Hombre

Context

Hombre is a Spanish comic by Segura and Ortiz. It is my favorite genre, the post-apocalyptic. It was published during the 1980s, and sold well in France. Which led to an English-language publication in Heavy Metal.

I believe that Hombre is an archetypal representation of what it means to still trying to be a man when the rest of the world has gone all to hell – and failing at it. He’s the definition of an anti-hero. The series is an excursion in a dystopian, apocalyptic world and not for the squeamish.

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Background

The apocalyptic world of Hombre

“We all know how it happened. Newspapers and television repeated it every day : wars in the Middle East, revolutions in Latin America, discord in Europe, race riots in South America, we knew all of that. Then the Government told us that it was necessary to ration energy, that the crisis demanded a global sacrifice, and the measures were temporary, and we believed them… of course.

We are new creatures… cruel, immoral, without faith or law. We are the survivors, and we have inherited the Earth.”
– Hombre in “The Shadow of Despair”

“The years which followed the great disorder, produced an accelerated disintegration of our civilization. The cities, worn out by war, death, famine and pestilence, were abandoned. The survivors sought refuge in the remote valleys and inaccessible mountains. They established small villages, and struggled to forge a future.

Once again man took to using the rivers as a means of travel, just as his ancestors had done before. The rivers were once again used as major travel routes, but they were also where the weaker were robbed and killed by the stronger. Brutal places, where the fittest survived, and no mercy was given.”
– Hombre in “The Ultimate Enemy”

Powers and Abilities

Hombre is adept at wildlife survival. He will, in fact, be seen around swamps, nuclear waste areas, and jungle as well as suburbs and former cities. He is also perceptive and a fair barterer. He’s selling everything from fish and meat to bad, home-brewn alcohol.

He always has cigarettes and can, in fact, produce a new packet for a cost of 1 Hero Point  whenever he pleases.

He has good hands with animals and is an experienced rider and horseman, and will usually travel by horse. He is, naturally, a real crackshot, a fair pugilist, and an expert knife fighter, or he wouldn’t have survived this long. He’s a pretty tough, old bastard.

A sly fox, he will bluff opponents into surrendering, or talk others into dangerous business. He seems to get unusual lucky breaks when he really should be doomed for certain.

History

On Hombre’s Earth, technological civilization has run out. Hombre himself is a hardened, solitary survivor. Despite the widespread loss of humanity among his contemporaries, he occasionally behaves in a humane manner.

There is little hope in this future, and mankind appears to be fundamentally evil.

Description

Hombre is a tall, aging man with curly, balding brown hair with white temples, clad in ragtag, dirty clothes, often a trenchcoat, wearing a backpack, a cigarette in his mouth and a rifle in his hands. He is always sun-tanned and sometimes he has relatively whole clothing, and is even wearing a cape, while other times he looks like a barbarian or a caveman.

There are times that he’s lost everything and is completely naked except for a rifle and a cigarette in his mouth. He has the eyes of a killer, is always unshaven and either grumpy or with a sly smile on his face.

Personality

Hombre roams the world to fill the time. But he is in no hurry because long ago time stopped being important to him. He bears no delusions about his own worth or skills, and will do whatever has to be done to survive. He’s as crude as the rest of the survivors, and often, in fact, more savage, but he is sane and sometimes even honorable.

He’s rather paranoid and distrustful, which is justified. Hombre has a weak spot for children, and will attempt to protect and care for them if possible. He will attempt to save those in need only if there are no greater risks involved. He will only go to some lengths with a few select friends.

At the same time, he is not beyond killing scavengers for supplies, weaponry, gas and so on either. Don’t expect excessive kindness from him. He’s no combat monster, he knows it and doesn’t care; he still does what needs to be done to survive.

Other traits, part 1

Life may not have much to offer, but he will not go down by the hands of some scavenger. He does teamup with various wanderers for survival, having new friends every ’adventure‘, but that’s always short cooperation only, mostly because the friends turn against him or die of other causes.

He is kind to the kind ones left, however, and is willing to stay with them living the good life for a while, curious about their ways, and then particularly about the good savages in the forests, although he feels that he has done too many terrible things to stay down with the relatively-innocent for too long.

His ways can never be allowed to taint the innocent. He will fall in love with women, although he feels it to be a burden, because he knows he will eventually loose them, and then he’ll fall apart. He has lost many over the years and doesn’t want to be responsible for anyone. Essentially, he’s a lone wolf, and doesn’t like to have company.

Other traits, part 2

His sense of humor is very caustic. He wandered with Attila, a huntress from the noble peoples of the forests for a while, and did love her, while he also hated her, she his opposite. Besides, he is not beyond leaving ’friends’ behind for the sake of his own survival, or for their sake. Primal survival instincts often guide his actions.

In fact, he also bears a great darkness inside of him. Rage and anger risk to explode out in desperate times, and when threatened he reacts by well honed instincts. People sense this and often refer to him as a born killer. He has quite the temper so don’t seek to trouble him and don’t break any deals. He will beat down anyone who is too cocky against him.

And the cold-blooded killer in him appears when injustice, cruelty and lies have put him in trouble; then he can turn into a vengeful avenger. He has been known to attempt executing people for such base reasons; man or woman, doesn’t make a difference, and the same goes if somebody has killed a friend of his. Anybody attacks him and he will kill him back in self-defense. Vengeance will be his.

Hombre, however, does his best to keep these evil side locked up hard, and strives to always be a human being. Struggling to keep pieces of humanity, he dreams of bygone days. He’s striving to be humane. To be a man in an inhuman world.

Quotes

[Finding a new-born baby in the wilderness surrounded by rats] “You’ve chosen a bad time to be born, microbe. I see that your parents have already decided that you have no future. As for me, I’ve done too much evil in this world to pity you. Settle down, microbe, no touching.” [picks up a big stone] “What’s waiting for you in this world isn’t good. So, it’s better to help you out of it, before the rats do the job for me.” [lifts stone over his head] “Just my damned luck. I have to be the one to do this, God damn it !” [throws the stone on the ground] “I’m going to regret this for the rest of my life.” [picks up smiling baby] “Obviously, I’m not as hard as I thought I am. Calm down, microbe. Don’t get so familiar.”

“The pain became more intense as nightfall approached. Until it became a flame that devoured flesh. I could go no longer, I passed out.”

“For two months I had been on the river, talking to my shadow, as lonely as a dog with no master, my only company were the lice in my beard. The temptation of hearing another human voice was too much to resist. There was a small problem ; I didn’t know if these forest people shot first and asked questions later of strangers who they met, or were they different ? Good samaritans, maybe ? Myself, I tend to shoot first and ask questions later. Maybe I had already killed the last good samaritan and didn’t know it. Maybe the rest of us left alive are all sons of the same whore. Anyway, if I approached them quietly, and I liked what I saw, there was no better time to renew human contact.”

“Because of him Paco and White Eye are dead. Them dying doesn’t bother me, that’s fine, but I’m wet and cold, and that’s annoying. He’s going to pay, and remember what I call justice !”

[Telling a story while lying bloodied and beaten] “The old man knew that his friend would kill him and prepared his vengeance. The story about weapons was a lie. The old man knew what they would find in the bunker, a killing machine guided by a computer. The tank would avenge him. Doesn’t that story make you laugh ? It’s strange, I feel like I’m going to die laughing.”

“Surviving in this village is hard enough already. We don’t need a leader to complicate things for us.”

“If we don’t find some water soon, I’m going to be forced to commit the sin of drinking my own alcohol. That would probably kill me.” [thinks about it and drinks the bottle] “Well, if it doesn’t kill me, maybe it will make me stronger.”

“I looked at them. We had two good years together. Now all of them were dead. Once again I was the solitary beast that I had been before I met them. I could never love anyone again.”

[Recognizing someone wearing a dead friend’s piece of jewelry] “I promise you that I know how to use this knife to make you suffer for an eternity before I let you die ! I swear to you that’s just what I want to do now ! I also promise you that I will kill you quickly if you tell me where you got the collar you’re wearing on your neck.”

Interrogated miner: “Look at his eyes, he’s a killer ! He won’t leave us here alive ! He won’t give us a chance to come after him ! Tell him, or I will tell him myself !”
Hombre: “You’re right. I love to kill my fellow man. Tell me what you know without trying to confuse me, please.”

The Dog King: “I’ll take all of it, if we can agree on a price.”
Hombre: “Two automatic rifles, in good condition, a hundred rounds and two dogs ready to be eaten.”

The Dog King: “Mercy, don’t kill me, I’ll go away ! The business is yours ! Take everything I have in the armory !”
Hombre: “Alright, you fat pig. You can go.”
The Dog King: “Thank you ! Thank you !”
Hombre: “You didn’t understand me. I meant for you to go to hell !” [shoots Dog King’s kneecaps] “Elvis, put this sack of meat in the cage. The one with the big dogs. I don’t want to get my hands dirty !” [Elvis obeys] “Filthy business, King. You’re bleeding, and your dogs are hungry. I wonder how long it will be before they lose their respect for you ? You’ve invented a filthy system for your dogs, I think you owe them their pound of flesh.” [Hombre notes: It was a dirty moment. I didn’t even say ’the King is dead, long live the King!‘ I had no desire to be the new dog King !”]

By Dr. Peter S Piispanen.

Source of Character: Hombre comics by Segura and Ortiz.

Helper(s): wikipedia.org.