Tonnerre à l'Ouest is a comic book by Jean Giraud and Jean-Michel Charlier. The original French version was first published in Pilote magazine in 1964. Then it was published as a comic album in 1966. An English-language comic album was published in 1977 under the title Thunder in the West. This is the second episode of the Blueberry series and the second part of the First Indian Wars series.
Fort Navajo is besieged by the Apache. Colonel Dickson is unconscious because he was bitten by a snake, so Major Bascom is in charge. He plans to hang the Apache hostages. Blueberry offers to cross the enemy lines to fetch medicine for Dickson. At the same time, Crowe, an officer of mixed race, breaks the hostages out.
Tonnerre à l'Ouest provides examples of the following tropes:
- All for Nothing: The bulk of the story is about Blueberry going to Tucson, facing incredible danger, to bring help back and to find an antidote for Dickson. He manages to come back to Fort Navajo with the antidote, but the fort is empty. Crowe tells Blueberry that Dickson was dying when he left the fort, and he persuades Blueberry to go with him to Mexico instead of trying to catch up with Dickson.
- Arms Dealer: On the road to Tucson, Blueberry meets a group of Mexican arms dealers who are going to deliver guns to the Navajo.
- Bring Help Back: Fort Navajo is besieged by the Apache. Blueberry crosses the enemy lines to go to Tucson to fetch medicine for Dickson and to ask for reinforcements.
- Determined Homesteader: Blueberry meets an old one in Tucson. The inhabitants of Tucson have evacuated the town, but an old farmer refuse to leave his cattle behind, so he plans to confront the Apache alone.
- Distressed Dude: Dick Stanton, a young boy, was kidnapped by the Mescalero. Blueberry and Crowe track the Mescalero, cross the Mexican border and free him.
- Find the Cure!: Dickson was bitten by a snake, so Blueberry offers to cross the enemy lines to fetch medicine in Tucson.
- Hostage Situation: Bascom has caught Apache chiefs and he threatens to hang them if Cochise attacks Fort Navajo or kills the white prisoners. Cochise, meanwhile, does not use the white prisoners as bargaining chips.
- Roofhopping: When the Apache and the Navajo are after him in Tucson, Blueberry jumps from rooftop to rooftop to go from the doctor's house to the barn of the old farmer.
- The Siege: Fort Navajo is besieged by the Apache.
- Thirsty Desert: To go to Tucson, Blueberry has to cross the desert. He quickly runs out of water. He survives thanks to water found in a saguaro cactus.
