Walkin' is a February and March 1998 Dark Horse two-issue miniseries by Nancy A. Collins and Dean Ormston, with letters by Ellie De Ville. It follows Jesse James from a rainy Confederate massacre through a forced truce, Standing Bear's death, Nebediah's last joke, Hendricks's cannon sacrifice and a spear under a Union flag, to a bio-mask on a sunset grave stake. Spartacus and Brubaker ride free on Jesse's word. Frank James rides on without the truth. Jesse rides away with the war still ahead of him.