Spectros 2 (1st for Tower)
by Logan Winters
1981 Tower Books
The least weird Weird West I've seen, and a real missed opportunity. Dr. Strange, I mean Spectros, was shanghaied years ago and ended up in a monastery in the Himalayas. He was betrothed to the lovely Kirstina before she was kidnapped by Baron Mordo, I mean Blackschuster.
And that's our back story, in not many more words than that. Now, decades later, Blackschuster keeps Kristina in suspended animation in a glass coffin, while Dr. Spectros chases him with his various companions: womanizing gunfighter Ray Featherskill, giant mute Montak, eastern moor Inkada, and his horse Khamsin.
Dr. Spectros has exactly two spells. He can turn into young gunfighter Kid Soledad which he does off page in a completely unspectacular manner. As in "Dr. Spectros is sleeping in the wagon, but I'm here now, somehow," or "I'll tell you the truth now, I am also Dr. Spectros, but I changed a little while ago."
He can also change into an animal in an equally unspectacular manner. In one scene he becomes a cougar, possibly while also being Kid Soledad - the scene is a titch ambiguous. Later he becomes a kestrel to stop an Indian uprising.
And that's the grand sum of all things supernatural in Silverado. There's kind of a plot, but mostly we've just got people talking about going places, going places, and other people talking about who went where.
There's something about a tapped out silver mine that Blackschuster needs to keep up his supply of silver for his alchemy, but that gets abandoned for a bank robbery that turns out to be a distraction for, well I didn't really catch that either. Spectros doesn't even show up for the denouement that has Blackschuster running off - without Kristina, who's also been forgotten about.
A shame, because it's pretty well written, it just doesn't have a lot going on and doesn't make use of its premise.
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