I've been reading Howard Chaykin all week; I see innuendo everywhere, but this seems a little blatent.

Also, I'm trying to decide if I trust the internet to tell me if tarantulas are poisonous or not, since it didn't immediately get pedantic about 'poisonous' vs. 'venomous.' From 1983, Jonah Hex #72, "Tarantula!" Written by Michael Fleisher, pencils by Dick Ayers, inks by Tony DeZuniga.

Double-crosses and treecks--er, tricks--galore this month, as bandit chief El Papagayo (and his parrot!) have taken Emmylou hostage, to force Jonah Hex to steal a priceless necklace on loan from the Spanish government. This has seemingly failed, as Jonah, disguised as El Papagayo, managed to steal the necklace but gets gunned down before escaping. The body is laid almost in state for a day, for the locals to gawk at, including two who report back to El Papagayo. While Emmy takes it pretty hard, El Papagayo sees opportunity: the federales would certainly let down their guard, thinking he was dead, so he should be able to steal the necklace on its way home easily.

But, later the two snitches get the bright idea to dig up Jonah's corpse, and help themselves to his guns; only to find the coffin full of rocks! Jonah swings out of a tree to knock those guys out: he had set up this plan with the Mexican government to bring in Papagayo and save Emmy, but yet another snitch tattles; so later Papagayo is prepared, with Emmy wrapped up like a burrito to hold over Jonah's head. He clonks the commander over the head, to give Papagayo the necklace; for his trouble he and Emmy are both thrown into a dry well and a basket of tarantulas dumped on them! Jonah talks Emmy through cutting her ropes on his spurs: tarantula bites "hurt like the dickens!" but only bite in self-defense, so if they don't wiggle around too much, they'll be fine. Emmy does well, although she does faint after freeing Jonah, and he has to climb out of the well with her over his shoulder.

In the last two pages, Jonah sneaks into Papagayo's camp at night, pistol-whips him, and lugs him back to jail. Where he somehow still had his parrot? I wouldn't put it past Jonah to have pistol-whipped it, too.