Category: Jonah Hex

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El Diablo


By Brian Azzarello, Danijel Zezelj & various (Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1625-2 (TPB) 978-1-84576-777-8 (TPB Titan Books edition)

This extra-adult all-Vertigo interpretation of the classic DC Western avenger dates from a 2001 4-issue miniseries, and is an early precursor to the superb Loveless. None of these – as far as I’m aware – are available digitally yet, but they bloody well should be.

Moses Stone is a gunman turned sheriff in frontier town Bollas Raton. His fearsome reputation, as much as his actions, serves to keep the town peaceful, and he’s perfectly content not shooting anybody.

One night, the awesome and terrifying El Diablo comes to town: exacting his signature brand of gruesome vengeance on a band of outlaws, he inexplicably refuses to kill Stone when the lawman tries to halt the carnage.

Unable to understand or let it lie, sheriff and posse trail the vigilante to Halo, New Mexico where the bloodshed continues and a ghastly secret is revealed.

Although he is still a deep, brooding mystery tainted by supernatural overtones, fans of the original western avenger created by Robert Kanigher & Gray Morrow (who debuted in All-Star Western #2, October1970) will be disappointed to find that tragic Lazarus Lane – brutalised by thieves, struck by lightning and only able to wake from his permanent coma at the behest of Indian shaman White Owl – is all but absent from this darkly philosophical drama.

DC’s demonically-infested agent of vengeance is long, long overdue for a comprehensive reappraisal and definitive curated collection. The original occasional series of short tales from All-Star and Weird Western was illustrated by Morrow, Joe Kubert, Alan Weiss, Dick Giordano, Neal Adams, Alfredo Alcala and Bernie Wrightson, and the scripters included Sergio Aragonés, Cary Bates & Len Wein… And that’s not even counting the Sagebrush Satan’s many team-ups with the likes of Jonah Hex in various iterations of the bounty killer’s own titles.

In this moody epic, however, the phantom of the plains is more presence than personality.

There’s an awful lot of talking and suspense-building, but thanks to the moody graphics of Danijel Zezelj tension and horror remain intensely paramount and when the action comes it is powerful and unforgettable.

The dark star is a force but not a presence in El Diablo, but the tale of Moses Stone is nonetheless a gripping thriller to chill and intrigue all but the most devoutly traditional cowboy fans.

So can we PLEASE be having a proper compilation soon, yes?
© 2001, 2008 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved

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Bizarro


By Heath Corson, Gustavo Duarte, Pete Pantazis, Lee Loughridge & Tom Napolitano, with Bill Sienkiewicz, Kelley Jones, Michelle Madsen, Francis Manapul, Fábio Moon, Gabriel Bá, Darwyn Cooke, Raphael Albuquerque, Tim Sale, Dave Stewart & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5971-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

One of the most consistent motifs in fiction is the “Dark Opposite” or “player on the other side”: a complete antithesis of the protagonist. Rock yourself to sleep at night if you wish, listing deadly doppelgangers from Professor Moriarty to Sabretooth to Gladstone Gander…

The Caped Kryptonian’s “imperfect duplicate” Bizarro either debuted as a misunderstood freak and unwilling monster in Otto Binder & George Papp’s captivatingly tragic 3-part novel ‘The Battle with Bizarro’ (Superboy #68, cover-dated October 1958) or in the similarly titled Superman newspaper strip sequence written by Alvin Schwartz (episode 105/#6147-6242 spanning August 25th – December 13th 1958) with the latter scribe claiming that he thought up the idea months earlier. The newsprint version was certainly first to employ those eccentric reversed-logic thought-patterns and idiomatic speech impediment…

Although later played primarily for laughs, such as in his short tenure in Tales of The Bizarro World (June 1961 to Aug 1962 in Adventure Comics #285-299), most earlier comic book appearances – 40 by my count – of the dippy double were generally moving, child-appropriate tragedies, unlike here where we commemorate his 65th anniversary with possibly the funniest book of the last twenty years… at least if you’re a superhero fan.

Post Crisis on Infinite Earths, he was a darker, rarer beast, but this tale by screenwriter and comics scripter Heath Corson (Justice League: War, Nightwing/Magilla Gorilla, Super Pets: The Great Mxy-Up) & Gustavo Duarte (Monsters! & Other Stories, Guardians of the Galaxy, Dear Justice League) stems from DC’s brief New 52 continuity sidestep and refers almost exclusively to his earlier exploits and character.

Collecting 6-issue miniseries Bizarro and material from DC Sneak Peek: Bizarro #1, the saga starts as another misunderstood and deeply unappreciated visit to Metropolis – augmented by a new origin – sees the lonely, bored, eternally well-intentioned living facsimile teamed up with boy reporter Jimmy Olsen on a road-trip to “Bizarro-America” (we call it Canada)…

It’s ostensibly to prevent a disastrous super-battle but more importantly, someone suggested that the journey could provide enough candid material for a best-selling coffee table book that could liberate the eternally cash-strapped kid from his financial woes…

Jim’s certain he can handle the big super-doofus, but not so sure that applies to a pocket alien Bizarro picked up somewhere. After ‘The Secret Origin of Colin the Chupacabra’, the story truly starts with ‘Bizarro-America: Part 6’ and a weary ‘Welcome to Smallville’ where the need to fix the car leads to a clash with a dynasty of very familiar villains at King Tut’s Slightly Used Car Oasis. It all goes without incident until some other ETs give papa Tut a reality-altering staff and he seeks to achieve his great dream – selling everyone a used car…

Having navigated their way out of that bad deal, the Road Worriers further embarrass themselves in ‘Bizarro-America: Part 5’ with stopovers and pertinent guest stars in Gotham, Central, Starling and Gorilla City, before doing more of the same in Louisiana, Chicago and all points lost. Somewhere along the way they pick up a tail and in seeking to ditch their pursuers drive into Ol’ Gold Gulch: a ghost town with real spooks and a distant descendant of a legendary gunfighter. Chastity Hex is a bounty hunter too, which comes in handy when Bizarro is possessed by an evil spirit in ‘Unwanted: Unliving or Undeaded’ and a destructive rampage triggers the spectral return of great grandpa Hex as well as Cinnamon, Nighthawk, Scalphunter and El Diablo…

Another issue (‘Bizarro-America: Part 3’ if you’re still counting) and another city sees the automotive idiots catching mystic marvel Zatanna’s act in ‘Do You Believe in Cigam?’ and fresh disaster as Bizarro’s backwards brain allows him to accidentally access the sorceress’ backwards spells, prompting diversions to many, many alternate DC realities and Jimmy and Bizarro trading bodies (sort of) before order – if not sanity – is restored…

As they near their final destination, the covert shadows finally move in. A.R.G.U.S. agents Stuart “chicken Stew” Paillard and Meadows Mahalo get their X-Files on: compelling the travellers to infiltrate Area 51, but aren’t happy with the outcome once the idiots unleash every alien interned or interred there…

Ultimately the voyage concludes with ‘Bizarro-America: Part 1’ and long-deferred meeting with Superman (drawn by Tim Sale & Dave Stewart) in ‘Who Am on Last?’ The last of the Tuts returns for another stab at vengeance and high-volume marketing and as chaos reigns Colin comes up trumps, before assorted former guests coagulate as the never to be reformed Bizarro League to save the world in a way it has never been saved before.

All that’s left is to get Bizarro into Canada but there’s one last surprise in store…

This outrageous romp is punctuated with a round-robin of guest illustrators (Bill Sienkiewicz, Kelley Jones, Michelle Madsen, Francis Manapul, Fábio Moon, Gabriel Bá, Darwyn Cooke, Raphael Albuquerque and more) adding to the manic madness via their signature characters, and a variant cover gallery provides more boffo yoks courtesy of Kyle Baker and Kevin Wada. Topping off the fun is an unmissable sketch section by Duarte, packed with many scenes and moments somebody was too nervous to publish…

Fast, funny, fantastic and far too long forgotten, Bizarro is a superb romp that would make a magnificent movie. Do not miss it.
© 2015, 2016 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Showcase Presents Jonah Hex volume 2


By Michael Fleisher, David Michelinie, John Albano, Jose-Luis García–López, Vicente Alcazar, Ernie Chan, Rich Buckler, Tony DeZuñiga, & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4106-3 (TPB)

The Western is an oddly forgiving genre which can be pragmatically sub-divided into two discrete halves: the sparkly, shiny version that dominated kids’ books, comics and television for nearly a century, best typified by Zane Grey stories and heroes such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry – and the other stuff…

That sort of cowboy tale is grimy, gritty, excessively dark and nihilistic, and was done best for years by Europeans in such strips as Jean-Michel Charlier’s Lieutenant Blueberry or Bonelli and Galleppini’s Tex Willer before making their way into US culture through the films of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone.

Jonah Hex is the very best of this latter sort.

DC (or National Periodicals as it then as) stocked up a stable (sorry!) of clean-cut gunslingers at the collapse of the superhero genre in 1949, creating such dashing – and highly readable – luminaries as Johnny Thunder, The Trigger Twins, Nighthawk, Matt Savage, Strong Bow and dozens of others in a marketplace that seemed limitless in its voracious hunger for chaps in chaps. All things end, however, and by the early sixties this sagebrush brigade had dwindled to a few venerable properties. The flurry of superheroes increasingly hogged the newsstands during the Silver Age starting as early as 1956, but by the end of the 1960s they were waning again, and thematic changes in the cinematic Cowboy filtered through to a comics industry suffering its second superhero retreat in twenty years…

A critical success, light-hearted Western Bat Lash never secured a solid following, but DC, keen to sustain a genre its dwindling readership could warm to, retrenched and revived an old title, gambling once again on heroes who were no longer simply boy scouts with six-guns.

Cover-dated August/September 1970, All-Star Western (volume 2) #1 launched with Pow-Wow Smith reprints, transforming to an all-new anthology format with its second bi-monthly issue. The title featured many creative big guns, including Robert Kanigher, Neal Adams, Gray Morrow, Al Williamson, Gil Kane, Angelo Torres, and Dick Giordano, working on such strips as Outlaw!, Billy the Kid and cult sleeper-hit El Diablo: combining shoot-’em-up shenanigans with supernatural chills, in unavoidable deference to the real hit genre-type that saved comics in those dark days… supernatural horror.

It wasn’t until the tenth issue and the introduction of a disfigured, irascible and shockingly lethal bounty hunter – created by writer John Albano & Tony DeZuñiga – that the company found its greatest and most enduring Western Warrior…

Jonah Hex is the very model of the modern anti-hero: a coarse, callous, proudly uneducated manhunter. Clad in a battered Confederate Grey tunic and hat with half his face lost to some hideous past injury, he is a brutal thug little better than the scum he hunts – and certainly a man to avoid …or so you’d think on first appearances…

The greatest gunfighter in the world was introduced in ‘Welcome to Paradise’: a powerful thriller with a subtle sting of sentimentality that anyone who has seen the classic western Shane could not fail to appreciate. From the first, Albano constantly hinted at tortured depths hidden behind Hex’s hellishly scarred visage and deadly proficiency…

The comic had been re-titled Weird Western Tales (aligning it with the company’s highly successful horror/mystery line) and subsequent tales of the gunman combined charm, bleak, black comedy and tragedy in equal amounts: a formula that rocketed Hex to the forefront of critical and popular acclaim.

From the very start, the series sought to redress some of the most unpalatable motifs of old style cowboy literature and any fan of films like Soldier Blue and Little Big Man or Dee Brown’s iconoclastic Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee could derive a grim sense of vicarious satisfaction at most of the stories. There was also a huge helping of world-weary cynicism that wasn’t found in other comics until well past the Watergate Scandal, when America as a whole lost its social and political innocence…

Even though Hex was a unique feature from the outset – thanks to the efforts of writers like Albano and Arnold Drake – the series didn’t truly hit its stride until Michael Fleisher (assisted at first by Russell Carley) became lead scripter.

This second superb monochrome tome of Jonah Hex’s grittily unsavoury yet extraordinarily appealing adventures combines his final appearances from Weird Western Tales #34-38 with #1-22 of his own spun-off solo title, collectively ranging from May 1976 to March 1979. As in so many cases, the material here is currently unavailable in modern colour editions, either on paper, or in digital formats, but we can always hope…

In all honesty: the stories may be printed in black-&-white, but here that’s mostly a benefit as the wealth of overseas illustrators employed were masters of line art and their efforts are actually better without the cheap colour used on comics back then.

The previous book revealed how back during the Civil War, whilst fighting for the South, Hex was framed for a massacre at Union prison camp Fort Charlotte. He subsequently became the sole target of a conspiracy led by an aggrieved Southern autocrat Quentin Turnbull. The schemer set a veritable battalion of Confederate veterans and survivors relentlessly on the trail of the man they all considered the worst traitor in the history of the South…

The dark dramas resume with Weird Western Tales #34 (cover-dated May/June 1976) as Michael Fleisher & George Moliterni’s ‘Death of a Bounty Hunter’ reveals the gunslinger being cheated of a bounty by lazy, ruthless rivals who see him as a meal ticket to success. Adding to his irritation, Hex is saddled with a dime novel writer who has paid a lot of money to dog his tracks for “research”. When both annoyances attempt to treacherously exploit Hex, he proves too much for them all…

Next, the wandering gunman fetches up in a law-abiding town with a nasty secret. Even a mercenary like Hex has some scruples, especially when municipal policy involves using a weekly execution of outlaws to boost city coffers. With sideshow attractions and tourist traps thriving, the bounty hunter protests vigorously when an old man he befriended is condemned to be the next cash-cow of a sheriff who is judge, jury and… ‘The Hangman!’ Moreover, Hex’s objections aren’t overruled by legal appeals or commercial considerations…

Fleisher, Bill Draut, Luis Dominguez & Oscar Novelle detail differences between cultures when an old opponent returns in WWT #36. Hired to broker a peace treaty between the Paiute Nation and Washington, Hex is forced to kill someone who doesn’t deserve to die after a cavalry scout’s atrocities almost triggers a bloodbath, leaving the only way to redeem honour through ‘Bigfoot’s Death Song!’…

Hex’s well-intentioned efforts to teach a young man to shoot costs him dearly when he learns he’s been fed a devious sob-story and unleashed a crazed killer in #37. Illustrated by Rich Buckler & Frank Springer, Fleisher’s compact, irony-drenched tale leads to a necessary and final course correction in ‘Requiem for a Gunfighter!’…

Against all odds and industry norms, Jonah Hex – and western comics – were an increasingly viable proposition for DC at this time. Thus, the bounty hunter closed his account in Weird Western Tales #38 – cover-dated January/February 1977 and on sale at the end of 1976. He was promoted to his own eponymous series while the anthology book began (from #39) the adventures of “white Indian”  Scalphunter.

Hex’s last WWT exploit was an epic, cynically salutary saga as Fleisher partnered with the magnificently gifted José Luis García–López, whose art would also grace the first issues of Hex’s new home, augmented and followed by many of the superb overseas draughtsmen who’d been hired to draw DC’s horror stories, but who found an equally comfortable fit producing the baroque yet naturalistic adventures of the grungy gunslinger…

‘Track of the Wolf… Claw of the Bear!’ finds Hex hired in the depths of winter to catch a white wolf that has killed a banker. When the beast and the mountain man who lives with it save Jonah from death, their growing friendship unravels a skein of embezzlement and murder, with Hex’s sheepherder clients provoking tragedy and justifiable vengeance…

Jonah Hex #1 launched with a March/April 1977 cover-date, wherein Fleisher & García–López concocted ‘Vengeance for a Fallen Gladiator!’ as the West’s greatest manhunter is hired to find a rich man’s son. The trail leads to a travelling show forcing boys to fight for the delectation of bloodthirsty townsfolk and an unhappy resolution for all involved…

Hex is then forced to infiltrate ‘The Lair of the Parrot’ at the orders of Federal fixer Ned Landon. Flamboyant Mexican bandit El Papagayo is the gunslinger’s supposed target, but after barely escaping with his life, Hex returns to America to discover he’s been framed for the Secret Serviceman’s murder…

Despite having a price on his head, ‘The Fugitive’ still finds time to thwart a vicious land grab for a blind rancher’s home in #3 before more strands of a complex plot are revealed in ‘The Day of the Chameleon!’ as an actor further impersonates Hex: heaping even greater crimes onto the bounty hunter’s ever-escalating-but-unjustified rap-sheet. The plot takes an even more byzantine twist when Hex is briefly sheltered by outcast widow Joanna Mosby, seemingly destroys his evil twin, restores his good name and reels in shock after his most relentless foe reveals who’s behind his current situation…

An expanded reprint of Hex’s debut from All-Star Western #10 follows as Albano, Fleisher, DeZuniga & García–López collectively revisit better days in #5’s ‘Welcome to Paradise’, with a new framing sequence detailing how Hex finds brief respite in Paradise Corners after which he’s caught by aging and honest marshal Toby Ruster: another dutiful innocent dragged down and doomed by association.

Despite having cleared his name, the many wanted posters issued mean Hex is still regarded by many as an outlaw. When a storm deposits ‘The Lawman’ and his captive in an isolated town, Hex almost bluffs his way out of trouble until his ornery nature and hatred of criminals ruins his refuge and triggers another frenzied exit in a convoluted yarn by Fleisher, Ernie Chan & Noly Panaligan…

With Hex still on the run, the same creative team uses the next two issues to finally reveal the manhunter’s origins, beginning in #7 as 13-year old Jonah is sold into slavery by his father. Raised a ‘Son of the Apache’, the white boy becomes a mighty young warrior adopted into the tribe with honour, but cannot escape the jealous schemes of his envious native brother Noh-Tante. How that poisonous rivalry ultimately led to Hex’s escape, rehabilitation and eventual disfigurement with ‘The Mark of the Demon’ adds even greater poignancy to his tragedy-struck saga and shows why the manhunter never quits…

Another diversion drags Hex back over the Mexican Border as he’s tricked into working for the government of President Porfirio Diaz. The gunman is required to escort the recovered golden hoard of the former Empress in ‘The Carlota Conspiracy!’ (illustrated by Chan & Danny Bulanadi), but the vast wealth inevitably draws in old enemy El Papagayo and plenty of brand new double-crossing skunks eager to make a killing…

García–López returns to limn concluding chapter ‘Violence at Veracruz’ in #10, and with bodies dropping everywhere Hex realises he’s been duped from the start and wearily cuts his losses..

Rich Buckler & Dick Giordano illustrate ‘The Holdout!’ as Joanna returns to redeem herself after Hex is maimed and can no longer hold his guns in a cruel tale of card cheats and vengeance, after which ‘The Search for ‘Gator Hawes’ sees the gunman captured by crazed swamp-dwellers obsessed with their rigged “rassling” games, whilst #13’s ‘The Railroad Blaster’ – by David Michelinie & Alcazar – finds the gunslinger hired to stop a saboteur attacking Union Pacific trains. Sadly, he quickly finds himself once again on the wrong side of a painful moral dilemma…

Michelinie then details the saga of ‘The Sin Killer!’ in #14 as Hex encounters old comrade Jedediah Kane: a first class killer who apparently found peace in The Lord and new passion as a travelling preacher. Unfortunately, due to his family being killed in a crossfire, Kane had merely redirected his efforts and now only killed bounty hunters…

Hiding in plain sight as a trick-shot artist, Hex survives ‘Sawdust and Slow Death’ after uncovering a circus’ true purpose as a wandering band of thieves. Framed for the murder of acrobatic rider Sally Colter, he faces the judgement of the freak show before pulling off his own show-stopping climax…

The extended outlaw saga moves to a conclusion as Fleisher rejoins Alcazar for #16’s ‘The Wyandott Verdict’ which opens with Hex being lynched by masked and hooded men. He is saved by pioneering criminologist Tobias Nostrum and his servant, much to the delight of one cautious observer. The Chameleon has dogged Hex for months, awaiting a moment of perfect revenge and takes his chance when the scientist’s new-fangled forensics lead to a trial that could exonerate the bounty hunter…

Warping the entire affair, the deranged actor almost succeeds in dooming Hex, but wasn’t expecting Quentin Turnbull to overplay his own hand in the conspiracy…

Restored and renewed, Hex refuses a commission to ride a hot air balloon in #17 but is still trapped on a ‘Voyage to Oblivion’ when the client won’t take “no” for an answer. His desperate escape lands him aboard a slave ship bound for Brazil and leading a revolt of the human cargo before alone and adrift he lands in a green hell…

Crafted by Fleisher, Val Mayerik & Bulanadi, #18 depicts ‘Amazon Treasure… Amazon Death!’ as the castaway saves a native boy from white rubber plantation owners. The civilised colonisers then try to trick Hex into exterminating the entire indigenous tribe. They aren’t the first to assume the crude, vulgar cowboy is as dumb as he sounds, and like all the rest, don’t live long enough to revise their opinions, once the Indios unleash the horrors of the jungles upon the treasure-hunting interlopers…

With Fleisher & Alcazar crafting the remainder of this volume, #19 introduces ‘The Duke of Zarkania!’ Freshly-returned to the US, Hex is hired by visiting European royalty one step ahead of an accession rival and must battle roving assassins. It’s not long before the manhunter suspects he’s working for the wrong noble and ultimately realises there is no good side in old world affairs…

The bounty hunter’s past rears up to bite him when he foils a stagecoach robbery and inadvertently saves the father who sold him into slavery. The reprobate is unrepentant and as depraved as ever, but still convinces Hex to hire on as guard for a theft-plagued coach company. However, when riding the ‘Phantom Stage to Willow Bend!’ the son yet again learns a life lesson in parenthood as Pa Hex fakes his own death and uses ‘The Buryin’!’ to cover a quarter million dollar robbery. Sadly, he can’t help cheating his own accomplices either, but saves his own skin by “revealing” that Jonah has the money now. Cue more horrific gunplay and even greater familial regret…

The sagebrush sagas are reined in with #22 as ‘Requiem for a Pack Rat!’ explores the repercussions of Hex’s job. When child killer Lobo hangs for his crimes, his brothers come looking for the bounty hunter who brought him in and – caught in the crossfire – an old prospector pal pays the price for knowing Jonah. Shot, broken-legged and left for dead, Hex has to survive the desert and rampaging savages and save a hostage mining family before at last reuniting Lobo with his sinister siblings…

These potent, timeless tales come with a stunning cover gallery from Luis Dominguez, Moliterni, Chan, García–López, Buckler, Frank Springer, Bernie Wrightson, Gray Morrow, Giordano, Jim Starlin and  Frank Giacoia: a powerful evocation of a lost era, different tastes and sensibilities that never change but can always surprise.

Jonah Hex is one of the most unique and original characters in cowboy comics: richly ironic, darkly comedic, rousing, chilling and cathartically satisfying. This is a Western for those who despise the form whilst being the perfect modern interpretation of grand storytelling tradition. No matter what your reading preference, this is a collection you don’t want to miss.
© 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Jonah Hex volume 4: Only the Good Die Young


By Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti, Phil Noto, Jordi Bernet, David Michael Beck & various (DC Comics)
ISBN13: 978-1-84576-786-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

Confident enough to apply fantasy concepts to this grittiest of human heroes, the assembled creators working on the last successful incarnation of Jonah Hex blended a darkly ironic streak of wit with a sanguine view of morality and justice to produce some of the most accessible and enjoyable comics fiction ever seen.

This collection, reprinting issues #19-24 of that series, served up six discrete tales revealing how the ravaged and dissolute bounty hunter will takes everything the universe can throw at him with the same irascible aplomb and give back double…

‘Texas Money’, ‘Unfinished Business’ and ‘The Current War’ are all illustrated by Phil Noto; compelling vignettes which well display the thread of black humour that runs through these stories. The first sees Hex hire out to notorious saloon boss Wiley Park for a rescue mission, only to become distracted by the West’s Most Inhospitable Brothel Madam.

The second sees Hex paying for a little jest he had at Park’s expense: a truly iconic tribute to a classic Conan the Barbarian scene, before reuniting with an old stooge to settle all accounts with the shifty saloon owner.

Jordi Bernet handled interlude issue ‘Devil’s Paw’: a seemingly more traditional yarn of deserts and mesas, galloping posses and awful “injuns”, but this dark tale of outrage and revenge is conceptually the most adult and brutal in the book, showing the inner core of righteousness that drives Hex, whatever his aspect and actions might hint to the contrary – and no one concerned about derogatory depictions of minorities should have anything to worry about…

‘The Current War’ offers an elegiac flavour of the Doomed Wild West and Hex gets an unsettling glimpse of things to come when he is hired to retrieve a prototype robot stolen from an inventor by Thomas Edison. Once more, and as always, the wryly cynical authorial voices of Justin Gray & Jimmy Palmiotti make this dark prophecy work in what should be an uncomfortable milieu.

Bernet returns to illustrate a superbly chilling tale of US Cavalry atrocity in ‘Who Lives and Who Dies’, which to my mind is the perfect modern Western tale and this volume concludes with a no-holds-barred supernatural thriller painted by David Michael Beck: ‘All Hallows Eve’.

Called to a haunted saloon where ghostly spirit of Justice and sometime ally El Diablo seeks his aid against the bloodthirsty Prairie Witch, Hex plus – in a delightful comic turn – cowboy vagabond Bat Lash must defeat the harridan’s plot to bloodily sacrifice the entire town of Coffin Creek. In tone, quite similar to a contemporary teen horror flick, this too works perfectly as a vehicle for the best Western Anti-hero ever created.

Dark, bloody and wickedly funny, this sly blend of action and social commentary is an unmissable treat for readers of an adult temperament and a mind open to genre-bending.
© 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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The All-New Batman – the Brave and the Bold volume 3: Small Miracles


By Sholly Fisch, Rick Burchett, Dan Davis, Robert Pope, Scott McRae, Stewart McKenny & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3852-0 (TPB/Digital edition)

The Brave and the Bold premiered in 1955 as an anthology adventure comic featuring short complete tales about a variety of period heroes: a format reflecting the era’s filmic fascination with flamboyantly fanciful historical dramas. Devised and written by Bob Kanigher, #1 led with Roman epic Golden Gladiator, feudal mystery-man The Silent Knight and Joe Kubert’s Viking Prince. Soon the Gladiator was alternated with Robin Hood, but the adventure theme carried the title until the end of the decade when the burgeoning costumed character revival saw B&B transform into a try-out vehicle like Showcase.

Used to premiere concepts and characters such as Task Force X: The Suicide Squad, Cave Carson, Hawkman and Strange Sports Stories as well as the epochal Justice League of America, the comic soldiered on until issue #50 when it found another innovative new direction which once again caught the public’s imagination.

That issue paired two super heroes – Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter – in a one-off team-up and was followed by more of the same: Aquaman with Hawkman in #51, WWII “Battle Stars” Sgt. Rock, Mme. Marie, Captain Cloud & The Haunted Tank in #52 and The Atom & Flash in #53.

The next instant union – Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash – evolved into The Teen Titans and after Metal Men/The Atom and Flash/Martian Manhunter appeared, a new hero debuted in #57-58: Metamorpho, the Element Man.

From then it was back to the proven popular power pairings with #59. Although no one realised it at the time, that particular conjunction – Batman with Green Lantern – would be particularly significant….

A return engagement for the Teen Titans, issues spotlighting Earth-Two stalwarts Starman and Black Canary and Earth-One’s Wonder Woman and Supergirl soon gave way to an indication of things to come when Batman returned to duel hero/villain Eclipso in #64: an early acknowledgement of the brewing TV-induced mania mere months away.

Within two issues (following Flash/Doom Patrol and Metamorpho/Metal Men), B&B #67 saw the Caped Crusader take de facto control of the title and a lion’s share of team-ups. With the late exception of #72-73 (Spectre/Flash and Aquaman/Atom), it was thereafter where the Gotham Gangbuster invited the rest of DC’s heroic pantheon to come and play…

Even after the title finally folded, its mighty heritage inspired returns as assorted miniseries and as a second dramatic on-going run in the 2000s.

Meanwhile elsewhere over a few decades, Batman: The Animated Series – masterminded by Bruce Timm & Paul Dini in the 1990s – revolutionised the Dark Knight and subsequently led to some of the absolute best comic book adventures in his 80-year publishing history. It also led to a spin-off print title…

With constant comics tie-ins to a succession of TV animation series, Batman has remained immensely popular and a sublime introducer of kids to the magic of sequential narrative and the printed page. One fun-filled incarnation was Batman: The Brave and the Bold, which gloriously celebrated the team-up in both its all-ages small-screen and comicbook spin-off.

Shamelessly and superbly plundering decades of continuity arcana and the comic book inspirations and legacy of power-pairings in a profusion of alliances between the Dark Knight and DC’s lesser creations, the show was supplemented by a cool kids’ periodical full of fun, verve and swashbuckling dash, cunningly crafted to appeal as much to the parents and grandparents as those fresh-faced little TV-fed tykes…

This stellar collection re-presents issues #15 and 17 of original spinoff series Batman: The Brave and the Bold and #13-16 The All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold in an immensely entertaining all-ages ensemble suitable for newcomers, fans and aficionados of various vintages. Although absolutely unnecessary to the reader’s enjoyment, a passing familiarity with the TV episodes will enhance the overall experience, but not as much as will knowledge of the bizarre minutiae and lore of DC down the years…

Scripted throughout by Sholly Fisch, and following the TV show format, each tale opens with a brief prequel adventure before telling a longer tale.

We start with a run from the second series. TA-NB:TB&TB #13 was cover-dated January 2012 with Rick Burchett & Dan Davis illustrating ‘…Batman Dies at Dawn!’, as Nightwing leaves his Teen Titan ally Speedy to answer a call from the eerie Phantom Stranger. The enigmatic envoy of the unknown has assembled an army of Robins from the past, present and alternate histories (such as Frank Miller’s Carrie Kelley from The Dark Night Returns) to save a fatally wounded Batman, and their fractious trail leads ultimately to the grandfather of Damien (Robin) Wayne: Ra’s Al Ghul…

Issue #14 (February 2012) sees the Gotham Gangbuster and Blue Beetle wipe out colour coordinated crooks Crazy Quilt, Doctor Spectro and Rainbow Raider before Batman shares a moving and appropriately wonder-packed seasonal fable with Ragman in ‘Small Miracles’. Jewish Rory Regan is very much a minor-league hero working in the poorest part of Gotham, and sees nothing to celebrate until he eventually finds his own miracle after exposing a land-grabbing corporation trying to shut down the local synagogue…

Mister Miracle steals the spotlight in #15’s ‘No Exit’ (illustrated by Stewart McKenny & Davis) as he and Batman are caught in the most inescapable trap of all, but still find their way back to freedom, after which things get really silly and soppy as #16 (April 2012, Burchett & Davis) sees Batman’s battle against the Mad Mod interrupted by 5th dimensional imp and premier stalker/fan Bat-Mite.

Sadly, Batgirl also shows up and for the pesky pixie it’s ‘Love at First Mite’. Cue a whacky wander down the daftest miles of DC’s memory lane and a truly hilarious brief and so-very-doomed romantic encounter…

Wrapping up the comic craziness is a brace of tales from the first series. Batman: The Brave and the Bold #15 (May 2010) saw Fisch, Robert Pope & Scott McRae piling on the weird as Batman joined seminal swinging sixties stalwarts Super-Hip and Brother Power, The Geek in their own eccentric era to stop Mad Mod taking over the Mother of Parliaments (that’s Britain, OK? London, Eng-er-land?) before teaching third Flash Wally West a thing or two about patience and diligence in main feature ‘Minute Mystery’. It all began when someone stole something from the Flash Museum and the superheroes made a contest of finding out what, who, how, and why…

We draw to a close with #17 (July 2010) of that series, with Fisch, Pope & McRae proving ‘A Batman’s Work is Never Done’: tracing one week of standard crimebusting capers with cameo appearances from Metamorpho, Mr. Element, Mongul, the Green Lantern Corps,  Toyman, Merry, Girl of Thousand Gimmicks, Jonah Hex, Bat Lash, Hawkman, the Gentleman Ghost, Etrigan the Demon, the Inferior Five, The Creeper, The Scarecrow and Doomsday.

Despite being ostensibly aimed at TV-addicted kids, these mini-sagas are also wonderful, traditional comics romps no self-respecting fun-fan should miss: accessible, well-rendered yarns for the broadest range of excitement-seeking readers. This is a fabulously full-on thrill-fest confirming the seamless link between animated features and comic books. After all, it’s just adventure entertainment in the end; really unmissable entertainment…
© 2010, 2012, 2013 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Crisis on Infinite Earths


By Marv Wolfman & George Pérez, with Jerry Ordway, Dick Giordano, Mike DeCarlo & various (DC Comics) 
ISBN: 978-1-4012-5841-2 (HB/Digital edition) 978-1-56389-750-4 (TPB) 

Once more I’m compelled to dash out another swiftly modified reprinted review to mark the passing of one of our industry and art form’s most prolific and irreplaceable master creators. George Pérez died on May 6th from the complications of pancreatic cancer. He was 67 years old.  

His triumphs as penciller, writer and an always in-demand inker made him a force to be reckoned with and earned a vast number of awards in a career spanning almost fifty years. Pérez worked for dozens of publishers large and small; self-published his own creations, redeemed and restored many moribund characters and features (like the (New) Teen Titans), Nightwing and Wonder Woman) and co-created many breakthrough characters such as The White Tiger (first Puerto Rican superhero), The Maestro, Deathstroke the Terminator, Terra, The Monitor and Anti-Monitor.  

He will be most warmly remembered for his incredible facility in portraying big teams and cataclysmic events. Pérez probably drew every DC and Marvel superhero of his era, with major runs on The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, The Justice League of America, Legion of Super-Heroes and numerous iterations of Teen Titans as well as stints on The Inhumans, X-Men, JSA, All-Star Squadron, Thunderbolts and T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. He will be immortalised for the comic book series covered below. A fuller appreciation will follow as soon as I can sort it… 

In 1985 the Editorial Powers-That-Be at DC Comics were about to celebrate fifty years of publishing, and enjoying a creative upswing that had been a long time coming. A crucial part of the festivities, and purported attempt to simplify five decades of often conflicting stories, was a truly epic year-long saga that would impact every single DC title and reconstruct the entire landscape and history of the DC Universe, with an appearance – however brief – by every character the company had ever published. Easy-peasy, Huh? 

Additionally, this new start would seek to end an apparent confusion of multiple Earths with similarly named and themed heroes. This – it had been decided – was deterring (sic) new readers. Happily, since then (primarily thanks to movie rom-coms like Sliding Doors) we’ve all become well aware of string theory and parallel universes and can revel in the most basic TV show or kids cartoon proffering the concept of multiples incidences of me and you… 

Way back then, the result of those good intentions was a groundbreaking 12-part miniseries that spearheaded a vast crossover event: eventually culminating in a hefty graphic novel collection (plus latterly three companion volumes reprinting all the crossovers). 

The experiment was a huge success, both critically and commercially, and enabled the company to reinvigorate many of their most cherished properties: many of which had been in dire need or some regeneration and renewal. Many fans would argue that DC have been trying to change it back ever since… 

Plotted long in advance of launch, threads and portents appeared for months in DC’s regular titles, mostly regarding a mysterious arms-and-information broker known as The Monitor. With his beautiful assistant Lyla Michaels/Harbinger he had been gauging each and every being on Earths beyond counting with a view to saving all of Reality. At this juncture, that consisted of uncountable variations of universes existing “side-by-side”, each exhibiting differences varying from minor to monumental.  

Building on long-established continuity collaborators Marv Wolfman and George Pérez – aided and abetted by Dick Giordano, Mike DeCarlo and Jerry Ordway – began by tweaking things fans knew before taking them on a journey nobody anticipated… It transpired that at the very beginning of time an influence from the future caused Reality to fracture. Rogue Guardian of the Universe Krona obsessively sought to unravel the secret of creation and his probing cause a perfect singular universe to shatter into innumerable self-perpetuating cracked reflections of itself… 

Now, a wave of antimatter scythes through the Cosmic All, eradicating these separate universes. Before each Armageddon, a tormented immortal named Pariah materialises on an inhabited but doomed world of each Existence. As the story opens, he arrives on an Earth, as its closest dimensional neighbours are experiencing monumental geo-physical disruptions. It’s the end of the World, but The Monitor has a plan. It involves death on a mammoth scale, sacrifice beyond measure, a gathering of the best and worst beings of the surviving Earths and the remaking of time itself to deflect cosmic catastrophe and defeat the being that caused it… 

Action is tinged with tragedy as many major heroic figures – from the nondescript and forgotten to high, mighty and grand – perish valiantly, falling in apparently futile struggle to preserve some measure of life from the doomed multiverse. 

Full of plot twists and intrigue, this cosmic comicbook spectacle set the benchmark for all future crossover events, not just DC’s, and is still a qualitative high point seldom reached and never yet surpassed. As well as being a superb blockbuster in its own right and accessible to even the greenest neophyte reader, it is the foundation of all DC’s in-continuity stories since 1985, the basis of a TV phenomenon and absolutely vital reading.  

More than any other work in a truly stellar career, Crisis on Infinite Earths is the magnum opus George Pérez will be remembered for: It might not be fair, but it’s inescapably true… 
© 1985, 1986, 2001, 2008, 2015 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. 

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Jonah Hex volume 3: Origins


By Jimmy Palmiotti, Justin Gray, Jordi Bernet, and others (DC Comics) 

ISBN: 978-1-84576-629-0 (TPB/Digital edition) 

The Western is an odd genre that can be sub-divided into two discrete halves: the sparkly, shiny version that dominated kids’ books, comics and television for decades, exemplified by Zane Grey stories and heroes like Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. Then there’s the other half… 

That kind of cowboy – grimy, gritty, excessively dark and nihilistic –was done best for decades by Europeans in such strips as Jean-Michel Charlier’s Lieutenant Blueberry or Bonelli & Galleppini’s Tex Willer and made their way into US culture through the films of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone.  

Jonah Hex is very best of this latter sort. 

DC opened a stable of clean-cut gun-slingers as the super-hero genre imploded in 1949, with dashing and highly readable luminaries like Johnny Thunder, Nighthawk, The Trigger Twins, Matt Savage and dozens of others in a marketplace that seemed limitless in its voracious hunger for chaps in chaps.  

However, all things end and by the early sixties the sagebrush brigade had dwindled to a few venerable properties. A flurry of superheroes hogged the newsstands during the Silver Age from 1956, but as the 1960s closed, they were waning again and thematic changes in the cinematic Cowboy filtered through to a comics industry suffering its second super-hero retreat in twenty years.  

All-Star Western #1 was released with an August/September 1970 cover date, filled with Pow-Wow Smith reprints, and became an all-new anthology with its second issue. It featured numerous creative all-stars, including Robert Kanigher, Neal Adams, Gray Morrow, Al Williamson, Gil Kane, Angelo Torres, & Dick Giordano, working on Outlaw!, Billy the Kid and cult sleeper-hit El Diablo: combining shoot-em-up shenanigans with supernatural chills, in deference to the real hit genre-type that saved comics in those dark days – horror stories. 

Issue #10 introduced a disfigured, irascible, shockingly lethal bounty hunter created by writer John Albano & Tony DeZuñiga and DC finally found its greatest and most enduring Western Warrior…  

Hex is the very model of a modern anti-hero. Coarse, callous, proudly uneducated, the relentless manhunter is clad in battered Confederate Grey, half his face lost to a hideous past injury. He offers the aspect of a brutal thug little better than the scum he hunts  and is a man to avoid – or so you’d think on first appearances…  

Hex is arguably the most memorable western comic character ever created. He’s certainly the darkest and most grippingly realised, as is the brutal and uncompromising world he inhabits. His 21st century revival portrayed him as a ruthless demon with gun or knife, hunting men for the price on their heads in the years following the American civil war.  

This collection (reprinting issues #13-18 of the 2006 monthly series) revisits his origin and offers fascinating insights not only in gripping lead tale ‘Retribution’ – illustrated by the utterly superb Jordi Bernet – but also in haunting, nihilistically evocative cautionary tale ‘The Ballad of Tallulah Black’ (beguiling painted by Phil Noto), and blackly comedic ‘I Walk Alone’, drawn with unsuspected subtlety by Val Semeiks. 

Jonah Hex was always the “Western for people who didn’t like Westerns” and cliché aside, it’s still true. This is a perfect book for any adult beginning or returning to comics. 
© 2007 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved. 

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The All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold volume 2: Help Wanted


By Sholly Fisch, Rick Burchett, Dan Davis, Dario Brizuela, Ethen Beavers & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-3524-6 (TPB/Digital edition)

The Brave and the Bold premiered in 1955 as an anthology adventure comic featuring short complete tales about a variety of period heroes: a format reflecting the era’s filmic fascination with flamboyantly fanciful historical dramas. Devised and written by Bob Kanigher, #1 led with Roman epic Golden Gladiator, feudal mystery-man The Silent Knight and Joe Kubert’s Viking Prince. Soon the Gladiator was alternated with Robin Hood, but the adventure theme carried the title until the end of the decade when the burgeoning costumed character revival saw B&B transform into a try-out vehicle like Showcase.

Used to premiere concepts and characters such as Task Force X: The Suicide Squad, Cave Carson, Hawkman and Strange Sports Stories as well as the epochal Justice League of America, the comic soldiered on until issue #50 when it found another innovative new direction which once again caught the public’s imagination. That issue paired two super heroes – Green Arrow and Martian Manhunter – in a one-off team-up. It was followed by more of the same: Aquaman with Hawkman in #51, WWII “Battle Stars” Sgt. Rock, Mme. Marie, Captain Cloud & The Haunted Tank in #52 and The Atom & Flash in #53.

The next instant union – Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash – evolved into The Teen Titans and after Metal Men/The Atom and FlashbMartian Manhunter appeared, a new hero debuted in #57-58: Metamorpho, the Element Man.

From then it was back to the increasingly popular power pairings with #59. Although no one realised it at the time, that particular conjunction – Batman with Green Lantern – would be particularly significant….

A return engagement for the Teen Titans, issues spotlighting Earth-Two stalwarts Starman and Black Canary and Earth-One’s Wonder Woman and Supergirl soon gave way to an indication of things to come when Batman returned to duel hero/villain Eclipso in #64: an early acknowledgement of the brewing TV-induced mania mere months away.

Within two issues (following Flash/Doom Patrol and Metamorpho/Metal Men), B&B #67 saw the Caped Crusader take de facto control of the title and a lion’s share of team-ups. With the late exception of #72 and 73 (Spectre/Flash and Aquaman/Atom), it was thereafter where the Gotham Gangbuster invited the rest of DC’s heroic pantheon to come and play…

Decades later, Batman: The Animated Series – masterminded by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini in the 1990s – revolutionised the Dark Knight and subsequently led to some of the absolute best comic book adventures in his 80-year publishing history. It also led to a spin-off print title…
With constant comics iterations and tie-ins to a succession of TV animation series, Batman has remained immensely popular and a sublime introducer of kids to the magical world of the printed page. One fun-filled incarnation was Batman: The Brave and the Bold, which gloriously celebrated the team-up in both its all-ages small-screen and comicbook spin-off.

Shamelessly and superbly plundering decades of continuity arcana in a profusion of alliances between the Dark Knight and DC’s lesser creations, the show was supplemented by a cool kid’s periodical full of fun, verve and swashbuckling dash, cunningly crafted to appeal as much to the parents and grandparents as those fresh-faced neophyte kids…

This stellar trade paperback and digital collection re-presents issues #7-12 of the second series – The All-New Batman: The Brave and the Bold – in an immensely entertaining all-ages ensemble suitable for newcomers, fans and aficionados of all ages originally seen between July and December 2011. Although absolutely unnecessary to the reader’s enjoyment, a passing familiarity with the TV episodes will enhance the overall experience as will knowledge of the bizarre minutiae of 1960s and 1970s DC lore…

Scripted throughout by Sholly Fisch, and following the TV format, each tale opens with a brief prequel adventure before telling a longer tale. TA-NB:TB&TB #7 opens with the Caped Crimebuster and aforementioned 1960s Teen Titans triumphing over the Time Trapper as prelude to main feature ‘‘Shadows & Light’. Illustrated by Rich Burchett & Dan Davis, it reveals Batman’s earliest days and a momentous meeting with Gotham’s original guardian. Golden Age Green Lantern Alan Scott wanted to see what the new kid could do offered a teaching experience beside his JSA colleagues…

Aquaman leads off in ‘Under the Sea!’ but soon he and the Dark Knight are on a quest to liberate accursed ghost Captain Fear: battling mythological sea perils and sinister super bandit Black Manta.

‘3:10 to Thanagar’ co-stars Hawkman and begins with them and The Atom defeating shapeshifter Byth, with the majority of the yarn detailing how transporting him back to interplanetary jail is derailed by an armada of evil allies trying – and failing – to break him free.

‘Help Wanted’ offers a delightful and truly heartwarming deviation from standard form as a professional henchman details the tribulations of the gig economy as tenures with Toyman, Clock King and Ocean Master end early, thanks to Superman, Green Arrow, Aquaman and others. What the reformed family man will never know is how his own wife, son and Batman colluded to redeem him…

With art from Dario Brizuela, ‘Out of Time’ finds the Caped Crusader, Geo-Force and Cave Carson unearth an ancient earthquake machine under Gotham, compelling Batman to head back to 1879 to destroy it before it starts eating bedrock. The case brings him into partnership with bounty hunter Jonah Hex and into contention with immortal maniac Ra’s Al Ghul before the day and all those tomorrows are saved…

Wrapping up this jaunty journal of joint ventures, ‘Trick or Treat’ – with art by Ethen Beavers – offers a Halloween appetiser as Batman and Zatanna investigate a break-in at the House of Mystery. After freeing Cain & Abel, the heroes track clues and deal with Doctor Destiny and Mr. Mxyzptlk before deducing the only possible culprit and getting dragged into a colossal clash of mystic heroes and villains…

Despite being ostensibly aimed at TV-addicted kids, these mini-sagas are also wonderful, traditional comics thrillers no self-respecting fun-fan should miss: accessible, well-rendered yarns for the broadest range of excitement-seeking readers. This is a fabulously full-on thrill-fest confirming the seamless link between animated features and comic books. After all, it’s just adventure entertainment in the end; really unmissable entertainment…

What more do you need to know?
© 2011, 2012 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.

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Jonah Hex: Shadows West


By Joe R. Lansdale, Timothy Truman, Sam Glanzman & various (DC/Vertigo)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-4715-7

As initially imagined by John Albano & Tony DeZuñiga, Jonah Hex is probably the most memorable western comic character ever created. He’s certainly the darkest and most grippingly realised, as is the brutal and uncompromising world he inhabits.

A ruthless demon with gun or knife or whatever is at hand, he hunts men for the price on their heads in the years following the American civil war, and the scars inside him are more shocking even than the ghastly ruin of his face.

DC – or National Periodicals as it then was – had run a notable stable of clean-cut gunslingers since the collapse of the super-hero genre in 1949, with such dashing – and immensely readable – luminaries as Johnny Thunder, The Trigger Twins, Nighthawk, Matt Savage and dozens of others in a marketplace that seemed limitless in its voracious hunger for chaps in chaps. However, all things end and comic tastes are notoriously fickle, and by the early sixties the sagebrush brigade had dwindled to a few venerable properties as an onslaught of costumed super-characters assaulted the newsstands and senses.

They too would temporarily pass…

As the 1960s closed, the thematic changes in the cinematic Cowboy filtered through to a comics industry suffering its second superhero retreat in twenty years. Although a critical success, the light-hearted Western series Bat Lash couldn’t garner a solid following, but DC, desperate for a genre that readers would warm to, retrenched and revived an old and revered title, gambling once again on heroes who were no longer simply boy scouts with six-guns.

the very model of the modern anti-hero, Jonah Hex, who first appeared in All-Star Comics #10: a vulgarly coarse and engagingly callous bounty hunter clad in a battered Confederate Grey tunic and hat.

With half his face lost to some hideous past injury, Hex was a brutal thug little better than the scum he hunted and certainly a man to avoid.

From the very start the series sought to redress some of the most unpalatable motifs of old-style cowboy literature and any fan of films like Soldier Blue and Little Big Man or Dee Brown’s iconoclastic book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee will feel a grim sense of vicarious satisfaction and redress at most of the stories here.

There’s also a huge degree of world-weary cynicism that wasn’t to be found in other comics until well past the Watergate Scandal, the first time when America as a whole lost its social and political innocence. Sadly, not the last, though…

It was that edgy dissimilarity to standard comicbook fare that first attracted esteemed author, occasional comics scripter and devout Robert E. Howard fan Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Hotep, Edge of Dark Water, Dead Aim) to the series as a child.

As his Introduction details, it’s also a large part of what convinced him and fellow craftsmen Timothy Truman (Grimjack, Scout, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Conan) and Sam Glanzman (USS Stevens, Haunted Tank, A Sailor’s Story, The Lonely War of Willy Schultz) to revive and reimagine the grizzled veteran in what turned out to be a highly popular and painfully controversial trio of adulted-oriented miniseries for DC’s Vertigo Comics imprint.

Collecting Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo #1-5 (August-December 1993), Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such #1-5 (March-July 1995) and Jonah Hex: Shadows West #1-3 (February-April 1999), this volume – available in trade paperback and digital editions – also references heaping helpings of Spaghetti Western tropes, raw-edged Texan lore and attitudes, supernatural weirdness and some of the broadest, crudest, daftest belly-laugh humour ever seen in street-level American comics…

It all kicks off with Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo as the bounty hunter is saved from lynching by the criminals he’s hunting. His saviour is nigh-decrepit aging manhunter Go Slow Smith. Together they despatch the outlaws who arranged the necktie party, but when the pecuniary lawmen try to claim the money on their latest gory prizes, they’re faced with bureaucratic obfuscation and delay.

That’s not too terrible as the town of Mud Creek has booze, beds and hot food, but when the sun goes down horror stalks Main Street and Smith is gunned down by a dead man…

Falsely accused of murder, Hex narrowly avoids another hanging and sets after traveling man Doc “Cross” Williams. When he tracks him down, however, the gunman realises the scientist has perfected a diabolical means of resurrecting the dead. It’s not so hard tackling the Doc’s bizarre coterie of ghastly freaks, but Hex has no chance against the wanderer’s star attraction, the undead but still lightning fast-draw Wild Bill Hickok.

The madman’s big mistake is trying to turn Hex into another zombie slave. After the hell-faced gunman gets way and regroups, Jonah undertakes a slow, relentless revenge that pulls Williams across the deadliest terrain in Texas and straight into the unforgiving sights of remorseless Apache renegades…

The result is a spectacular and breathtaking battle of wills you’ll never forget…

The creative band got back together for Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such: a truly inspired and deftly ridiculous spoof on western themes and attitudes with Hex cast as willing straight man in a yarn touching base with Robert E. Howard’s subterranean horror myths as viewed through Mel Brook’s Blazing Saddles.

In the searing inhospitable desert scrub a rather quaint English émigré is trying to establish a cattle ranch. He’s got lots of other strange ideas too, based on a lecture he once saw by Oscar Wilde.

At the Wilde West Ranch and Culture Emporium, Mr. Graves pays good wages and provides every amenity. He is well respected, but in return expects his doughty cowpokes to write and recite poetry, perform skits and enthusiastically burst into song at every opportunity.

Sadly, they got the enthusiasm down pat, but exhibit no discernible talent or artistic ability to underpin it…

When the restless Hex and his brash young sidekick stumble upon the cultural bastion, they have just barely survived an horrific encounter with a subterranean monster that drags people and animals beneath the earth to suck out their innards via efficiently-sliced off heads.

It’s not long before the newcomers realise the Englishman and his prairie troubadours are having their own encounters with the vile beasts.

When the effusive Graves reveals that the ranch previously belonged to a luckless fool named Errol Autumn an incredible tale emerges…

Autumn had set up his spread on land that had been contested for millennia by the local Indians and an antediluvian subhuman race dubbed the Worms of the Earth. After the idiot white man accidentally destroyed the wards and charms the natives had used to keep the monsters safely below, something escaped and raped his wife.

The offspring were still wandering the region and now seem intent on reviving that age-old war on humanity…

After one particularly hungry horror busts through the floor of Graves’s compound, Hex and the cowboys decide to take the battle to them and embark on a brain-blasting, ultimately cataclysmic voyage to the heart of hell, with the hybrid worm-children dogging their heels.

At least the underground argonauts can keep up their spirits with a song or two…

The bawdy and absurdist humour remain for the final outing but Jonah Hex: Shadows West also offers plenty of trenchant things to say about the treatment of native cultures too.

After another painful brush with ever-encroaching white civilisation and the stupidity of the law, Hex is induced by diminutive sharpshooter ‘Long Tom’ to join the shamefully low-rent Wild West Show of failed dentist and inveterate chancer Buffalo Will.

It’s an uncomfortable fit despite the huge salary and a reunion with old friend Spotted Balls. Will is an unrepentant shyster and charlatan and his white performers brutally and continually abuse the native hires.

After seeing how the men treat a squaw, Hex decides to quit and is astonished when she and Spotted Balls elect to come with him. The woman has an ulterior motive: her young son is the spawn of a spirit and looks it. He’s half bear, half human, talks and is the proposed means Buffalo Will plans to become stinking rich…

Happy to frustrate the evil impresario, Hex and his charges ride out in search of the spirit folk under ‘Gathering Shadows’ with Long Tom and a posse of killers in hot pursuit and a deadly race and mobile war of attrition ensues.

By the time the fugitives reach their destination, leaving bodies on both sides, ‘Final Shadows’ are falling and all hope seems lost. But even Hex’s cynical disbelief in mystic mumbo-jumbo takes a pounding when the child is reunited with the chief of the Bear Folk…

Raucous, excessively violent and bitingly funny, these irreverent yarns capture the spirit of the original Hex series whilst adding a modicum of unnatural unworldliness and outrageously lampooning the beloved cinema standbys of a bygone era.

If you love dry wit, trenchant absurdity and a non-stop bombardment of high-octane action, you must get this book.
© 1993, 1995, 1999, 2014 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved

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Showcase Presents Jonah Hex volume 1


By John Albano, Arnold Drake, Michael Fleisher, Robert Kanigher, Denny O’Neil, Tony DeZuñiga, Noly Panaligan, Doug Wildey, George Moliterni, José Luis García-López, Gil Kane, Jim Aparo & various (DC Comics)
ISBN: 978-1-4012-0760-1

These days comics fans are not well-served in regard to genre fare. Although Marvel has gone a long way towards recovering (at least in digital formats) its back catalogue of war, crime horror and western yarns, DC – which arguably excels in all those categories as well as teen humour and funny animal publications – seems content to let such riches lie fallow.

So if you want classic material you need to look at older offerings such as their wonderful Showcase Presents archive line…

The Western is an odd story-form which can almost be sub-divided into two discrete halves: the sparkly, shiny version that dominated kids’ books, comics and television for decades, best typified by Zane Grey stories and heroes such as Roy Rogers and Gene Autry… and the other stuff.

That sort of cowboy tale – grimy, gritty, excessively dark – was done best for years by Europeans in such strips as Jean-Michel Charlier’s Lieutenant Blueberry or Bonelli and Galleppini’s Tex Willer, which made their way into US culture through the films of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone.

Jonah Hex was always the latter sort.

DC – or National Periodicals as it then was – had run a notable stable (sorry!) of clean-cut gunslingers since the collapse of the super-hero genre in 1949, with such dashing – and immensely readable – luminaries as Johnny Thunder, The Trigger Twins, Nighthawk, Matt Savage and dozens of others in a marketplace that seemed limitless in its voracious hunger for chaps in chaps. However, all things end and comic tastes are notoriously fickle, and by the early sixties the sagebrush brigade had dwindled to a few venerable properties as an onslaught of costumed super-characters assaulted the newsstands and senses.

They too would temporarily pass…

As the 1960s closed, the thematic changes in the cinematic Cowboy filtered through to a comics industry suffering its second superhero retreat in twenty years. Although a critical success, the light-hearted Western series Bat Lash couldn’t garner a solid following, but DC, desperate for a genre that readers would warm to, retrenched and revived an old and revered title, gambling once again on heroes who were no longer simply boy scouts with six-guns.

All-Star Western #1 was released with an August/September 1970 cover date, packed with Pow-Wow Smith reprints, and became an all-new anthology title with its second bi-monthly issue.

The magazine was allocated a large number of creative all-stars, including Robert Kanigher, Neal Adams, Gray Morrow, Al Williamson, Gil Kane, Angelo Torres, and Dick Giordano, working on such strips as Outlaw!, Billy the Kid and the cult sleeper hit El Diablo, which combined shoot-’em-up shenanigans with supernatural chills, in deference to the true hit genre that saved comics in those dark days.

But it wasn’t until issue #10 and the introduction of a disfigured and irascible bounty hunter created by writer John Albano & Tony DeZuñiga that the company found its greatest and most enduring Western warrior.

This superb collection of the early appearances of Hex has been around for a few years, so consider this a heartfelt attempt to generate a few sales and lots of interest…

But before we even get to the meat of the review let’s look at the back of this wonderfully economical black-&-white gunfest where some of those abortive experimental series have been included at no added expense.

Outlaw was created by Kanigher and DeZuñiga, a generation gap drama wherein Texas Ranger Sam Wilson is compelled by duty to hunt down his troubled and wayward son Rick. Over four stylish chapters – ‘Death Draw’, ‘Death Deals the Cards!’ (#3, illustrated by Gil Kane), ‘No Coffin for a Killer’ and the trenchant finale ‘Hangman Never Loses’ (#5, drawn by Jim Aparo), the eternal struggles of Good and Evil, Old and New effectively played out, all strongly influenced by Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns.

The series was replaced by one of the best and definitely the most radical interpretation of Billy the Kid ever seen in comics; a sardonic, tragic vengeance-saga that begins with the hunt for the killer of Billy’s father and develops into a poignant eulogy for the passing of an era.

Billy’s quest (‘Billy the Kid… Killer’, Bullet for a Gambler’ and ‘The Scavenger’: all by Albano & DeZuñiga) ran in issues #6-8. The book closes with a classic spooky Western tale from issue #7: ‘The Night of the Snake’ was written by Gil Kane & Denny O’Neil, and strikingly illustrated by Kane & DeZuñiga, clearly showing each creator’s love for the genre…

As good as those lost gems are, the real star of this tome is the very model of the modern anti-hero, Jonah Hex, who first appeared in All-Star Comics #10: a vulgarly coarse and callous bounty hunter clad in a battered Confederate Grey tunic and hat.

With half his face lost to some hideous past injury he was a brutal thug little better than the scum he hunted and certainly a man to avoid. ‘Welcome to Paradise’ by Albano & DeZuñiga introduced the character and his world in a powerful action thriller, with a subtle sting of sentimentality that anyone who has seen the classic Western Shane cannot fail to appreciate.

From the first set-up Albano was constantly hinting at the tortured depths hidden behind Hex’s hellishly scarred visage and deadly proficiency. In ‘The Hundred Dollar Deal’ (#11) the human killing machine encounters a wholesome young couple who aren’t at all what they seem and the scripts took on an even darker tone from #12. The comic had been re-titled Weird Western Tales (aligning it with the company’s highly successful horror/mystery books) and ‘Promise to a Princess’ combine charm and tragedy in the tale of a little Pawnee girl and the White Man’s insatiable greed and devilish ingenuity.

From the very start the series sought to redress some of the most unpalatable motifs of old-style cowboy literature and any fan of films like Soldier Blue and Little Big Man or Dee Brown’s iconoclastic book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee will feel a grim sense of vicarious satisfaction and redress at most of the stories here.

There’s also a huge degree of world-weary cynicism that wasn’t to be found in other comics until well past the Watergate Scandal, when America as a whole lost its social and political innocence…

Issue #13 ‘The Killer’s Last Wish!’ again tugged the heartstrings in the tale of a lovable old man and his greedy, impatient son, with Hex the unlikely arbiter of final justice. ‘Killers Die Alone!’ is an vicious tear jerker as Hex’s only friend dies to save him from the vengeance of killers who blame the bounty man for their brother’s death, whilst ‘Grasshopper Courage’ (#16 – Hex didn’t appear in #15) displays a shrewd grasp of human nature as Hex and an inept young sheriff track a gang of stagecoach robbers.

‘The Hangin’ Woman’ in #17 is a classy thriller wherein Hex runs afoul of a sadistic harridan who rules her hometown with hemp and hot lead, after which ‘The Hoax’ finds him embroiled in a gold-rush scam that – as usual – ends bloody.

With this tale the length of the stories, always growing, finally reached the stage where they pushed everything else out of the comic for the first time. Before too long the situation would become permanent. ‘Demon on my Trail’ in #19 dealt with kidnapping and racism, whilst ‘Blood Brothers’ (written by Arnold Drake) again addressed Indian injustice as Hex is hired by the US Cavalry to track down a woman stolen by a charismatic “redskin”.

Albano returned for ‘The Gunfighter’, as an injured Hex at last hinted about his veiled past while tracking a gang of killers, but it was new writer Michael Fleisher (assisted at first by Russell Carley) who would reveal Hex’s secrets beginning with Weird Western Tales #22’s ‘Showdown at Hard Times’.

A chance meeting in a stagecoach sets a cabal of ex-Confederate soldiers on the trail of their former comrade for some unrevealed betrayal that inevitably ends in a six-gun bloodbath and introduces a returning nemesis for the grizzled gunslinger.

More is revealed in ‘The Point Pyrrhus Massacre!’ as another gang of Southern malcontents attempt to assassinate President Ulysses Grant, with Hex crossing their gun-sights for good measure.

Issue #24 was illustrated by Noly Panaligan, and ‘The Point Pyrrhus Aftermath!’ finds the grievously wounded Hex a sitting duck for every gunman hot to make his reputation, and depending for his life on the actions of a down-and-out actor…

‘Showdown with the Dangling Man’ looked at shady land deals and greedy businessmen with a typically jaundiced eye – and grisly imagination – whilst train-robbers were the bad-guys in the superb ‘Face-Off with the Gallagher Boys!’, illustrated by the inimitable Doug Wildey. Issue #27, by Fleisher & Panaligan featured ‘The Meadow Springs Crusade’ as the bounty hunter is hired to protect suffragettes agitating for women’s rights in oh-so-liberal Kansas, before ‘Stagecoach to Oblivion’ (drawn by George Moliterni) sees him performing the same service for a gold-shipping company.

Hex’s awful past is finally revealed in #29’s ‘Breakout at Fort Charlotte’, a 2-part extravaganza that gorily concludes with ‘The Trial’ (illustrated by Moliterni), as a battalion of Confederate veterans pass judgement on the man they believe to be the worst traitor in the history of the South.

‘Gunfight at Wolverine’ is a powerful variation on the legend of Doc Holliday after which the Hex portion of the book concludes with a 2-part adventure from Weird Western Tales #32 and 33, drawn by the great José Luis García-López.

‘Bigfoot’s War’ and ‘Day of the Tomahawk’ is a compelling tale of intrigue, honour and double-cross as Hex is again hired to rescue a white girl from those incorrigible “injuns” – and, as usual, hasn’t been told the full story…

Jonah Hex is the most unique and original character in cowboy comics, darkly comedic, rousing, chilling and cathartically satisfying. It’s a Western for those who despise the form whilst being the perfect modern interpretation of a great storytelling tradition. No matter what your reading preference, this is a collection you don’t want to miss.
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