Talking my way through All-Star Western #27.

I can’t stop looking at it.

I've had it in my possession for nearly a week now, and I keep picking it up and flipping through it, lingering over panels and word balloons, in total awe of what I’m seeing.  I think it’s the fact that I’ve been down this road before, and know it very well -- as do many longtime Hex fans -- but I’m not sure any of us expected DC to let Palmiotti & Gray anywhere near it.  They have managed to sneak in a couple of throwaway lines in regards to it over the years (like in JH#3 and 13), and we kinda see it from “the other side”, if you will, in JH#70, but I figured that was as close as we’d get.

Then we get to All-Star Western #27, and Jonah and Gina are walking through the museum, and I see the display case from the back side, and I know it’s coming, but I don’t rush, I don't sneak a peek, I need a little more time to brace myself...

It’s official: Jonah Hex is still a stuffed and mounted corpse.

Honestly, I figured that thing had turned to ash along with all the other Black Lanterns (remember Weird Western Tales #71?), so either it was one of the few that remained intact (they did say it had been “restored”) or the Flashpoint/New 52 reboot obliterated the events of that particular issue (since a good amount of the participants in the Blackest Night -- both living and dead -- never existed in DCNu’s updated history, this is a possibility).  Putting that speculation aside, however, it’s still surprising that DC has made the events of the Jonah Hex Spectacular canon once more.  Think about it for a sec: nearly every aspect of the DCNu is geared toward sweeping away the past and making everything fresh and new and relatable, yet here we are, referencing a single story from over 35 years ago, as well as paying homage to the last installment of an 18-issue series that the company has been trying to forget for a quarter-century!  Hell, the only way for newer readers to even know about all this would be to hunt down the information themselves, because DC has never bothered to reprint either story (not that there’s scads of people clamoring for a “Future Hex” trade, but you get my meaning).

But then again, Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray have been doing things like this ever since DC relaunched his series nearly a decade ago, so in that aspect, the continued presence of Jonah’s corpse is just business as usual.  As I mentioned earlier, J&J have made reference to the events of the JH Spectacular multiple times, plus they’ve reestablished many other milestones in Jonah’s life, barely altering what’s come before even as they bring us brand new tales.  They never had to do that, they could’ve “re-imagined” Jonah Hex just as easily as damn-near every other character in DC history has been, tearing off what they don’t like and slapping on what looks good to them at the moment.  But J&J have never done that, everything up to this point has meshed almost seamlessly into the stories that were written before they got a hold of the character.  They’ve taken great pains to keep intact a legacy that reaches all the way back to Jonah’s debut in 1972.  One of the few things they haven’t touched upon up until this point is the aforementioned “Future Hex” debacle -- you could say it’s been a case of “we will neither confirm nor deny”, and there’s nothing wrong with that approach, it lets the reader decide for themselves whether or not that era is canon, according to their own tastes.  The second J&J began to hint that Jonah might go on a time-travel jaunt, though, “Future Hex” became like the elephant in the room, and everybody wondered if this new trip would supersede the old one.

If you know me, then you know I tried to provide my own answer to this puzzle years ago, and due to it, I developed the attitude that “everything counts”, even a godawful series that just came to a dead stop with no real answers.  That being said, I’m very happy with the notion that those 18 issues of HEX apparently no longer exist, because we now have a much better handling of the idea, thanks to Palmiotti & Gray (that really was the biggest bone of contention for me all these years, bad handling of a good idea).  And again, being part of DCNu, these guys are not obligated to repeat everything that’s come before, especially moments from failed storylines, but they know the majority of Jonah Hex fans have been hanging around this old buzzard for a long time, they’ve stuck by him through thick and thin, and watched him struggle through the lean times and the crazy times.  They know that we know what happened the first time around, and there was at least one moment from the “Future Hex” era that deserved to be repeated, even if it was only the longtime fans who understood its significance.

And that’s another reason I’m in awe of ASW#27. It’s a reward, both for the fans and for Hex himself.  The fans get to see their hero celebrated within the context of the world he exists in, and know that they honor his memory in a way that we can only dream of out here in the real world (I’m willing to bet that, in DCNu’s reality, the Jonah Hex movie won Oscars), while Jonah gets to see the legacy he left behind, rather like Van Gogh in "Vincent and the Doctor".  But the downside is that, where the artist is overcome with joy at witnessing how he’s remembered, the bounty hunter has to come face-to-face with a gaudily-dressed corpse of himself, and the reader is just as helpless as Gina as they watch Jonah flee the museum.  In a way, though, his reaction is a reward of its own: we never got to see the aftermath of HEX #18, and therefore never saw how he handled the notion of being dead and alive at the same time.  We were denied that for decades, so here we are again, events playing out in a similar fashion to before, with the added bonus of a man standing next to Jonah detailing exactly how he got to this sorry state (all these years, I thought just finding the corpse was bad enough...the addition of running commentary is like salt in a wound).  Weird as it sounds, I’m also glad that my speculation of Jonah going on a drinking binge after learning the truth was spot-on, and the aftermath of it dovetails so perfectly into what's to come next issue, I’m just dying to see what happens from here.  What will be the long-term repercussions of all this?  How will Jonah cope with all of this, both the good and the bad?

Stuff like this is what drew me to Jonah Hex in the first place: the drama that comes from the emotional turmoil of a man who does his damnedest to pretend he feels nothing.  Palmiotti & Gray understand this aspect of Hex just as well as John Albano and Michael Fleisher did (Joe Lansdale also worked it in on occasion, but it’s kinda overshadowed by the zombies and giant worms), and I reckon that’s how they’ve managed to get away with the unthinkable (i.e. refusing to ignore 40 years’ worth of stories).  When you do your job this damn good, the higher-ups tend to cut you some slack.

One last thing before I stop rambling: according to my math, the next issue -- All-Star Western #28 -- will mark J&J’s 100th Jonah Hex story.  That puts them roughly two dozen tales short of Fleisher’s record.  When the time comes for them to surpass him, I hope they acknowledge it in some fashion...they’ve certainly had no problem honoring the past so far.