Susan Hillwig: One Fangirl's Opinion: February 2013

1982-1983: The Other Woman

Mei Ling. White Fawn. Joanna Mosby. These are the names that would most likely come to a fan’s mind in the early 1980s if asked about Jonah Hex’s past relationships, though some might argue about what constitutes a “relationship”. Should single-issue flings count? How about the one-sided affair that is Emmylou Hartley? And just what sort of past did Jonah and “Widow” Lacey share prior to Weird Western Tales #20? Suffice it to say, Hex may like the ladies, but it rarely seems to turn out good for either party in the end, and as we proceed through Jonah Hex #65 (October 1982), Michael Fleisher, Dick Ayers, and Tony DeZuniga reveal to us that Jonah’s been carrying a heavy burden regarding one of those ladies for quite some time.

The issue begins with Jonah preventing a train robbery by the Crenshaw boys, and as some of the gang escapes on horseback, Jonah leads his own mount out of a livestock car and heads after them. Unfortunately, it’s nearly dark, so Jonah angles for the nearby town of Clearwater Springs, figuring on picking up their trail come morning. His arrival in town is witnessed by Walt Barstow, a crooked sheriff who’s not above fleecing the townsfolk for protection money. The sight of Hex sends Barstow into a panic, and he runs in the other direction, thinking, After all these years, he’s finally managed to track me down! He then ducks into the telegraph office to send a message to Rod Webster, “the only one of the old bunch who lives close by”. And who exactly is the “old bunch”? We find out not long after Barstow gets back to his office and tells his deputies (who are in on the protection racket) about Hex riding into town:

Seems that, back in 1859, Hex, Barstow, Webster, and four others were part of a scouting unit for the U.S. cavalry, overseen by a Colonel Marcus Wainwright, who was the father of the fine filly Hex is cozying up to in the picture. While Barstow doesn’t explain why Jonah’s presence has him so afraid, he does point out that, if they want to keep running their protection racket, they’ll have to gun down Hex!

The next morning, Jonah tracks the Crenshaw boys to some abandoned Indian cliff-dwellings. Whilst sneaking up to one of the buildings, Jonah overhears the boys talking about giving Sheriff Barstow his share of the robbery money, a fee for looking the other way whenever the gang’s in his territory. Though stunned by the mention of the name, Jonah puts his personal feelings aside long enough to round up the outlaws, then takes them to the next town over, figuring that “if Sheriff Barstow at Clearwater Springs really is in cahoots with ‘em, then thar shore ain’t no sense turnin’ these Crenshaw boys over tuh him!” Once he’s turned the gang over to the (more-trustworthy) authorities, Jonah sneaks into Barstow’s office under cover of night and begins searching for evidence that this sheriff and his old scouting partner are one in the same.

When he finds the picture, Jonah's mind reels back to much happier times, when he and the colonel’s daughter -- whose name was Cassie -- were fixing to get married. The day before the ceremony, Cassie headed to Portersville on the paymaster’s wagon to pick up her dress, leaving Jonah behind at the fort with her father. None of them were aware that Hex’s fellow scouts were planning on stealing the payroll they’d been sent to get, and they regarded Cassie as a small obstacle between them and a hundred thousand dollars. Barstow knocked her out cold, then he and the others abandoned her and the wagon in the middle of Comanche territory. Three days passed before Cassie was found and, in Jonah’s words, “whut we did find would make a growed man weep tuh look at!” His fiancée dead, Jonah vowed to hunt down those responsible, but remember, this is a much younger Hex than we’re used to seeing, one who lacked the experience needed to track down six men who’d all gone their separate ways once they had their money. Unable to find any trace of them -- not to mention getting swept up in the Civil War two years later -- Jonah’s vow went unfulfilled, though it’s obvious he never let go of Cassie’s memory in the ensuing fifteen years. One has to wonder if this heart-wrenching loss weighed upon him when he began to get feelings for Mei Ling, and to have the ghost of his lost fiancée suddenly appear in his life so soon after becoming separated from the woman he did eventually marry...well, a man can only take so many blows before he hits back.

Stepping out of the sheriff’s office, he confronts Barstow and his men in the street. The bounty hunter graciously offers the deputies the chance to skedaddle -- which they gladly take -- leaving the former scouts alone. Barstow fast-talks Hex into letting him ride out of town alive, but quickly turns his horse around and begins firing his rifle while Jonah’s back is turned, to which Jonah responds by throwing himself to the ground and shooting Barstow dead. As he checks the body, Jonah finds a copy of the telegram Barstow sent to Rod Webster. After fifteen years, the cold trail has turned red-hot, and Jonah Hex has to make a decision:

When JH#66 opens, we see Jonah riding up to the stage depot at Palomino Creek, where a group of men suddenly bushwhack him and haul him off to their hideout. The reason for this comes clear as their leader heads to the town of Willow Bluff hours away to inform Rod Webster that Hex is in their custody. Seems Webster -- who used his ill-gotten gains to become a banker -- paid these guys $10,000 to kill Hex before he could reach town, but they’re now demanding another ten thousand to finish him off, or else they’ll let the bounty hunter go free. Webster’s become somewhat lily-livered in the past fifteen years, and caves easily to the demand. Meanwhile, at the cabin hideout, Jonah’s tied up and thinking about how he was actually “fixin’ tuh let bygones be bygones” and let Webster and the others off the hook! Whether this is true or merely sarcasm isn’t clear, but seeing as how Webster hired these skunks to do him in, he now aims to make Webster pay his debt in full...but first, he has to free himself. After burning through the ropes on his wrists by cozying up to the fireplace, Hex fights his way out of the cabin and heads for Willow Bluff.

As soon as Jonah gets there, he tracks down Webster and delivers an ultimatum: Pack up and leave town by noon tomorrow, or stick around to face the consequences. Webster decides to go with a third option, namely talking his wife Stella into dolling herself up and paying Jonah a visit at his hotel room in order to...ahem...convince him otherwise. Before Stella arrives, however, we find Jonah lost in another reminisce about Cassie (one that pushes the Comics Code a bit!), so I’d reckon that his blood was good and hot when Stella knocks on his door. But once he finds out who she is, Jonah pushes her away right quick, and instead gives her an earful about why he’s got a vendetta against her husband. “An’ while yo’re at it,” Jonah says as he shows Stella the door, “whyn’t you go tell Mr. Webster fer me thet they got words fer men whut uses good-lookin’ women tuh transact their business fer’em -- an’ town banker shore ain’t one of ‘em!”

The moment Stella gets home, Webster demands to know what happened, and she tells him, adding that “inch for inch and pound for pound, that so-called ‘rabid mad-dog killer’ of yours is a better man than you are!” With that rebuke still ringing in his ears, Webster meets up with the gang he’d hired and demands that they kill Hex right now. They agree...in exchange for all the money in his bank! So the next morning, they all ride into town to clean out the safe, which doesn’t go unnoticed by the townsfolk. The mayor begs for Jonah’s help, and when that doesn’t work, he offers up a $2,500 reward. That gets Hex’s feet moving, and he jumps the gang as they exit the bank, killing one of them with some fast gunplay. Webster then has the gall to thank Hex for putting aside his grudge to stop the robbers, but the still-living gang members, not wanting to swing alone, begin to spill the beans about both Webster’s contract on Hex and his assistance with the bank robbery, a confession that about half the town is witness to. Now that Webster’s sure to be spending a long time behind bars, Jonah decides that’s fair enough punishment for what the man did fifteen years ago, and turns to leave. Webster cracks right then and there, grabbing a gun and opening fire on Jonah. Unlike with Barstow, Jonah simply turns around and takes aim at Webster, not firing a shot, knowing that the threat of killing the cowardly man is enough to make him crumple in the street and beg for his life. Moving to leave once again, Jonah is stopped this time by Stella Webster, who gives our hero a parting gift:

Surprisingly, Jonah never takes a moment to grill the quivering Webster about where the remaining four ex-scouts could be (remember, he stumbled across Barstow by chance, and that fella only sent a warning telegram to Webster). For Jonah Hex, the trail has grown cold again, so it appears there’s nothing to do but go back to his usual business in JH#67. Little does he know that the Willow Bluff bank robbery -- and his thwarting of it -- made the local papers, which did not go unnoticed by one of those former scouts. Unlike Barstow and Webster, Croy isn’t afraid to bring the fight directly to Hex, and he immediately hits the trail with the intention of hunting down and killing the bounty hunter. Cut to the Careysburg, New Mexico, where Jonah finds a trio of drunks bothering a saloon gal named Lisa: he knocks them about a bit, then he ends up spending the night with Lisa, who’s quite taken with the way Jonah handled himself with those drunks. Both she and Jonah get quite tippled themselves, and she takes to strutting around his hotel room wearing his hat, talking about how she’d love to be a man for one night just to act like he did. Unbeknownst to them, Croy has perched himself on top of the grain loft across from Jonah’s hotel room, and when he sees a figure wearing a cowboy hat pass in front of the window, he opens fire with his rifle, killing Lisa instantly. Certain that he was the intended target, Jonah grabs his guns and runs over to the loft, but the gunman is long gone. The next morning, as he’s arranging for a coffin for poor Lisa, Jonah’s accosted at gunpoint by the now-sober trio from the night before. Jonah presumes they’re responsible for shooting Lisa, and when they make ready to gun him down, he kills all three of them without hesitation. Thinking the matter finished, Jonah walks outside...and gets shot in the head by Croy, who’s hiding on a nearby rooftop.

Though it doesn’t kill him, the bullet does enough damage to keep Jonah hovering between life and death for over three days, during which Jonah relives Cassie’s death fifteen years previous. When the paymaster’s wagon never arrived at the fort, young Jonah and a few others set out in search of it and the men. Jonah already suspected theft even before they found the wagon in Comanche territory, now burned and battered, but with no bodies nearby to suggest a fight. And then they found Cassie:

When Jonah finally regains consciousness, word gets back to Croy pretty quick, and he sneaks into the doctor’s office in the middle of the night to finish Hex off once and for all. Too bad for him that Hex suspected whomever kept trying to kill him would try again, and though he’s surprised to see that his would-be killer is Croy, Jonah doesn’t hesitate to shoot when Croy suddenly whips out a derringer from a spring-loaded rig up his sleeve. So the score is now two murdering ex-scouts dead, one in prison, and three unaccounted for, but once again, we’ve got a cold trail, a fact emphasized by JH#68, which seems to forget all about the current storyarc until nearly midway through. It starts with Jonah arriving in Gravesboro and running into an old friend, Sheriff George Rehnquist, who apparently knew Jonah when he was a little boy (George asks how Jonah’s ma and pa are gettin’ by, plus inquires as to what the heck happened to his face -- this is very similar to an exchange with another old friend/lawman in Fleisher’s first Hex story, way back in Weird Western Tales #22). Jonah barely has time to settle into his hotel room before the town leaders are approaching him to replace George as sheriff. They think George is getting too old and soft for the job, and want Jonah to take over and clean up the town. Jonah refuses to usurp his friend, but he does agree to a deputy position, at least until things in Gravesboro settle down.

Cut to a scene hundreds of miles away, where a merciless hired gun named Farrell Kincaid is collecting a nice stack of cash for services rendered. As he departs, he mentions that he has some personal business to attend to...namely killing Jonah Hex! Yep, the fourth ex-scout has reared his head, and he soon rounds up the fifth: Shoshone warrior White Claw. Kincaid rescues the Indian right as he’s about to be hanged, and the duo ride off towards Gravesboro. In the meantime, Jonah has been saving George’s skin left and right, much to the old man’s embarrassment. “Ah’ve been sheriff in this town fer twenty-four years, Jonah Hex! An’ when Ah need back-up help from you, Ah’ll let you know!” he snaps, words that are still ringing in Jonah’s ears when he beds down for the night. As he slumbers, Jonah dreams of that long-ago day in 1859, when he had to go to Colonel Wainwright’s office and tearfully inform the man that his daughter was dead (a scene that Ayers & DeZuniga render with heart-aching detail). In his grief, the colonel locked himself inside his office, took out a revolver, and killed himself before Jonah and the others could break down the door. The past then melds with the present as Jonah wakes up to the sound of someone banging on his own door. When he answers, a man informs him that Farrell Kincaid rode into town an hour ago and began causing a ruckus at the saloon -- George tried to calm him down, but got killed for his trouble.

The last panel leads straight into JH#69, with Jonah showing up at the saloon to confront Kincaid. As the two of them have words, Hex spots White Claw in the mirror behind the bar -- the Indian had snuck onto the saloon’s second floor, and was readying to throw a tomahawk in the bounty hunter’s back. Jonah ducks just in time, whirling about to open fire on White Claw, while Kincaid pulls his own guns. Shooting from a position on the floor, Jonah kills Kincaid easily, but White Claw escapes and rides out of town. This leads to an hours-long chase across open country, with White Claw wreaking havoc along the way. First he kills a farmer so he can steal a fresh horse, then he tries to get the jump on a family camping out on the plain (lucky for them, Jonah passed nearby and warned them about White Claw just before the Indian grabbed their little girl -- two warning shots later, and the chase is on again). Jonah realizes they’re heading towards Shoshone village, and sure enough, he soon finds himself in the middle of an ambush. The Shoshone chief sides with White Claw, saying that, even if Jonah’s accusations are true, they’re nothing in comparison to what the whites have done to the Indians all these years. However, having heard of Jonah’s many exploits over the years, the chief says Jonah can go free if he survives “The Gauntlet”: a brutal test of stamina wherein a defenseless man must run between two columns of armed warriors, enduring their blows, and even if he makes it through, the man then must run for his life until he shakes off the last of his pursuers. Jonah manages to do both, accomplishing the latter by jumping off a cliff and into a raging river -- after swimming for his life, he reaches the riverbank and passes out. When he comes to three days later, he’s greeted by the last person he expected to see:

All things considered, it’s surprising that Jonah said “Mei Ling” upon seeing Emmylou Hartley and not “Cassie”, especially since they both have blonde hair. But never mind that, what’s this gal doing here? Seems Emmy has been in love with Jonah ever since he first kissed her in JH#50, and after Mei Ling left him and he hit the trail once more, she’s been following him (one must presume that she lost him for a while when he was in China, but I reckon we should never mind that too). When she found Jonah along the riverbank, Emmy managed to bring him to an old trapper’s cabin nearby, where she tended to his wounds. “I love you, Jonah!” she confesses, leaning close to him as he lays in bed. “You’re the only man I’ve ever really loved in my life!” Jonah responds by telling her to be careful of his busted ribs, so you get a pretty good idea of where the scene’s headed right before it fades out.

Three weeks later, Jonah’s moving up and about the cabin, and winter is setting in heavy outside. Jonah feels well enough to bring in some firewood, unaware that White Claw has tracked him down. The Indian pushes Emmy out of the way and goes after Jonah with a tomahawk. Since he’d been stripped of his weapons, Jonah has to rely on his fists and feet to drive White Claw outside, knocking away the tomahawk in the process. But then White Claw pulls out a knife, which he drives straight into Emmy’s chest when she tries to come to Jonah’s aid. Now remember, this is one of the men responsible for killing Jonah’s fiancée, so the sight of White Claw stabbing Emmy understandably makes Jonah go a little nutso: he grabs the axe from over by the woodpile, then proceeds to go to town on White Claw with it. Once he’s dead, Jonah carries Emmy -- who’s still alive but badly wounded -- inside the cabin as the snow begins to fall again. When JH#70 opens, we see Jonah burying White Claw’s body while Emmy watches -- after spending a month at that cabin, Emmy wants to leave, insisting that she’s recovered enough from her stab wound to make the journey. Jonah eventually agrees, and as they ride away, she asks if he plans on pursuing the last of the ex-scouts, to which Jonah replies, “All them things Ah tol’ yuh ‘bout happened some fifteen years ago, Emmy! Life’s too durned short tuh waste it nursin’ a grudge over fifteen years!” It seems Jonah’s letting the trail go cold on purpose this time, possibly because of Emmy’s presence in his life again (and I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out once more her passing resemblance to Cassie).

Unbeknownst to Hex, the last member of the guilty party has decided to seek him out...and unlike the others, his intentions are noble. Ernest Daniels has done his best to lead an upstanding, pious life ever since he helped with that payroll robbery, even going so far as to donate most of his earnings over the years, but the guilt still gnaws at him. When he confesses his long-ago sin to the local reverend, he suggests that Daniels atone with Hex personally. Daniels later tells his sons, Jason and Tim, of the journey he’ll be undertaking, but not the reason for it (something that’s always made me scratch my head: his sons appear to be roughly 25-30 years old, so was Daniels already married at the time of the payroll robbery, or did his good deeds extend to adopting orphans?). Tim asks to come along, and Daniels agrees. Meanwhile, Jonah’s trying to sneak back into the Shoshone camp in order to retrieve his Colt .44 Dragoons and other belongings (yes indeed, that man loves them guns). He succeeds, but not without getting poked by an arrow or two. As Emmy bandages Jonah up by the light of a campfire, they hear gunshots in the distance. Doubtful that it’s the Shoshone but cautious anyhow, they saddle up and ride out, only to find the target is a horse-drawn carriage containing Daniels and his son. Jonah recognizes him immediately, but decides to put aside past grievances until after they’ve all gotten away from the unseen assailants (who are revealed to the reader as Daniels’s other son and a few hired gunmen -- seems Jason doesn’t want to wait for his inheritance any longer). What follows is a five-page, Indiana Jones-style escape across some foothills, down a cliffside, into a raging river (complete with perilous waterfall), and finally ending with them taking shelter inside a cavern...only for all of them to be knocked out by war clubs and dragged into the Temple of Doom. Okay, not really, but c’mon, what is this?

Thus are we introduced to the most unnecessary subplot to appear in a Jonah Hex comic to date. Seriously, we already have Jason Daniels trying to kill all of them, so why would Fleisher trot out some Indian that thinks he’s a manifestation of the Great Manitou? The guy rambles on for over two pages about the great war he’s going to start between the red and white man, just as soon as he reroutes the Rainbow River with dynamite, causing it to flood the nearby Campanas Valley (which just so happens to contain the town Daniels lives in). After “Manitou” is done speechifying, he and most of his followers depart, leaving one man behind to guard Jonah and the others. They manage to take out the guard easily, but as they are about to leave the cavern, Jason and his cronies show up. He tells his father at the beginning of JH#71 that he’s “sick and tired of listening to you preach your boring platitudes!” His father’s generosity disgusts him, and Jason wants all the money for himself, even if it means killing family members to get it. Jonah tries to talk some sense into the man, but the moment he realizes it’s not working, he pulls leather and shoots all three of Jason’s hired gunmen. Panicked, Jason dives for cover and begins firing blindly, nicking his father in the head. Knowing that they can’t waste any more time with this nonsense, Jonah shoots at a stalactite directly above Jason, causing it to plummet straight down and impale him. With that threat out of the way, Jonah grabs a horse and tries to stop “Manitou” and his men from flooding the valley, but gets shot in the leg by one of them before he gets the chance. As he goes over his options, Daniels catches up with him and, after lamenting to Jonah that he wants to atone for his past sins, Daniels confronts the Indians himself, an act that causes him to fall off a cliff with the dynamite, which explodes in midair. Jonah gets the drop on the remaining Indians (including the ersatz god), ensuring that the people in Campanas Valley won’t come to harm. Later, Jonah tells Tim Daniels that he’s sorry about his father’s death, saying that “he wuz a fine man!”

And so, the saga of Cassie Wainwright finally comes to a close...on page 10 of a 23-page story. If it hadn’t been for the inclusion of that “Great Manitou” subplot, we could’ve wrapped all this up last issue. There was really no point to padding out the story with that nonsense, unless perhaps Fleisher had planned on making “Manitou” a new recurring villain, since Jonah hands him over to the authorities instead of killing him. But since we never see the guy again, it’s a moot point. Now, before we get to the tale that fills up the remaining 13 pages, I want to mention a small change that began appearing on the cover with this issue. When Jonah Hex first got headliner status in Weird Western Tales #18 ten years earlier, DC gave him a logo of sorts, consisting of his name printed in a distinctive block style with minimal flourish (the oddly-shaped ‘A’ being the fanciest part). As of JH#71, the old logo is gone, replaced with a new one that looks much more ‘Western’ (a similar one was used on a subscription ad featured in JH#30). However, despite the outward change, they continue to use the old logo inside this issue, nor will it be gone from the covers for very long.

Okay, on to the second story: Jonah and Emmylou arrive in the South Texas town of Camelia Flat, where he tells the gal to get them a hotel room while he finds a doctor to look at his wounded leg. After they part, Jonah thinks he sees Mei Ling across the street, but when he limps over, he realizes it’s simply a woman with dark hair. Thar’s a lesson tuh be learned from all this! he says to himself, facing up to the fact that he’s still not over losing Mei Ling, and until he resolves those feelings, he doesn’t think he should trying to have a relationship with Emmy. However, when Jonah gets to the hotel to talk with her about this, he finds that she departed with two Mexicans, who left Jonah a note containing a parrot feather. Looks like El Papagayo has decided to mess with Jonah’s life again, but the bounty hunter isn’t dumb enough to just rush out after Emmy: he sends Colonel Sanchez (who’s teamed up with Hex twice before against El Papagayo) a telegram, filling the man in on the situation before Jonah crosses the border. Not long after he does so, Papagayo comes a-callin’ and tells his “old friend” that he wants to steal a priceless emerald necklace on loan to the President and his wife. Papagayo would do this himself, but it’s too dangerous, so instead, he wants Jonah to dress up like El Papagayo and steal the necklace in his stead so the bandito will get all the credit:

Stupid as it sounds, Jonah agrees for Emmy’s sake. One week later, “Jonah Papagayo” sneaks into the presidential palace and does the deed, grabbing the necklace right off the neck of Mrs. El Presidente, but before he can escape, he finds himself confronted by soldiers who, at the beginning of Jonah Hex #72 (May 1983), fill Jonah full of lead! The Mexican authorities later display “El Papagayo’s” dead body as proof that they’ve finally eliminated him, and word quickly gets back to the real bandito that Hex failed. Though the news upsets Emmy, El Papagayo is delighted: now that the authorities think him dead, he can make another attempt at the necklace while their guard is down. Meanwhile, two of his cronies are eager to get their hands on Jonah’s ivory-handled Dragoons, so they go and dig up Jonah’s body, only to be confronted by Colonel Sanchez and a very-much-alive Jonah. This is where things get complicated: somehow, the telegram Hex sent was enough to alert Sanchez of Papagayo’s plan before Hex even knew what it was, so the whole scene with him being gunned down was a ruse to make Papagayo think Hex was dead, all the while the Mexican authorities play like they think Papagayo is dead.

Confused yet? Doesn’t matter, because it all unravels when a gravedigger overhears Hex and Sanchez talking, then runs off to tell Papagayo. He soon gets the jump on Jonah and Sanchez as the necklace is being transported, then threatens to kill Emmy unless they hand it over. Unwilling to sacrifice her, Jonah pistol-whips Sanchez, takes the necklace, and rides off with Papagayo, who knocks out Hex just as soon as they’re clear of the Mexican troops. In gratitude for all Jonah’s done for him, Papagayo ties up Hex and Emmy, then tosses them down a dry well full of tarantulas. This isn’t as horrible as deathtrap as it sounds since, as Jonah points out, tarantulas bites aren’t poisonous (they do hurt like Hell, though), and after cutting through the ropes, they climb out of the well, then track down Papagayo to get the necklace back. It all turns out fine in the end, with the bandito in jail, Sanchez forgiving Hex for pistol-whipping him, and Emmy hanging off of Hex’s arm -- apparently that notion of Jonah leaving the gal ‘til he sorted out his feelings has been forgotten. And if that isn’t upbeat enough for ya, no one dies in this issue! That’s a strange occurrence for a Jonah Hex tale, but considering this marks his 100th issue since his debut in All-Star Western #10, (not counting specials or guest-spots), we’ll consider it Jonah’s way of celebrating the occasion. And he should enjoy it while he can, because in the coming months, he’ll find himself plummeting into the depths of despair, and when that’s over, his life will get even more interesting.

<< Part 7 | Index | Part 9 >>
Appendix A | Appendix B

Sunday, February 10, 2013

New fanfic: Shades of Gray #12

Friday, February 1, 2013

An Illustrated History of Jonah Hex (Part 8)