Some 35 years after his debut, we finally learn about how Jonah Hex got to be the bitter bounty hunter we all know and love. Our questions – including the all-important “Just what is up with that scar?” – are answered in JONAH HEX: ORIGINS, collecting six more issues from DC Comics’ current revival series.

Spanish comics artist Jordi Bernet illustrates the three issues comprising the origins arc, and his ballsy, bloody drawings are a fitting and welcome addition to the title. Hex’s story is told in snatches and flashbacks, rather than chronologically.

As a child, he’s thrown into a pit of poop by his father. As an adult, he’s beaten severely by Union soldiers and left for dead. Somewhere in between, he’s raised by an Apache tribe after his father deserts him, and comes to be accepted as one of their own when he saves the chief from death by planting an ax in the neck of an attacking puma.

But someone on the tribe turns on him, causing a rift that will take roughly a dozen years for Hex to heal … by sheer, heartless revenge, of course.

In a two-issue arc called “The Ballad of Tallulah Black,” Hex takes a moment of pity on a woman who wants revenge of her own. The leader of a seven-men gang had shot her eye out, which somehow leads her to a drug-addled life of prostitution. That same guy comes a-callin’ to the whorehouse, slicing up her face and her lady business to where she looks like Hex’s equal in the ugly department. Under Hex’s tutelage, she’s not giving the gang a third time to do her wrong. Phil Noto demonstrates a real skill with the action scenes; his cinematic shootouts practically move on the page.

Finally, Val Semeiks illustrates a single-issue story that finds a woman named Delilah begging for Hex’s help in the forest. Some men armed with rifles claim she’s a member of their family; Delilah denies it, and claims they’re cannibals. Either way, blood gets spilt.

Co-writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray continue churning out excellent scripts that play to Hex’s strengths, which means plenty of black-humored, cold-hearted exchanges like this:

“You shot my pa!”
“You’re welcome.”

Highly recommended. You’re welcome. –Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• JONAH HEX: FACE FULL OF VIOLENCE
• JONAH HEX: GUNS OF VENGEANCE
• SHOWCASE PRESENTS JONAH HEX: VOLUME ONE