Quentin Tarantino’s planned Django Unchained sequel film was turned into a comic book instead, & that series brought one of his best villains to life.
Summary
- The Archduke of Arizona, featured in the Django Unchained sequel comic book series, is a cruel and cunning villain who rules with lies and cruelty.
- Langdon forged documents and manipulated circumstances to make it seem like an indigenous orphan girl was the rightful inheritor of a large portion of land in Arizona.
- Langdon’s enforcer, Anvil Charlie, was even more brutal than him, doling out punishments by smashing limbs with a hammer. Django and Zorro teamed up to stop their reign of terror.
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While the likes of Calvin Candie, Marsellus Wallace, and Bill rank among the best antagonists utilized in Quentin Tarantino stories, there is one who stands right up there with them: the Archduke of Arizona – a wholly evil yet brilliant man who was one of the main characters in the unmade Django Unchained sequel.
Django Unchained followed the titular Django Freeman as he was freed from slavery and trained in the ways of being a bounty hunter by his friend and mentor, Dr. King Schultz. In the film, Django and Schultz go on a quest to find and rescue Django’s wife, Hildy. While Schultz lost his life, Django was reunited with his beloved, and he was able to break her out of ‘Candyland’ and ride with her into the proverbial sunset. While that was seemingly the end of Django’s adventures, Quentin Tarantino had other plans, as the acclaimed writer/filmmaker actually penned a sequel to the film in which Django would team up with the legendary Zorro. While the Django/Zorro movie was scrapped, the sequel did find new life in the form of a comic book series, where the villainy of this ‘Archduke of Arizona’ was put on full display.
Django/Zorro Gave Life To A Despicable Quentin Tarantino Villain
In the seven-part comic series Django/Zorro by Quentin Tarantino, Matt Wagner, and Esteve Polls, readers are introduced to Gürko Langdon. Langdon was a moderately successful man who moved himself and his son to Arizona, as it had yet to be a state at this time and was still a part of the Spanish and Mexican territories. Langdon saw himself ruling a large chunk of this land, so he came up with a scheme that would make that possible. He effectively adopted an indigenous orphan girl in town and sent her and his son to a prestigious school in Spain. Meanwhile, Langdon himself spent years in a Spanish monastery where the transcripts of royal decrees were kept, pretending to be a monk, just to gain access to them. Langdon forged a number of documents, making it seem as though the young girl was from a moneyed dynasty and was the rightful inheritor to a large portion of land in Arizona. Not only that, but before he went undercover in the monastery, Langdon spent years cultivating more false evidence to ensure that the girl’s claim wouldn’t be challenged. Then, Langdon married her when her schooling was complete, making him not only the ruler of the chunk of land he effectively granted her, but an official representative of Spain.
The Archduke was smart, cunning, patient, and most of all, cruel. Not only was it obvious that he was a corrupt fraud, but he treated the indigenous people who he forced to build his private railroad (that he later planned to sell to the United States government) like they were less than nothing. He ‘paid’ them in food and shelter, he didn’t allow breaks of any sort, and he forced them to work under the most dangerous conditions imaginable. Plus, Langdon had an enforcer who was arguably even worse than he was: Anvil Charlie. Charlie is known for doling out punishments with a hammer by smashing the limbs of ‘insubordinate’ workers against his anvil. Langdon carved himself a small kingdom out of the wild west, one built on lies and cruelty, with no shortage of innocent casualties – and Django and Zorro made it their mission to put a stop to it.
The Archduke of Arizona is a fantastically despicable villain who sits firmly as one of the best within a Quentin Tarantino story, and while his comic book depiction did the character justice, it’s still a shame that fans didn’t get to see his gruesome comeuppance on the big screen, as this planned film sequel to Django Unchained regrettably never got made.
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