New fanfic: Shades of Gray #10

I'm embarrassed to say that it's been six months since I put up #9.  I didn't realize how far behind I'd fallen until a few weeks ago, as I was sending SoG#10 out to a fellow Hex-nut for review.  I'll be honest, this one was a toughie for me, mainly because I had so much to explain within the context of the story, yet still have it make sense to both myself and you folks out there in Internet-land.  Anyhow, give it a whirl, let me know what you think, and I"ll try not to make you wait another six months for #11.

An Illustrated History of Jonah Hex (Part 5)

5 - Those Who Don’t Learn From the Past...
(Text updated November 1, 2026)

Having appeared in well over 50 stories by this point in his career (25 in his own title, 28 in All-Star/Weird Western Tales, plus the Jonah Hex Spectacular, the Zany parody, and two issues of Justice League of America), one might think there wasn’t much new ground for Jonah to cover.  And indeed, there are a fair share of flashbacks and rehashes to be found as we move towards the 1980s, the first of which occurred in Jonah Hex #26 (July 1979).  Though the story by Michael Fleisher was fresh and action-packed (not to mention rendered in fine detail by E.R. Cruz -- full name: Eufronio Reyes Cruz -- a Filipino artist who worked in Tony DeZuniga’s studio prior to his U.S. debut), it brings to mind Weird Western Tales #12, Jonah’s third outing and written by creator John Albano.  Both feature epidemics (Albano’s was smallpox, while Fleisher went for cholera), but that’s not where the déjà vu comes in.  It’s the ending, wherein Hex gives both villains (who by this point in the story are afflicted with their respective diseases) what’s coming to them in the same manner: Jonah offers up a cure to the bad guy right before he blasts it out of the fella’s hands wth a well-placed bullet.  No one can deny the drama of such a scene, so perhaps it’s mere coincidence that the two writers used the exact same device seven years apart.

In JH#27, drawn by Vicente Alcazar, we’re treated to a tale of Jonah’s childhood, told by the man himself to a boy who wishes to run away with Hex and become a gunfighter.  Back in 1849 -- two years before his Pa sold him to the Apache -- an eleven-year-old Jonah became enamored with a gunfighter as well, though this man was an outlaw.  Bart Mallory had a charisma that young Jonah found irresistible, and the man treated him with far more respect than Pa had ever shown him, so when he offered to let Jonah help him rob the bank over in Haverville, Jonah was all for it.  After giving the boy a pistol, Mallory stationed Jonah outside the bank to act as a lookout, then went inside to do the deed.  Unfortunately, the local law got wind of his plan and ambushed him -- with his dying breath, Mallory lied to the lawmen and said he kidnapped Jonah, therefore absolving the boy of any wrongdoing, so they let Jonah go.  When he got home, Jonah stashed the pistol (which the lawmen didn’t take from him) under the floorboards of his room right before his father came in the door.  Unaware of what had transpired that day, he began smacking the boy around for not doing his chores, then sent him to his room.

The issue then returns to the present, with Jonah taking the runaway -- who’d fallen asleep in the middle of the bounty hunter’s tale -- back to his relieved parents.  “Don’t be angry at the little tyke, m’am!” Jonah says.  “Ain’t a boy been born whut didn’t try tuh grow up just a little faster’n nature intended!”  Overall, it’s an interesting look at just how early Jonah’s experiences with death and gunsmoke began.  Also of interest is the fact that, while the end of the flashback showed young Jonah practicing his quick-draw skills in secret, we never saw him turn that gun on his abusive father...though about eight years later, we’ll learn of an incident not long before this one that may have discouraged him from doing so.

Cruz was on hand once again for JH#28, wherein Jonah has to try and stop an Indian from killing a group of men who swindled him out of his land and killed his wife, as well as JH#29, as the bounty hunter turns detective to figure who killed an old buddy from his days as a buffalo hunter for the Army (no spoilers, but the ending is a real surprise!).

Around this same period, DC began publishing what would become a long-running line of digest books.  The company had a brief flirtation with the format in 1972, releasing a single Tarzan book in that size before cancelling the line (coincidentally, an ad for a planned-but-never-published Laurel and Hardy digest book ran in the pages of Weird Western Tales #14).  Seven years would pass before Jeanette Kahn would revive the idea, this time using DC-owned material as opposed to licensing it from others.  While the company’s decision to kick off their main digest title -- officially known as The Best of DC -- with a collection of Superman reprints was a no-brainer, they also showed how much faith they had in the bounty hunter’s ability to sell books by releasing a standalone digest titled Jonah Hex and Other Western Tales at the same time, even going so far as to run an ad in WWT#58 and Batman #314 showcasing both digests side-by-side.  In addition to reprints of Hex stories from both John Albano and Michael Fleisher, readers also got tales featuring Scalphunter, El Diablo, and Albano & DeZuniga’s “Billy the Kid”, plus an original “factoid” page illustrated by E.R. Cruz and a fully-painted wraparound cover by Luis Dominguez.  Over the course of five months, a total of three Hex digests would be released, and while a fourth was advertised, it ended up being cancelled, so Dominguez’s already-painted cover was repurposed by The Comics Journal to highlight their interview with Fleisher in issue #56.  Though his tenure as a digest headliner was short-lived, Jonah would continue to make regular appearances in that format thanks to multiple nods in The Best of DC’s “Year’s Best Comics Stories” volumes.

We get another glimpse of Jonah’s past with JH#30, drawn by Luis Dominguez and the first installment of a three-part tale that spans a decade.  It starts somewhere near the end of the Civil War, when Jonah and his comrade-in-arms, Corporal Eddie Cantwell, manage to capture a Union paymaster’s wagon, along with the Yankees guarding it.  To Jonah’s dismay, Cantwell guns down the Yankees after they surrender, then suggests that he and Hex bury the money and reclaim it once the War’s over, which he believes is right around the corner.  Jonah nixes the idea, but it turns out Cantwell wasn’t too far off, as the story then moves to General Lee surrendering to General Grant at Appomattox, followed two weeks later by Lt. Hex leading his men to a Federal stockade so they could turn themselves in.

The text indentifies Hex and the others as being members of the “7th Light Cavalry”, meaning the transition that began in the art for JH#13 -- changing Jonah’s regiment designation from the 4th to the 7th -- is finally complete.  As for why it was changed in the first place, Fleisher may have simply forgotten that he’d previously assigned Jonah to another regiment back in WWT#29 and picked a new number.  Whatever the cause, from this issue onward, any story mentioning Jonah’s service record will only refer to the 7th Cavalry, and it’ll be three decades before the 4th Cavalry is brought up again.

Moving back to the issue at hand, we get a quick gloss-over of Jonah’s battle with Noh-Tante and tragic scarring, then move on to the winter of 1866, where Jonah is drafted into a posse to hunt down some bank robbers.  The sheriff is impressed when Jonah captures the bad guys single-handedly, and recommends Jonah should take up bounty-hunting, starting with the capture of “a Satan-born, mad-dog killer” named Eddie Cantwell!  The story continues in JH#31, wherein Jonah tracks down Cantwell, unable to believe that is old friend is a thief and killer.  After subduing Cantwell’s cohorts without bloodshed, Jonah tries to talk things out with the man, but they’re interrupted by Arbee Stoneham, a tracker of great renown and little mercy, who proceeds to give Jonah a crash-course in bounty hunting as he mercilessly guns down the outlaws.

You’d think this would be the end of our story, with Jonah chastised and his old friend dead, but in reality, this two-issue flashback is mere preamble for JH#32, which takes place eight years later in the spring of 1874.  Jonah’s older, wiser, and much more skilled than he was during that first encounter, and he’s decided to hunt Stoneham down and give him a taste of his own medicine.  It’s an abrupt change in tone from the tale’s first two parts, emphasized by the art chores being passed from Luis Dominguez to Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez.  After a quick recap, Jonah rides into the town of Murphysburg, where Stoneham now lives, and while inquiring about him, a member of the Jason Crowley gang catches sight of Hex and reports to his boss about it.  The gang is a dozen strong, and none too eager to be caught by Hex, so they set up an ambush for him.  Lucky for Jonah, one of the locals tipped him off, and he spends the majority of the issue taking Crowley’s men out in a variety of ways: a Bowie knife, bullets, a lit kerosene lantern, a bundle of dynamite, all topped off with death by stampede for the ringleader (look close to spot Jonah at the extreme left behind the gate).

It’s a jaw-dropping spectacle, and you just know that what Jonah has planned for Stoneham is going to blow it all away...so it’s a bit of a shock when he finally reaches the steps of the boarding house where Stoneham lives and finds a withered man in a wheelchair.  Turns out a bullet to the spine ended Arbee Stoneham’s bounty-hunting career a few years back, and even worse, he doesn’t even remember Jonah!  This puts the kibosh on whatever revenge Jonah had planned, as well as giving him a glimpse of what his future might be like if he continues down the path of a professional gunfighter (of course, we do know what his future will be, and I’d say Jonah got off lucky that his biggest complaint in old age was failing eyesight).

We’ve got E.R. Cruz back on art duties one last time for JH#33, which also contained a Christmas-themed ad for that cancelled Jonah Hex digest.  Speaking of which, Jonah belied his usual ornery demeanor the next month when he took the time to deliver a double-dose of Christmas cheer, the first occurring in DC Special Series Vol. 4 #21, which is more commonly known as the Super-Star Holiday Special (Spring 1980).  Now before you go wondering what idiot decided to publish a holiday-themed comic so long after the fact, keep in mind that, like most magazines, comics tend to be dated months in advance, so this did indeed come out during the proper season.  The special features five stories -- including the very first Batman tale drawn by Frank Miller, which causes some secondary-market dealers to jack up the price, so be warned -- with Jonah appearing in a short 10-pager, penned by Fleisher and drawn by Dick Ayers & Romeo Tanghal.  While Jonah’s tracking down some outlaws one Christmas Eve, he comes across a settler who’s fixing to shoot his daughter’s pet fawn so they can have a proper holiday dinner -- the winter’s been hard, game is scarce, and that fawn is all they have left to eat.  Jonah stops the man and says that he’ll scrounge up something else for the family without giving him a reason why.

We soon learn -- via flashback -- that Jonah went through a similar situation when he was ten years old.  After rescuing a raccoon from a trap, he brought it home to nurse it back to health, but his drunken Pa kills it later on so his wife could serve it up for supper (for those keeping score, this tale marks the first time we ever see Jonah’s mother, Ginny).  Upon learning that they’re eating li’l Roy the Raccoon, Jonah begins railing against his father.  As you can imagine, this outburst earns him a smack across the face, along with a threat of worse punishment if he dares to lash out again.  

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Thus is the source of Jonah’s desire to save that little girl’s pet from the same fate, though he can’t seem to flush out any game either.  On a lark, he decides to follow a bright star in the sky -- an element used in all five stories -- and it leads him not only to the outlaws he was looking for, but after Jonah wipes them out, he recovers the provisions they were toting, thereby saving the fawn’s life with a knapsack full of hardtack and beef jerky.  Despite the somewhat-gruesome flashback in the middle, it’s a rather heartwarming story, with an uncharacteristic (for Hex at least) happy ending.

Our second Christmas story in JH#34, with art by Dan Spiegle, revolves around Jonah crossing paths with his Pa once more, this time in a ghost town taken over by outlaws.  Seems it was Woodson’s idea to set up this “haven fer owlhoots”, so when Jonah comes riding in on the trail of some of the town’s “citizens”, Pa pins on a sheriff’s badge and tosses his son in jail!  Even worse, Woodson is cooking up plans for a train robbery with the very men Jonah’s tracking, so our favorite bounty hunter has to break out of jail and take them out before any innocents get killed.  In the end, it’s just Jonah and Woodson, and though the old man doesn’t fake a coronary like he did last time, he does plead for his life, and Jonah agrees to let him go...if he does Jonah a favor.  Remember how I said this was a Christmas story?  One of the reasons Jonah was tracking those outlaws is because they’d killed a kindly philanthropist who played Santa at the local orphanage every year.  But the man’s dead now, and Woodson Hex has a white beard and rather portly build, so Jonah gets an idea: he makes Pa dress up as Santa and forces him to visit with the kiddies!  Jonah leaves the old man at the orphanage, laughing as he rides off, probably having no idea that this’ll be the last he sees of his father for quite some time.

There’s not much to laugh at in JH#35 &36, as Fleisher, Ayers, and Dominguez give us a two-parter dealing with the Fort Charlotte Massacre, which of course means we’re dealing with Turnbull once again.  Seems the old man has formed the “Fort Charlotte Brigade” with the remaining survivors of Jonah’s regiment, and they’re all eager to get even with him for his betrayal.  The issue then rolls into a retelling of WWT#29, or at least the flashback portion of it.  If you lay both comics side-by-side, you’ll find that the rendition in JH#35 is nearly verbatim, with only a few scenes removed...and even though this was originally the story that introduced the 4th Cavalry, all references to it have been changed to the 7th, so Fleisher’s sticking with the retcon!  Another notable change is when the Yankees deduce where the rest of the regiment is camped: in both versions, it’s some telltale red clay caught in the hooves of Jonah’s horse that gives their location away, but where Noly Panaligan drew a black soldier in the scene, Ayers & Dominguez made him white (for the record, the latter would be more historically accurate, as the U.S. Army wasn’t integrated until after World War II).

The next issue begins with Jonah getting kicked out of the town of Painted Butte, Texas, as it seems the holier-than-thou townsfolk don’t want a known gunfighter walking their streets.  A saloon gal comes to Jonah’s defense, and they send her packing too (oddly enough, they appear to have no problem with the saloon this all takes place in), and Jonah finds himself with an unwanted traveling companion.  After an incident with a collapsing bridge (during which Jonah utters a throwaway line about his Aunt Aretha, who has never been mentioned before and will never be again), the duo gets captured by the Fort Charlotte Brigade and hauled off to the infamous fort, where Jonah and the saloon gal are locked away in the same building the Yankees tossed him in back in 1863.  It doesn’t take long for Jonah to figure out what comes next: his former comrades-in-arms want him to reenact the original breakout, only this time, it’ll be Hex that dies.

What Hex doesn’t figure on is the saloon gal -- who feels she owes him for saving her life -- knocking him out, putting on his uniform, and acting as a decoy so Jonah can get away while their captors are focused on her.  It’s great plan, really, with the exception of neither of them knowing that the Fort Charlotte Brigade stacked the odds against them and rigged the barbwire perimeter fence to explode, which it did once that poor girl tried to cut through it.  With “Jonah Hex” dead, Turnbull’s goons leave, and the real Jonah escapes right out from under their noses, stopping long enough to bury the woman who saved his life on the outskirts of the old fort.

JH#37 also deals with Jonah’s Civil War days, telling a tale that edges mighty close to “urban legend” territory.  It starts off with an old man and his grandson spotting Jonah Hex in a Confederate graveyard, and from there, the old man spins a yarn about how Hex saved General “Stonewall” Jackson from being killed by a band of Union soldiers.  Impressed by his skills, Jackson enlisted Hex to help him blow up a key bridge right before the battle of Harper’s Ferry, after which the two men part ways (see Appendix A for more details).  Months later, Hex is part of the force fighting at Chancellorsville, and after a hard-won victory, he and his men are holding position on a ridge overlooking a possible Yankee escape route.  It’s dark, they see a mounted force coming, and Hex opens fire, only to realize too late that he’s picked the wrong target.  That right, kids: according to some old codger, Jonah Hex is the Rebel soldier responsible for accidently shooting “Stonewall” Jackson, who died a week later from his wounds.  As if Hex doesn’t have enough things in his life to feel guilty about, Fleisher decides to pin this on him, too.

Dan Spiegle returns for JH#38, as Jonah gets forced by outlaw Hoby Callender (who looks a lot like Napoleon Dynamite, despite that character not even exsiting yet when the issue came out) and his gang into leading them to a hidden canyon full of gold.  As per usual, nobody gets rich and Hex is the only one to make it out alive by the end.

At least there’s something for both Jonah and us to smile about in JH#39, because for the first time in six years, Tony DeZuniga is back to draw the character he co-created, just a few months after he inked the debut of Western hero Caleb Hammer over in Marvel Premiere #54.  And it’s a fine tale to return on, as Jonah crosses paths with a samurai who’s come to America in search of his kidnapped daughter (in the midst of their first meeting, Fleisher managed to sneak in a reference to Jonah’s birthday in November, though it’ll be another year before we learn the full date).  Upon finding out that he and the samurai are on the trail of the same man, Jonah teams up with him, and though it doesn’t end well for his new friend (no surprise here), the bounty hunter manages to help the samurai keep his honor and bring down the bad guy.

While DeZuniga returning to draw Jonah Hex was something to celebrate, things had taken a sadder turn over at his original home, Weird Western Tales.  Eagle-eyed readers likely noticed the ads in both JH#38 & 39 announcing that 14 of DC’s titles would be getting 8-page backups.  While it played out like a redux of the DC Explosion, it also meant the death of WWT, which was cancelled with issue #70, and Scalphunter ending up in the back pages of Jonah Hex.  Unlike all the other times the title was canned, there would be no last-minute rescue, and over two decades would pass before a comic would bear that banner again.  At the bottom of the letters page for JH#39, Nellie Rooke (the pseudonym used by editor Ross Andru’s assistant, who preferred to remain anonymous during her long tenure running the letter columns for Jonah Hex, Weird Western Tales, and some superhero titles like Wonder Woman) informed readers that this doubling-up of cowpokes would not affect the page-count of Jonah’s tales.  Rooke neglected to point out that they’d started shrinking back to their pre-Explosion size of 17 pages with JH#24 and, after a few fluctuations, had stayed that way from JH#28 onward, all while retaining the 40-cent price tag on a 32-page book that was now nearly half-filled with ads.  The trade-off for cutting some of those ads to make room for Scalphunter was that price for Jonah Hex and nearly all of DC’s other titles would rise once more to 50 cents (in fact, every major comics publisher had increased the prices on their monthly titles to 50 cents by the end of 1980).

Despite the axing of WWT, Rooke went on to promise that “There’s also going to be a new western title very soon,” which didn’t work out as planned.  The new title, slated to be written by Gerry Conway and tentatively called Dakota, would have featured Jeremiah “J.D.” Hart, a U.S. Marshall who embodied the old-school “Western superhero” archetype, exactly the sort of character that Jonah Hex was designed to supplant.  Considering that, by this point in history, Westerns were nearly extinct on the monthly comics rack (aside from Jonah Hex, the only others left were Charlton’s bimonthly titles Billy the Kid and Gunfighters), adding a new one to DC’s stable made little sense.  Enthusiasm within the ranks appeared to be low as well: In an interview published in Comics Feature #6 (October 1980), editor Len Wein mentioned that he was scheduled to begin work on Dakota, while Marv Wolfman had been drafted by Ross Andru to work on a new mystery-style character, but what Wein and Wolfman really wanted to do was revive the Teen Titans.  According to Wein, “Marv and I went to see Jeanette [Kahn].  We said, ‘How come we are doing these?  Why were these settled on instead of the Titans like we had discussed?’”  Kahn was initially against the idea, but that changed once artist George Perez was brought on board, and The New Teen Titans was quickly added to the DC lineup.  So while Wein’s love for the Titans may’ve not been the sole reason why Dakota never made it to the shelves, it likely contributed to it.

In JH#40 -- the first issue with a Scalphunter backup -- Dan Spiegle illustrates Jonah dealing with a phony “rainmaker”, and JH#41 gives us the combo of Dick Ayers & Tony DeZuniga on a tale of a hanging judge, her drunken son, and the woman who sweet-talks him into breaking some crooks out of jail (Jonah’s part in this is rather small, but he plies his skills in typical fashion by the end).

Any Scalphunter fans picking up the next few issues were likely disappointed, as the Kiowa warrior was briefly squeezed out of his new home so Michael Fleisher could spin an epic three-issue yarn that would not only change Jonah’s life forever, but also would’ve served as a “back door pilot” for J.D. Hart had Dakota ever gotten published.  As we see in Gerald Forton’s art for JH#42 -- which ironically came out at the same time as The New Teen Titans #1 -- J.D. Hart fills up every panel he’s in with his clean-cut ways and aw-shucks attitude.  This is a fella who shoots guns out of the hands of bad guys, does trick shots with silver dollars, and even has a doting aunt and a freckle-faced younger cousin who just love him to pieces (and probably would’ve appeared in the ill-fated Dakota as well).

Hart is soon set on Jonah’s trail by the mayor of Feldon’s Gap, who claims Hex killed the town’s banker.  In reality, the mayor and his accomplice want the bounty hunter eliminated before he finds out about them hiring outlaws to drive the locals off some prime real estate they want to sell to the railroad (they’re also the ones who killed the banker, who was in on the scam).  Meanwhile, Jonah’s distracted by a familiar face turning up in his life once more: Mei Ling!  Turns out her brother lives near Feldon’s Gap, and she was on her way to visit when her buckboard lost a wheel, the jolt causing her to injure her leg.  Luckily, Jonah was riding nearby and swooped in to rescue her.  After taking her to a nearby farmhouse, the two of them talk about what happened when they parted ways, with Jonah eventually declaring that he’ll give up bounty-hunting if it means they’ll be together.

Don’t think that ol’ Jonah’s done just yet, though, because we find out in JH#43 that he still has one last job to do, which is to find the owlhoot who killed that banker.  Yep, the mayor set things up so Hex and Hart would have no choice but to cross paths!  When they do, all it takes is a few minutes of talking before they both realize something screwy is going on here, but Jeremiah Hart is a very by-the-book sort, so he still feels the need to bring Jonah in until this is all straightened out.  On the way back to town, they get jumped by Apaches, who quickly recognize “The Mark of the Demon” Jonah bears, which then  leads to over three pages of flashback, explaining Jonah’s time among the Apache.  It seems like the only reason Fleisher included this was to refresh the memories of those fans who missed JH#7-8 three years before, as well as give these Apaches a reason to burn Hex and Hart at the stake!  Our duo escapes, then they make like Butch & Sundance over the edge of a cliff, though Jonah gets knocked out after they hit the water and Hart has to drag him out.

He recovers right at the beginning of Jonah Hex #44 (January 1981), which had Dick Ayers & Tony DeZuniga on art duties once again.  Jonah gets to return the favor and save Hart’s ass moments later, as they’re suddenly getting shot at by the Spast brothers, whom Hart tossed in jail during the previous issue.  While he and Jonah were having their troubles, the outlaws broke out, tracked the fellas down, and are now itchin’ to get even.  Both men take bullets as they dive back into the water, staying under until the outlaws figure they’re dead and gone.  Hart’s too badly wounded to go on, so Jonah leaves him at a farmhouse and rides back to Feldon’s Gap to settle things up with the two-timing mayor and his buddy.  Meanwhile, Mei Ling also heads to town in the hope of finding Jonah, but instead finds the Spast brothers openly bragging about killing him!  Moments later, Jonah himself shows up and eliminates all the Spast brothers in a way J.D. Hart probably wouldn’t approve of.

Back at the farmhouse, J.D. and his hosts soon find themselves fending off an attack by the mayor’s hired thugs.  Hart manages to capture them all and, after hauling them back to town, he and Jonah engage in a gunfight right in the middle of the street, wherein Jonah cold-bloodedly kills the marshal...or at least that’s what the two men arrange for it to look like.  It’s really just a cover so Jonah can play at shaking down the mayor and his accomplice for some hush money.  Once they ‘fess up to all their wrongdoings, Hart steps out of hiding and places them under arrest.

The story wraps up with Jonah and J.D. talking rather amicably, with Mei Ling standing next to Jonah with a loving look in her eyes.  Seems our favorite bounty hunter is staying true to his word about retiring, and J.D. wishes the happy couple all the best, though he can’t stay for the wedding.  “There’s rumors of another range war brewing up in Lincoln County, and I’m afraid I’ve got to ride up there and poke my big nose in it!” he says, a line that probably alludes to what would have been the first storyarc of Hart’s own title had it manifested (too bad it didn’t, since the mention of Lincoln County implies the marshal would soon be trading slugs with Billy the Kid!).  And though this will be last we see of Jeremiah Hart for quite a while, Tony DeZuniga will be sticking around for the long haul: starting with this issue and barring a few exceptions over the next four years, he’s once again the main artist for Jonah’s adventures, with Dick Ayers more often than not supplying the pencils laying beneath DeZuniga’s powerful inking style.  It was a grand time for him to come back, as he’d be illustrating some major milestones in the life of his creation, beginning with a “Blood Wedding!”

<< Part 4 | Index | Part 6 >>
Appendix A  |  Appendix B