Lazarus Lane
Lazarus Lane is the original El Diablo, operating in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West. Lane was originally a bank teller who is nearly killed by a gang of thieves and put in a coma after being struck by lightning. After being revived by a Native American shaman named "Wise Owl", Lane becomes a vigilante and called himself El Diablo. The name El Diablo means "the devil" in Spanish.
According to Jonah Hex vol. 2 #11 (November 2006) and Jonah Hex vol. 2 #24 (December 2007), Lazarus Lane is cursed to be the host of a minor demon which acts as a Spirit of Vengeance. Lane's body slumbers in a coma while "El Diablo" roams the Earth. His fate is similar to that of the current Crimson Avenger. In Swamp Thing vol. 2 #85 (April 1989), Wise Owl is shown in a more villainous light, with Lane/El Diablo his unwilling servant. In that story, set in 1872, a number of DC's western heroes (including the aforementioned Hex, Bat Lash, Johnny Thunder, and Madame .44) were employed by Otto Von Hammer and Jason Blood to defeat Wise Owl and recover from him an object of great power, which turned out to be a crystal containing the spirit of Swamp Thing, who had become lost in time. When the group killed Wise Owl, Lane's comatose body woke up, and El Diablo apparently vanished forever.
Read more about this topic: El Diablo (comics)
Famous quotes containing the words lazarus and/or lane:
“There is a place prepared in hell,
For to sit upon a serpent’s knee.’”
—Unknown. Dives and Lazarus (l. 39–40)
“The prairies were dust. Day after day, summer after summer, the scorching winds blew the dust and the sun was brassy in a yellow sky. Crop after crop failed. Again and again the barren land must be mortgaged for taxes and food and next year’s seed. The agony of hope ended when there was not harvest and no more credit, no money to pay interest and taxes; the banker took the land. Then the bank failed.”
—Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968)