Never thought I’d ever view a former Confederate soldier missing half his face as comfort food, but that’s exactly what the weird Western bounty hunter known as Jonah Hex is. JONAH HEX: ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG is the fourth collection of Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti’s current revival series for DC Comics.
The first tale, “Texas Money,” has Hex hired by an owner of a house of ill repute to find his two kidnapped nephews. Juggling between Texas and Oklahoma, our antihero also takes the opportunity to hunt down a hooker wanted for murder. Hex fulfills his bargain to the proprietor, but in a manner that pisses him off, which carries over into the second part, “Unfinished Business.” And just wait until you see what Hex does with a buzzard!
“Devil’s Paw” is among your more conventional Western stories, with Hex trading shots with a bad guy and his gang, pursued by both Pinkerton agents and a scalp-happy Indian. It has one of those kick-in-the-teeth endings (literally) that makes this series so cathartic.
In “The Current War,” Hex is asked to steal back an automaton that its supposed owner claims has been stolen by inventor Thomas Edison, who begs to differ. A one-armed schoolteacher reminisces about his dealings with Hex in “Who Lives and Who Dies” — yes, of course that lost limb is involved — and the book ends with “All Hallows Eve,” the strangest tale of the bunch, what with the appearances of Bat Lash, El Diablo and a supernatural “prairie witch.”
Artists Phil Noto, Jordi Bernet and David Michael Beck all sport their own styles. Noto is best suited to this current, adult take; Bernet harkens back to Hex’s 1970s glory days; and Beck’s art is nearly photorealistic. But it’s the writing team of Gray and Palmiotti who keep this character so exciting and this series so very much alive. —Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• JONAH HEX: FACE FULL OF VIOLENCE
• JONAH HEX: GUNS OF VENGEANCE
• JONAH HEX: ORIGINS
• SHOWCASE PRESENTS JONAH HEX: VOLUME ONE
Related posts:
- Jonah Hex: Origins
- Jonah Hex: Guns of Vengeance
- Jonah Hex: Face Full of Violence
- Showcase Presents Jonah Hex: Volume 1
- The Wicked West II: Abomination & Other Tales
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I’ve been buying the actual Hex comics every month (which is odd considering how much I usually loathe anything to do with the west as a result of growing up in “Canada’s Texas”) and I have noticed that my enjoyment of each issue depends heavily on the artist. I find that as good as Palmiotti and Gray are, in the wrong hands their scripts can be rendered incoherent. As a result I’ve found that while most issues are firmly in the awesome range (the last one I read, featuring Hex abandoning a mute boy alone in the freezing Canadian wilderness, which was narrated by the adult version of the lad–who presumably survived–was particularly great), there have also been one or two that were virtually unreadable.