Jonah Hex #56
Publisher: DC Comics
Writers: Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray
Artists: Phil Winslade, C.P. Smith
Cover: Darwyn Cooke
With the Jonah Hex movie releasing June 18th, a new jumping on point begins for anyone looking to see what Jonah Hex is all about. The story of Jonah Hex takes you back to the late 1800s, a century away from the rest of the DC universe continuity, and gives you a good look at who Hex is, what he’s about, and how he came to be.
In “More Than Enough”, the first of two short stories in this issue, we meet the legendary bounty hunter when an old woman requests his services for a night; some neighboring thugs make their final offer on the woman’s land before taking it from her!
Phil Winslade’s art on these 9 pages is beautiful, and he really captures that old west feel. And his version of Jonah Hex makes you believe that Clint Eastwood could have been cast as the lead role in this book.
The second story, “First True Love”, takes you back even further in time to 1851 when Jonah Hex was just a boy. We experience the tough upbringing of Hex as a slave in a Native American tribe, bitter against the white man, and we learn the origins of the unmistakable scar on Hex’s face.
C.P. Smith’s art for this story is very dark at times, and is often reminiscent of that classic comic book style with a traditional Native American sensibility.
Jimy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, long time Jonah Hex co-writers, pen both stories. Palmiotti and Gray get the job done by introducing you to who Jonah Hex is: a very cool anti hero who ain’t afraid to put a man six feet under, but honorable enough to shoot ’em between the eyes and not in the back. Sadly, these two stories aren’t the best featuring Jonah Hex, both a bit exposition heavy with not a whole lot of action, but again, the purpose of this issue was to introduce Hex to new readers.
Jonah Hex is a very cool character with lots of great stories behind him, but unless you’re really interested in discovering who Jonah Hex is, this issue is not a must read; if you’re not a fan of the western genre, this issue probably won’t offer anything to help change your mind.
Andrew Hurst
andrewhurst@comicattack.net
I’ve always been wanting to check out Jonah Hex, but never knew where to jump on.
I’m a fan of the Western genre, when done well, and from what you’ve said this issue sounds pretty cool- especially for newbies. That you found out how Jonah got his scar piques my interest a bit too.
Now, if only it weren’t in that plastic bag and I could flip through it on the shelf!
so this is what you would get if Clint Eastwood and Two-Face had a kid huh?
I’ve teetered on wanting to jump into Jonah Hex for many years and I’ve only read a handful of his stories. Some decent and some just not worthy of the paper printed on but with all of the excitement about the character and Palmiotti on the title I just might check it out and see what happens.
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This is one of the few DC characters I really would like to get into. Maybe I’ll check it out.
I may give this a whirl, too. For some reason, I always thought this was a Vertigo title, but it ain’t. Why’s it in plastic? Does it come with a trading card or poster?
Maybe it comes with a 5 gate fold titanium hologram cover along with a trading card and poster! It’s the 90s all over again lol
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