(Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such #3-5) - Mr. Graves offered Hex and the Kid the job of defending the Wilde West from the Worms, but Jonah said he had plenty of questions he’d need answers to before considering. Graves took them into his office along with Brunhilda, his senior and most trusted ranch hand. Hex took a shine to her because of her curvy figure and gruff sense of humor. Graves first told them the story of how he met Oscar Wilde, and was inspired by him to found the Wilde West. Billy the Kid thought poetry and music wasn’t something he could get into until Graves told him the pay was $35 a week on the ranch. The Kid took up a guitar immediately, but found his rhyme scheme would need some practice. Graves then told them about the Worms of the Earth, a subterranean prehistoric race older than man. They had their own technology, and Graves produced a stone made by the Worms that recorded visuals of their own history. The stone showed the Worms war against Native American tribes, and how the tribes used their weakness to light and fire to force them back underground, sealing off the Worms’ tunnels to the surface. Graves produced a Worm / human fetus in a jar, and told the story of how the land that would become the Wilde West was bought by Errol Autumn. Errol dynamited the stony land, accidentally opening the Worms’ tunnels. The Worms emerged, forced themselves on his wife, and she later gave birth to three hybrids, two of which survived. The surviving Autumn Brothers were responsible for the current trouble on the ranch. Big Worm controlled the Autumns and wanted her land back. Jonah and Brunhilda slipped away to make love, and when he offered her chewing tobacco afterwards she said she was falling for him. Afterwards Jonah went to the mess hall and told Graves they’d been going about it all wrong by just defending themselves from Worm attacks; they had to take the offensive. He proposed that in the morning, when the Worms would be vulnerable to the light outside, they use the hole created by Big Worm to make a raid on the monsters. The Autumn Brothers and their numerous hybrid cousins were also preparing a raid on the Wilde West, and the next morning, while Graves, Hex the Kid, Brundila and several others went underground, they put tumbleweeds on fire, lit it ablaze, and crashed the cart into the ranch’s gates, forcing the ranch hands to open the gates and leaving them vulnerable. The Autumns easily took the fort, and got the ranchers to reveal where Hex and company had gone after setting several ranchers on fire. The Autumns and their cousins went underground, looking to ambush Hex and his companions. Hex and company found the underground city where the Worms’ dwelt, and it was filled with mechanical marvels such as motor cars, elevators and mechanical men, but the Worms had long ago forgotten how to create such marvels. Deep in the city the Autumns attacked, but lost in a gunfight with Hex. As the brothers lay dying they admitted that it wasn’t such a big deal because their lives were horrible anyway and no one liked them except each other. Hex and company were attacked my a mob of Worms and Big Worm. Paco sacrificed himself, getting swallowed by Big Worm, but setting off dynamite inside her, and blowing her to pieces. The rest of the Worms lost their will to fight and slunk away into deeper tunnels. Hex dynamited the entranced to the Worms’ tunnels, and enjoyed the adventure so much that he gave his try at a ballad recounting it. Graves, the Kid and Brunhilda found his singing awful enough to make them sneak away.

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