Our own Iliad . But more than that and perhaps more importantly, it is a story of family and loyalty and of the remarkable friendship between two men who would deserving or not become archtypal legends. Whether Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were possessed of superior qualities or merely products of their times and pawns of circumstance is subject for debate. Heroes to each other if to no one else. We feel each sees within the other those attributes that would make him the whole he desires to be.
Tombstone is a rousing homage to the protagonist as avenging angel.
In the company of The Searchers , Silverado , Unforgiven and The Quick and the Dead , it stands as one of the most entertaining American Westerns ever made.