Who's This? A western devil.
The facts: Lazarus Lane first appeared in All-Star Western vol.2 #2 (not #3 as his Who's Who entry claims), a strip that last 7 issues before the title became Weird Western Tales, and 6 not-always consecutive issues after. In the 1980s, the strip would be revived in Jonah Hex as a back-up, for another 9 stories. Other people would later take the El Diablo name, but Lane himself would get a Vertigo mini-series in 2001 and a number of guest-starring roles in the 2000s Jonah Hex.How you could have heard of him: The New52's All Star Western would also premiere El Diablo in its second issue, but only give him one more go. Nowadays, the name is associated with a member of the Suicide Squad. Thanks to the Justice League Unlimited episode that features western stars, a larger audience may be aware of him.
Example story: All-Star Western #3 (January 1971) "Call Him Satan - Call Him Saint!" by Robert Kanigher and Gray Morrow
A Gray Morrow western? Yes, please. We're in Gold Dust Creek after dark. No surprise, a lone prospector gets ambushed by a couple of rogues. But El Diablo is on the scene. His weapons are fear, surprise, gun and bola.
Fear, surprise, bola, gun and HORSE!
The old timer thanks El Diablo and provides him with an info-dump about the Hanged Man's Gang (so we're leaning into horror, eh?) and so forth, but our hero never says a word. Is he saint or Satan? Who is he?! Backtrack a month. Lazarus Lane is a Fancy Dan bank teller being bullied by cowboys, his lady harassed, Charles Atlas hasn't invented his method yet, so how will be become Hero of the Gulch? His bank of course gets hit, and by the Hanged Man's Gang too. And though Lazarus is armed, he freezes and does nothing while the other teller gets killed.
Distraught, he consults his old native friend Wise Owl who tells him the Great Spirit gives all men a chance at redemption. And a week later, he gets his chance when the bullies accost him and Nora on the road, and the Great Spirit takes a hand.
Wise Owl shows up to scare the cowboys away with covering fire and brings his dying friend back to the hacienda. By the time Nora returns with her dad, the town doctor, Lazarus is in a catatonic state, dead but alive, and there's a streak of white in his hair. Wise Owl chants through the night and for several days, and eventually, Lazarus Lane is reborn as El Diablo. According to his strange dreams, his soul has been torn in two... is it multiple personalities? In any case, El Diablo is a ghost on Earth, one with unfinished business. And right now, that business leads him to protect the old timer's daughter and grandson from these nasty outlaws.
They are saved, and without a word, El Diablo leaves, returns home, and slips back into catatonia, for that seems to be Lazarus Lane's life. Brrr.
Doesn't seem to invite much in the way of subplots or character development, does it? Should I take it, the Lane persona eventually gets more agency? A cursory check through back issues reveals he doesn't, though El Diablo himself does get thought bubbles and word balloons.
In the category of continuity we don't need, in the letter column of Superman Family #188, editor E. Nelson Bridwell established that Lazarus Lane was an ancestor to both Superman's girlfriend Lois Lane and The Shadow's assistant Margo Lane. He was having fun with the readers, I think.
Who's Next? A villain Vigilante stole from Batman.
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