Like Natty Bumppo from more than 120 years before him, and other comic book characters such as The White Indian, and Flame Hair (Fiction House, female), who were his contemporaries, Flame Hair (DC, male) and Scalper Hunter who came later, Injun Jones was a white person who had become part of Indian culture and exceeded at everything.
The only survivor of a family of settlers who had been killed in a raid by Apaches, as a baby he is adopted by Running Deer, a chief of the Peigan tribe and raised as like his son, Jones (though it’s never explained just how Running Deer knows this to be his family’s name) soon does so much better than the other children that he is made a full brave by the age of 12, from there he goes on to many adventures as he deals with both the white and Native worlds with the help of his sometimes girlfriend Vickie.
While never given a shot on the cover, Injun Jones is the longest running of AGC’s Western characters, lasting though the whole of Blazing West, and continued when a failing horror comic was turned into The Hooded Horseman, though for some reason when transferred to there the title of the strip was changed to Johnny Injun, while still being referred to as Injun Jones (even by members of his own tribe!) in the stories.
Perhaps the title change came about because someone pointed out that they were using a rather derogatory name for the character and the editors at ACG thought they meant Jones.
I guess we’ll never know.
This character is now owned by the Charlton Media Group; however I doubt we’ll be seeing him again anytime soon.
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