Appendix B:
The Hex Family Tree
*Note: This section contains
references to stories not yet covered
in the main history project.*
In the Dick Giordano
"Meanwhile" column appearing in some DC titles cover-dated August
1983, there was a sidebar titled "Spotlight on...Jonah Hex", which talked about what set this comic apart from
others. It mentioned that giving Jonah
such a nuanced life over the course of the title's run had resulted in many
stories "steadfastly ignoring many of commercial comics' most passionately
defended dogmas: that a title character must never marry or divorce, or, if he
does marry, that his bride should have the decency to get herself murdered at
the earliest opportunity; that the hero's parents should be conveniently dead
so that he won't have to bother working out an adult relationship with
them", along with a few other rule-breaking offenses. And while there was a period where things did
loosen up, that "dogma" is still in effect for the most part, with a
few notable comic-book marriages getting retconned out of existence in the past
decade or so, and an attempt to reverse the death of a certain speedster's mom
resulted in the known universe warping out of shape...a not-so-subtle way of
enforcing the notion that the entire genre is better off when parents stay dead.
There are some in the
industry who believe that, by giving characters a spouse and/or children, you
make said character appear "old", and therefore a younger audience
cannot relate to them, hence why most superheroes remain single, and many
children in the picture tend to be of the "nephew/niece" variety or
adopted. Thankfully, in the three
decades since that "Meanwhile" column was published, not only has the
record of Jonah Hex's marriage to Mei Ling remained intact -- there's a lovely
scene in 2012's All-Star Western #9
where Jonah busts Dr. Arkham's nose for inquiring about it -- he's also fathered
more offspring, and though the bounty hunter's parents have since passed on, a
couple more generations of Hexes have been unearthed, in both the 19th and 21st
Century. After all these years, Jonah is
still thumbing his nose at those "passionately defended dogmas", and
it doesn't appear that he'll stop doing so anytime soon.
The following is a list of
all of Jonah Hex's known relatives (and for the sake
of clarity, we're only dealing with the comics here, so there's no entries for
the wife and child seen in the Jonah Hex feature film). The information is scant on some, but we'll
fill in what details we can, beginning at the roots of his family tree...
"Grandpa Hex" (full name unknown, paternal grandfather): Virtually nothing is known about Jonah's ancestry beyond his
parents. His particular branch of the
Hex clan may have arrived in America only a couple of generations earlier, or it
might stretch all the way back to one of the first settlements in the 16th
Century. Even his name holds few clues
as to what nationality he may be descended from: according to Forebears.io,
the surname "Hex" can be found in numerous countries, with some of
the highest concentrations outside of the U.S. these days being in South
Africa, Belgium, and England. However,
when we take into account that some immigrants "Americanized" their
names upon landing in the New World, the possibilities expand even further (e.g.
the surname "Heux" would add France and the Netherlands to the mix).
We'll have to presume Jonah's grandfather bore the name proper as opposed to a
variation, since the man only rates a passing mention in Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #42. During
a flashback sequence where Jonah's father is trying to toughen him up, Woodson
Hex tells the boy, "Yer grandfather had genuine grit back in the day,
Jonah. 'Bout the only nice thing Ah can
say about the bastard. Some say he was
possessed by the Devil himself. Day he
departed this life, Ah went ta town an' tied one on. Met yer mother that day." So it appears that orneriness runs in the Hex
family, and there's a good chance Woodson also endured his fair share of abuse
as a boy. It's not known if either of
those facts had any bearing on the death of "Grandpa Hex".
Woodson Hex (father): From the
very first time he appeared on-panel in Jonah
Hex #7, it was obvious that Jonah's pa had few redeeming qualities. An abusive drunkard who proudly dubbed
himself "the craftiest Hex" on more than one occasion, Woodson's life
before his marriage to Ginny is a mystery.
According to All-Star Western
#0, the couple was homesteading in Missouri by the time Jonah was born, and
appeared to be doing well enough, but things apparently took a turn for the
worse not long after: in a scene where the boy appeared to be about eight years
old, Woodson groused that "The animals got sick, the crops don't
grow...it's bad luck is all!" Ginny
then berated him for doing nothing but drink and gamble for the past six years,
a complaint that caused Woodson to lash out at both wife and son. We can presume that, at some point afterward,
they sold the Missouri homestead -- being the only thing of value they had left
-- and moved to Colorado, where both Woodson's drinking and his abusive
behavior towards his family intensified.
However, there were brief moments when he actually played the part of a
caring father, albeit in strange ways.
In Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #63, Woodson
helped to track down a child-killer who nearly got a hold of his son, and in
the aforementioned JHv2#42, he whupped the tar out of three boys that beat up
young Jonah, telling him later on, "Nuthin' should humiliate ya more than
havin' yer father fight yer battles!"
He truly believed that all the physical and verbal abuse he heaped upon
the boy would make him stronger (and in a way, he turned out to be right).
In June 1848, Ginny
abandoned her husband, leaving him to raise Jonah alone, a situation probably
made even more distasteful by the fact that Woodson never wanted children in
the first place. By this point,
Woodson's only visible source of income was selling alcohol to Indians, and he
soon got it into his head that there were better ways to make money, namely
head out to California and pan for gold.
He also decided that the boy would be more hindrance than help, so in
July 1851, he sold Jonah to an Apache tribe, either to raise a grubstake (JH#7)
or to pay for passage through their territory (Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #14 and ASW#0). If Woodson made any sort of fortune in the
Gold Rush, he spent it quickly, because it seems he spent the rest of his life
bouncing from one crooked scheme to the next.
There's an undated incident in the Jonah
Hex: No Way Back graphic novel that detailed how a middle-aged Woodson --
presumably at some point after he'd went bust in California -- nearly wiped out
the family of a young El Papagayo, all to lay claim on the parrots they raised to
sell in Mexico City. When Jonah
encountered his father 25 years after Woodson had left the boy with the Apache
-- as seen in Jonah Hex #20 -- the
old man was partaking in a scheme to steal $250,000 in gold coins, and a later encounter in Jonah Hex #34 showed Woodson turning a
ghost town into a "haven for owlhoots", as well as planning a train
robbery.
It's wasn't until the very
end of his life that Woodson Hex finally obtained the riches he'd been pursuing
for so long. In Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #69, we find out that Woodson had spent the last
five years prospecting for gold, as well as trying to forget the family he'd
lost. A lucky strike at the claim he'd
been working brought the attention of some unsavory types, who followed him out
to the desert with intent to kill him.
Woodson killed them all instead, but not before they'd gutshot him. As he lay dying, Jonah found him, and sat by
as Woodson breathed his last. "The
craftiest Hex" was buried by his son in the middle of the desert, a pile
of gold nuggets marking the grave.
Virginia "Ginny" Hex (later Dazzleby, mother): The information on Jonah's ma is scant, partially due to her not
appearing on-panel until the Hex story featured in 1980's Super-Star Holiday Special, eight years after Jonah's own debut. As with Woodson, we don't know exactly what
sort of life Ginny led prior to her marriage, but there's strong hints that it
may have been less than reputable.
Woodson commented in JHv2#42 that he met Ginny when he'd gone to town
and "tied one on" (i.e. got drunk) the same day his father died. There were also countless times throughout both
Fleisher's and Palmiotti & Gray's runs when Ginny was referred to as a
tramp or a whore. What if that wasn't
just talk? There is a possibility that
she was a former "soiled dove" who tried to escape her frowned-upon
career by marrying a man who treated her kindly (at least in the
beginning). If that's the case, she
never fully escaped her past, as there are
intimations that she slept with other men during her marriage to
Woodson, though this may have less to do with her being a former whore and more
to do with a longing to feel loved while trapped in an abusive relationship.
Jonah Hex #57 contains the first
telling of her departure from Jonah's life: in June 1848, Ginny left the Hex
farm with a traveling salesman named Preston W. Dazzleby, who must've
represented to Ginny a chance at a much better life, or at least a safer
one. Unfortunately, Jonah wasn't welcome
in this new life...a decision that would haunt Ginny for years to come, it was
later revealed in the Jonah Hex: No Way
Back graphic novel. "She used
to wake up screaming in the middle of the night," Jonah's half-brother
told him not long after they met.
"I never knew whom she meant when she said 'Jonah'. I could hear her weeping in her room, asking
for forgiveness." Ironically, the
guilt would drive Ginny to the bottle, and one night, she left her second
husband without warning. According to Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #25, there was a
record of her becoming a prostitute following her marriage to Dazzleby, by the
time Jonah sees her in JH#57 -- which took place 27 years after she'd left him --
Ginny was living in squalor and in serious debt. While Jonah did take care of the debt for her
(in his own special manner, of course) and gave her some extra money besides,
he made no attempt to rescue his mother from the decrepit surroundings he found
her in. Whether he saw it as a form of
punishment or a realization that such efforts would be for naught is uncertain.
Sometime later, when a false
murder change was pinned upon Ginny, Jonah sought her out, only to find that
she was being used by El Papagayo as a lure.
Jonah was able to save her from Papagayo's men, but not from herself: gravely
ill and desperate for a drink, Ginny was so far gone that she didn't even
recognize Jonah when he came into her room, calling him the Devil and saying
her first son died when he was still a boy.
She then told Jonah about her second son, Joshua Dazzleby, who was
"doing God's work in Heaven's Gate, Colorado," but before Jonah could
question her further about this revelation, she passed away. Ever the dutiful son, Jonah made a coffin for
her and brought her body to Heaven's Gate for a proper burial.
Preston W. Dazzleby (stepfather): A traveling salesman with loads of charm, Dazzleby was first seen
in JH#57, when he wooed Ginny Hex into leaving her husband and son behind. It wasn't known at the time if he actually had
any intentions of staying with her or if this was just going to be a brief
fling before leaving her somewhere, but No
Way Back eventually filled us in.
Turned out that Dazzleby not only married Ginny, but they had a son
together, and apparently he did his best to give them both a good home. When their boy was ten, Dazzleby sent him to
live with an aunt back East so he could get a proper education, though there
may have been a secondary motive, namely trying to shelter the boy from Ginny's
deteriorating condition. At some point
afterward, Ginny left Dazzleby without warning, and he later told the boy that
"she'd fallen prey to drink and sin".
What became of the man in later years is unknown: going by his son's
statement of "I have no family left to me" upon meeting his
half-brother Jonah, it can be presumed that Preston Dazzleby died at some point
prior to that meeting.
Joshua Dazzleby (half-brother): "I
find it so hard to believe there's any blood between you and that man,"
Joshua's wife told him in regards to Jonah Hex, and indeed, the two men have
very little in common save for their mother.
Appearing only in No Way Back,
Joshua Dazzleby presumably came into the world within the first few years of
Ginny and Preston Dazzleby's marriage, and grew up in a household far more
sedate than the one Jonah was exposed to.
The only apparent disruption was the nightmares his mother suffered due
to the many years of abuse she'd suffered in her first marriage, as well as
guilt over leaving her oldest son behind.
When young Joshua asked his father about the name she'd sometimes scream
in the night, the elder Dazzleby said she was dreaming about the Jonah from the
Bible...a lie that led to Joshua reading the Good Book for the first time, and later
to him becoming a preacher.
At age ten, Joshua was sent
East to live with an aunt and further his education -- by the time his studies
were done and he returned home, Ginny was gone.
Though it's not said directly, there's a chance that Joshua tracked down
his mother to try and bring her home, for he remarked to Jonah that the last
time he saw her "she was drunk and in such a state that I feared for her
mortal soul". Joshua eventually married
and had three sons of his own, and he also became both the sheriff and preacher
in a religious community called Heaven's Gate, possibly located in what would
now be Pueblo County, Colorado. It was
most likely a peaceful, idyllic life right up until Jonah Hex showed up with
their mother's body in a coffin. Though
shocked to discover that Ginny had left both a husband and son behind many
years ago to marry his father, Joshua did his best to be cordial to his
half-brother, no matter how coarse his behavior. But when El Papagayo and his men rode into Heaven's
Gate, Joshua tried to turn Hex over to them in order to spare the town. Unfortunately, he also let slip that he and
Jonah were related, a confession that earned him a bullet in the shoulder from
Papagayo, and Jonah had to kill the bandito on the spot to save Joshua and his
family.
After healing from his
wounds, Jonah departed Heaven's Gate, and though Joshua apologized for what
he'd tried to do and told Jonah he was welcome to return anytime, it's not
likely the two men ever crossed paths again.
It's not known what became of Joshua and his family, nor can we be
certain if any later generations of the Dazzleby clan are aware of their blood
connection to the bounty hunter.
Deborah Dazzleby (sister-in-law): Though she only had a handful of lines in No Way Back, Deborah appeared to be a very kind woman, devoted to
her family as well as her faith. She
married Joshua when she was only thirteen (a fact that didn't sit well with
Jonah), and bore him three sons. When
tensions rose at the supper table between her husband and Hex, Deborah
immediately stepped in to try and defuse the situation, and though she couldn't
completely smooth things over, Jonah did tell her that he appreciated both her
hospitality and understanding...high praise from a man who rarely spoke in such
a way.
"The Dazzleby boys" (nephews): Though it's shown in Jonah
Hex: No Way Back that Joshua and Deborah have three sons, only two are
named. The oldest, Abraham, was seven at
the time the story took place, and the youngest, Eli, was three (we can presume
the middle, unnamed son was about five).
There wasn't much interaction with the three boys, save for the supper
scene: Abraham asked what happened to Hex's face (and Hex went ahead and told
him outright!), and Eli began spouting off random words -- "Tree! Cat!
Bird! Food! Seven!" -- after his father asked Hex to
say grace. The middle son never made a
peep, but that's the way it goes, ain't it?
The oldest and the youngest get all the attention, and the middle kid
gets ignored.
"Aunt Aretha" (full name unknown, aunt): This comes from a throwaway line in Jonah Hex #36, during a scene where Jonah is rescuing a woman
hanging from a broken rope bridge. As he
makes his way towards her, he says, "Now don't go gettin' hysterical on me, m'am! Ah remember muh Aunt Aretha alluz used tuh
get hysterical at the drop of a hat!
Ever' time she did it, it useta make me feel all fidgety!" We'll have to take Jonah at his word that
there really was an Aunt Aretha, since there's no record of either of his
parents having siblings. He could also
be referring to a great-aunt, or a close family friend upon whom the moniker
was bestowed. With no last name stated,
it's impossible to narrow it down.
Ko-Tante (adoptive father): Though he
first appeared in Jonah Hex #7,
thirty-seven years passed before Ko-Tante was given a proper name in All-Star Western #28. The chief of an Apache tribe which (according
to JHv2#14) lived in Arizona's Black Hills territory, Ko-Tante bought Jonah as
a slave from Woodson Hex in July 1851.
Despite the boy's lowly status, the chief did make sure he was treated
fairly, going to far as to discipline his birth son, Noh-Tante, when the young
Apache stabbed Jonah during a sparring match (as seen in Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #56). In
1853, Ko-Tante was attacked by a puma, and Jonah bravely stepped in to save the
man who kept him enslaved. In
recognition of this act, Ko-Tante freed Jonah and adopted him into the
tribe. Within a year, however, the chief
would be told by Noh-Tante that Jonah had been killed during a raid on a Kiowa
camp -- in truth, Noh-Tante had left him behind to die, but since his father
had no reason to doubt his son's word, Ko-Tante did not question him.
By 1866 -- as first seen in Jonah Hex
#8 -- Jonah had found the tribe once again and laid his charges against
Noh-Tante. The chief declared the two
men must face each other in trial-by-combat, unaware that his birth son had
arranged for Jonah to be given a defective tomahawk, which broke in the middle
of fighting. Deprived of his weapon,
Jonah pulled a knife and killed Noh-Tante, but the chief thought Jonah cheated
without cause, and had him branded with "The Mark of the Demon" as
punishment. Ko-Tante then banished his
adoptive son, telling Jonah that he'd be killed should he ever dare to
return. Eight years later, Jonah knowingly
risked his life and entered the tribe's camp once more, this time to rescue a
young woman Ko-Tante's people had kidnapped in retribution for all the injustices
visited upon them by white men. Faced
with no other choice, Jonah shot and killed Ko-Tante in order to save himself
and the woman, thereby making himself a pariah in the eyes of all Apache for
the rest of his days.
Noh-Tante (adoptive brother): From the
first time they laid eyes on each other in JH#7, Noh-Tante hated Jonah
Hex. Seeing him as just another
murderous white man, the young Apache never missed an opportunity to wound or
humiliate the boy who'd been enslaved to them.
When an Apache girl named White Fawn began consorting with Jonah,
Noh-Tante was enraged, and his attitude didn't improve once his father,
Ko-Tante, adopted Jonah as second son after the young man saved the chief's
life. In 1854, while Jonah and Noh-Tante
raided a Kiowa camp to steal horses, Noh-Tante attacked Jonah and left him for
dead at the hands of the vengeful Kiowa.
Believing his hated enemy gone forever, Noh-Tante told the other Apache
Jonah had been killed and, some time later, took White Fawn as his wife, though
whether he actually loved her or merely wanted to spite Jonah by taking his
beloved is unknown.
When Jonah showed up alive
twelve years later and accused Noh-Tante of betraying him, the Apache warrior
called him a liar, and the two men faced each other in combat, just as they'd
done in their youth. But Noh-Tante was
as treacherous as ever, and made sure Jonah was given a broken tomahawk...but
Noh-Tante didn't know that, while on the verge of killing his hated white
brother, Jonah would pull out a knife and stab him in the chest. Noh-Tante died immediately, unaware that his
father would soon declare him the victor and banish Jonah from the tribe for
his actions.
White Fawn (sister-in-law): As Jonah's
first love, White Fawn would always hold a special place n his heart. The young Apache girl appeared briefly in
JH#7, hanging on the arm of a teenage Jonah not long after he was made a member
of the tribe. In JHv2#56, we find out
that she'd befriended him a couple of years earlier, helping him learn to speak
Apache and tending the wounds inflicted upon him by Noh-Tante (the latter of
which earned her some abuse as well from the Apache warrior). Once Jonah was adopted by the chief, their
romance blossomed, only to be cut short by Noh-Tante's machinations when he
told the tribe Jonah had been killed by the Kiowa. Later on, Noh-Tante bought White Fawn from
her father and made her his bride. It's
not known if she bore any children for him, but they were together for twelve
years before Jonah returned to the tribe alive and well. When the trial-by-combat was declared by
Ko-Tante, White Fawn begged Jonah not to fight, telling him in Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #15, "Even if
you win, I cannot be with you."
Jonah refused to listen, though, and paid the price when he was literally
marked for dishonorably killing Noh-Tante with a knife.
When Jonah returned to the
tribe in 1874 to rescue a young woman they'd kidnapped, White Fawn proved that,
despite what he'd done to Noh-Tante, her love for Jonah still burned strong in
her heart. Well aware that she'd never
be able to return to her people, she freed both the captive woman and Jonah,
but White Fawn was killed by an arrow fired by Ko-Tante before they could get
away. Jonah shot and killed Ko-Tante
before making his escape, leaving White Fawn's body behind. Despite her betrayal, she was apparently given a proper Apache burial by the tribe, and the land that her grave rested upon was
later purchased by Jonah himself, who would attend to it at least once a year
(as seen in JHv2#56).
Mei Ling Hex (first wife): When you
read her first appearance in Jonah Hex #23, there's no hint anywhere that Mei
Ling would later become one of the most important people in Jonah's life. Once told by her father that she was
"too headstrong for any man" -- as related in Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #61
-- Mei Ling dared to vent her anger directly upon Hex after her father was
killed, blaming the bounty hunter for failing to act in time. Perhaps her fearlessness was what attracted
Jonah to her, but Mei Ling rejected Jonah's advances at first because of the
senseless violence that followed in his wake.
It wasn't until they ran into each other again in Jonah Hex #42 that Mei Ling agreed to be with him...if he'd agree
to give up bounty-hunting. After getting
married in Jonah Hex #45, the newlyweds
settled down on their own little piece of land did their best to lead a
peaceable life, a task made impossible when one threat after another kept
coming their way, causing Jonah to pick up his guns over and over again, much
to Mei Ling's frustration.
They managed to stay
together for nearly a year, but not long after the birth of their son, Mei Ling
decided she'd had enough. It wasn't just
the violence, but also what she saw as a lack of caring about both her and
their son. In Jonah Hex #53, Mei Ling took the baby and left, eventually ending
up at the home of her brother and his wife, not far from the town of Feldon's
Gap, where she and Jonah had gotten married.
Roughly two years later, Mei Ling fell into a relationship with Marshall
J.D. Hart, starting in Jonah Hex #81:
being a proper agent of the law, not a bounty hunter, Hart knew when to show
restraint when it came to violence.
Unfortunately, their relationship was short-lived, as Hart was killed by
an upstart gunfighter in Jonah Hex
#90.
While we do know that Mei
Ling passed away at some point prior to 1899 -- as learned in Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #25 -- there are no
other details available. We can only
hope that, following Hart's death, she was able to find happiness again.
"Baba Mei" (full name unknown, father-in-law) : As with Jonah's grandfather, Mei Ling's father was never given a
specific name -- for the record, "baba" is an informal way of saying "father"
in Mandarin -- but at least he got a few on-panel appearances in JH#23 so we
know what he looked like. Apparently a
man of great import among the small Chinese community they lived in, Mei took
it upon himself to try and hire Jonah Hex to avenge the "great evil"
that had visited upon them, namely the slaughter of numerous Chinese railroad
workers by their white bosses. Since Mei
could only offer him $30 for the job, Jonah turned him down, but later
witnessed one of the bosses gunning down Mei in the middle of the street. Little did Mei know that his death would
bring his daughter and the bounty hunter together.
"Mama Mei" (full name unknown, mother-in-law): Rating only a single-panel appearance in JH#23 -- where she merely
walked into the room and told her daughter that Jonah had come to see her --
there's not much to say in regards to Mei Ling's mother. She's never even mentioned by any of her
children in subsequent stories, so one has to presume that she died off-panel
at some point after JH#23.
"Miscellaneous Mei
siblings" (full names unknown, possible in-laws): This one is a bit confusing, since so few people in Mei Ling's
family were given proper names. In
JH#23, after the railroad workers were killed, a young man named Wing showed up
at the Mei household, saying, "I must see your father, Mei Ling! A-at once!" Her father referred to Wing as "my
son", but we can presume by the previous dialogue that this was more of an
honorific, and Wing wasn't actually his son.
A few panels later, a second man showed up: once again, the phrase
"my son" was used, plus this new person addressed the elder Mei as
"father", so unless this was more honorifics at play here, this second
man was Mei Ling's brother. But wait,
there's possibly more! Later on, when
they're mourning the death of "Baba Mei", a third unknown person is
there, virtually squeezed out of the lefthand side of the panel. It's almost impossible to tell if this was a
man or a woman, not to mention that this might just be a close family friend
and not a relative at all. And then
there's an offhand remark made by Mei Ling in JHv2#61, while she's chewing out
Jonah for his desire to fight: "My father and brother were murdered back
in San Francisco! I don't want that to
happen to you!" At least nine
workers were killed on-panel in JH#23, so presumably this brother Mei Ling
mentioned was among them. Like I said,
it's confusing.
Mei Wong (brother-in-law): First
appearing in Jonah Hex #45, Mei Wong
apparently decided to take a different path in life from the rest of his
family, becoming a farmer on a small plot of land near the town of Feldon's
Gap. The moment he found out about his
sister's plans to marry Jonah, he disowned her, but he must've softened his
position later on, because after Mei Ling left Jonah, he took her and her son
in. He never stopped disapproving of her
decision to marry a murderous Occidental, though, reminding her of it every
chance he got. It's not known what became
of Mei Wong in later years.
Mei Song (sister-in-law): Her husband
did the majority of the talking in their relationship, so there's not much to
list about Mei Song, who first showed up in JH#45 alongside Mei Wong. It's not even known if the two of them ever
had children, as none are ever seen on-panel.
Jason Hex (son): First
coming into the world in Jonah Hex
#51, the boy's name wasn't said on-panel until Jonah Hex #78 (where he was said to be nearly two years old). Jason grew up with two clouds hanging over
him: the stigma of being a mixed-race child in the 19th Century, and having a
notorious gunfighter for a father.
Though we have no exact record of what sort of troubles this may have
caused, it did appear to have influenced his decision to move to Mexico. As a grownup Jason said in Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #25, "Mexicans
aren't as opposed to my mixed blood as a lot of folk are up north." By 1899, Jason was working as a tracker and
helping out the Guardia Rural when he ran into his father, who pretended not
know who Jason was. The young man
figured it out immediately, though, and did his best to get the man to open up.
But Jonah apparently agreed with Mei
Ling's decision from long ago, that the boy would be better off not knowing him,
and left before Jason could even tell the man he now had a child of his own.
Jason's life beyond this chance meeting in 1899 is unknown. The only information we have is a scene from Secret Origins #21, where a historian
asked Jonah's widow, Tall Bird, what she knew about Jason Hex. She refused to answer, telling him only that "his
is a tale so fraught with horror that I have vowed to carry it within me, in
secret, to the end of my days."
Since Jonah died in 1904, and Tall Bird's statement implies that Jason
himself passed away, we'll have to presume that it occurred somewhere within
that five-year period.
"Mrs. Jason Hex" (full name unknown, possible daughter-in-law): In the final pages of JHv2#25, Jason was shown standing with a
young woman holding a baby. It's never
said if she was Jason's wife, but since we do know that he fathered a child, it
seems likely that he did the decent thing and married her.
Woodson Hex II (grandson): Referred to
in JHv2#25 as Jonah's "alleged grandson", the second person to bear
the name Woodson Hex is presumed to be the child of Jason Hex, as seen at the
end of the very same issue. All that's
known about Woodson is that he worked as a bounty hunter and private detective
in the 1930s-40s, and he wrote a book titled An Oral History on the Old West, wherein he recorded all that he
knew (or was willing to tell) about his family's legacy.
"Baby Girl Black-Hex" (unnamed daughter): Though her life was terribly brief, she made an enormous impact
upon her parents' lives. It's revealed
in Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #50 that, after
a heated night of passion with Jonah, Tallulah Black realized she was pregnant,
but rather than tell Jonah about it, she rode off and tried to leave her old
life behind her. She took up residence
in the town of Silver Springs, unaware that one of the residents -- a woman
named Abigail -- would eventually be gripped by a religious mania centering
around Tallulah and her unborn child. On
the night Tallulah went into labor, Abigail cut the baby out of her and went on
the run with it. By this point, Jonah
had found Tallulah and learned of his daughter's existence, but by the time he
tracked down Abigail, the baby was already dead (the exact cause was never
revealed, but we do know the baby was still alive when Abigail left Silver
Springs). Placing her in a tiny coffin,
Jonah brought the baby home to Tallulah, then left. The incident caused a rift between the two of
them that didn't heal for many years.
Though it wouldn't be known
for certain until Jonah Hex (vol. 2)
#70, it appears that the baby's tragic death caused her spirit to be rather
restless, and she paid many a visit to her parents without them realizing her true identity. It first time was in Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #16, before Jonah and
Tallulah even met. A girl of about eight
years of age came across Jonah and a hanged man in a clearing. After telling Jonah that letting the hanged
man struggle is "not very Christian", she yanked on the man's legs to
snap his neck, then walked away. Later
on, she found Tallulah Black laying half-dead and asked if the woman would like
to come along and join her for supper -- Tallulah replied that she had graves
to dig, and the girl left. In Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #17, the girl once
again appeared to Tallulah when she was near death, asking her to come along,
but Tallulah refused. The girl appeared
to Tallulah a third time in JHv2#50, after the baby was ripped from her womb,
and though Tallulah asked outright who she was, the girl didn't answer. In JHv2#70, when Jonah had his own trip to
the afterlife, the girl was more forthcoming, not only referring to Jonah as
"Daddy", but asking him to give her a name (she has yet to receive
one).
Unfortunately, due to a lack
of dating evidence, we cannot say for certain whether Jonah's daughter came
into the world before or after Jason Hex was born. I'm placing her below Jason on this list
simply because we learned about her much later in Jonah's history, so in a
sense she is the "younger" child.
Tall Bird Hex (second wife): With only
two appearances -- the Jonah Hex
Spectacular and Secret Origins
#21 -- there's very little information available on Tall Bird. We know that her marriage to Jonah was never
officially recorded, as she's referred to as his common-law wife in SO#21. Though common-law marriages have never been
permitted in the state of Wyoming (the couple lived in Cheyenne at the
time of his death), the practice does exist among Native American tribes, and
since Tall Bird was a Comanche, it's likely they were married in a ceremony
conducted by her people. It's not known
how or when they met, though going by the events of JHv2#25, we can presume
Jonah settled down with her at some point after 1899. Her exact age at the time of Jonah's death
isn't known, but she was young enough to be mistaken for Jonah's daughter in
the Spectacular. Add in the assessment in SO#21 that she was
-- in 1987 -- about 100 years old, and that would make her possibly as young as
17 in 1904.
It's plain to see in the Spectacular
that the couple loved each other dearly: though he told her little regarding it,
Jonah trusted her enough to confide in her about his trip to the future, and
Tall Bird seemed immensely proud of his warrior spirit. All that just makes it even more of a tragedy
that his body was stolen from her by Lew Farnham after Jonah died. Though it was believed for decades that Tall
Bird died herself when their cabin burned down, she apparently made it out
alive, though whether she sustained any serious injuries is unknown: she was
shown in a wheelchair in SO#21, but this might've been due to old age as
opposed to a lifelong disability.
There's no record of her life between 1904 and 1987, but at some point
prior to Jonah's corpse being found, Tall Bird was relocated to Gray Eagle
Indian Reservation (in truth, no reservation by that name is known
to have existed). Despite her advanced age,
she challenged the amusement park that currently owned the corpse for custody,
for she was still intent on laying Jonah upon a funeral pyre and freeing his
spirit. However, since the corpse
continued to be spotted in various locations in the years after SO#21, we'll
have to presume she was unsuccessful in claiming it. Tall Bird's final fate is unknown.
"Lady Hex" (full name unknown, possible descendant): This enigmatic gal is one of only two modern-day contenders for
inclusion in the Hex family tree. First
appearing in Superboy #54 -- and
referred to only as "Hex" throughout the entirety of her brief career
-- she started off as a hot-tempered supermodel featured in a photo shoot
alongside Paris's Left Bank, then revealed a decidedly different side to her
personality in Superboy #55 when, after suffering a severe wound to her face, she
began talking like Jonah Hex and shooting owlhoots with a psionically-charged
pistol. By the time of her last
appearance in Superboy #75, she'd
decided to take up bounty-hunting, but we were no closer to understanding who
she truly was. The only thing we know about the life of "Lady Hex" prior
to her first appearance is that she came on the modeling scene out of nowhere,
and refused representation by any agency.
She had no inkling as to how or why she was channeling
Jonah Hex or where her powers came from, though she suspected that the shadowy
organization known as the Agenda had something to do with both. She also never claimed to be related to Jonah
Hex in any way, but the idea of her being a blood relation to the bounty hunter
is one of the few possible explanations open to us, so that earns her a spot of
this list.
Chastity Hex (possible descendant): Debuting in issue #2 of the 2015 Bizarro miniseries, this little lady actually did some
investigating into whether or not she and Jonah Hex are kin, but couldn't say
for certain. As Chastity herself put it,
"They only let you search so much on Geneology.com before you gotta subscribe." Such doubts didn't stop her from taking up
the family business of bounty-hunting, though, even going so far as to dress
the part by donning twin six-shooters and a Confederate-gray hat (which the
ghost of Jonah Hex approved of when they ran into each other!). As fearless as her forebears and just as
formidable with weaponry, Chastity came to the rescue of Bizarro and his
"worstest friend" Jimmy Olsen throughout the miniseries, eventually
scoring a jetpack and a pair of ray-guns straight from Area 51 by the end of
it. She was last seen heading out to see
the galaxy with a some new alien friends.
Jinny Hex (great-great-granddaughter): At the moment, we know very little about this gal, who recently
premiered in Batman Giant #4,
available only at U.S.-based Walmart retailers, and will soon join the newest Young Justice title coming in January
2019. Both are written by Brian Michael
Bendis, who told the audience at 2018’s New York Comic Con that he inquired
directly to Dan Didio about the branches in Jonah’s family tree: “I know there has been other Hexes in the world,
but is there a lineage? Then he sent me
a panel of a baby.” This implies that
Jinny is also a descendant of Jason Hex, but it hasn’t been stated outright yet
(we’re also fuzzy on how many “greats” are between her and Jonah, since at one
point she was referred to in a news report as his
great-great-great-great-granddaughter...at the moment, we’re going by what was
said Batman Giant #4).
Even with
only five pages to go by, we get a decent impression of Jinny’s personality: she
appears to be as no-nonsense as Jonah, for when Batman came a-calling to
investigate the provenance of a Faberge egg, which apparently fell into the
possession of the Hex family well over a century ago, she had no problem with
looking him dead in the eye and speaking her mind. When he asked why she’d donate a
fifteen-million-dollar egg to a museum (from which it was stolen) as opposed to
selling it, Jinny replied, “Do you know
anybody who was gonna give me $15 million for it? No? Me
neither. So it doesn’t seem like it’s really worth $15 million, is it?” She has a point, seeing as how she lives in a
small town in the middle of nowhere (though presumably close enough to Gotham
for Batman to drive there) and works as a mechanic at a gas station (which she
likely owns, since she keeps a trunk full of family heirlooms in the back of
the place). Unlike Chastity or “Lady Hex”,
Jinny is 100% certain that she’s descended from Jonah, and even wears a locket
with his picture in it around her neck, though you get the impression she wasn’t
aware of her lineage until after her mother died, which led to her discovery of
the trunk. It’s not known at the moment
how exactly this small-town gal is gonna team up with a group of teen
superheroes, but I reckon that Batman’s visit might spur her on to take more
active role out in the world. We’ll
update this entry as soon as we learn more.
Woodson Hex (father): From the
very first time he appeared on-panel in Jonah
Hex #7, it was obvious that Jonah's pa had few redeeming qualities. An abusive drunkard who proudly dubbed
himself "the craftiest Hex" on more than one occasion, Woodson's life
before his marriage to Ginny is a mystery.
According to All-Star Western
#0, the couple was homesteading in Missouri by the time Jonah was born, and
appeared to be doing well enough, but things apparently took a turn for the
worse not long after: in a scene where the boy appeared to be about eight years
old, Woodson groused that "The animals got sick, the crops don't
grow...it's bad luck is all!" Ginny
then berated him for doing nothing but drink and gamble for the past six years,
a complaint that caused Woodson to lash out at both wife and son. We can presume that, at some point afterward,
they sold the Missouri homestead -- being the only thing of value they had left
-- and moved to Colorado, where both Woodson's drinking and his abusive
behavior towards his family intensified.
However, there were brief moments when he actually played the part of a
caring father, albeit in strange ways.
In Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #63, Woodson
helped to track down a child-killer who nearly got a hold of his son, and in
the aforementioned JHv2#42, he whupped the tar out of three boys that beat up
young Jonah, telling him later on, "Nuthin' should humiliate ya more than
havin' yer father fight yer battles!"
He truly believed that all the physical and verbal abuse he heaped upon
the boy would make him stronger (and in a way, he turned out to be right).
Joshua Dazzleby (half-brother): "I
find it so hard to believe there's any blood between you and that man,"
Joshua's wife told him in regards to Jonah Hex, and indeed, the two men have
very little in common save for their mother.
Appearing only in No Way Back,
Joshua Dazzleby presumably came into the world within the first few years of
Ginny and Preston Dazzleby's marriage, and grew up in a household far more
sedate than the one Jonah was exposed to.
The only apparent disruption was the nightmares his mother suffered due
to the many years of abuse she'd suffered in her first marriage, as well as
guilt over leaving her oldest son behind.
When young Joshua asked his father about the name she'd sometimes scream
in the night, the elder Dazzleby said she was dreaming about the Jonah from the
Bible...a lie that led to Joshua reading the Good Book for the first time, and later
to him becoming a preacher.
Ko-Tante (adoptive father): Though he
first appeared in Jonah Hex #7,
thirty-seven years passed before Ko-Tante was given a proper name in All-Star Western #28. The chief of an Apache tribe which (according
to JHv2#14) lived in Arizona's Black Hills territory, Ko-Tante bought Jonah as
a slave from Woodson Hex in July 1851.
Despite the boy's lowly status, the chief did make sure he was treated
fairly, going to far as to discipline his birth son, Noh-Tante, when the young
Apache stabbed Jonah during a sparring match (as seen in Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #56). In
1853, Ko-Tante was attacked by a puma, and Jonah bravely stepped in to save the
man who kept him enslaved. In
recognition of this act, Ko-Tante freed Jonah and adopted him into the
tribe. Within a year, however, the chief
would be told by Noh-Tante that Jonah had been killed during a raid on a Kiowa
camp -- in truth, Noh-Tante had left him behind to die, but since his father
had no reason to doubt his son's word, Ko-Tante did not question him.
Mei Ling Hex (first wife): When you
read her first appearance in Jonah Hex #23, there's no hint anywhere that Mei
Ling would later become one of the most important people in Jonah's life. Once told by her father that she was
"too headstrong for any man" -- as related in Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #61
-- Mei Ling dared to vent her anger directly upon Hex after her father was
killed, blaming the bounty hunter for failing to act in time. Perhaps her fearlessness was what attracted
Jonah to her, but Mei Ling rejected Jonah's advances at first because of the
senseless violence that followed in his wake.
It wasn't until they ran into each other again in Jonah Hex #42 that Mei Ling agreed to be with him...if he'd agree
to give up bounty-hunting. After getting
married in Jonah Hex #45, the newlyweds
settled down on their own little piece of land did their best to lead a
peaceable life, a task made impossible when one threat after another kept
coming their way, causing Jonah to pick up his guns over and over again, much
to Mei Ling's frustration.
"Baba Mei" (full name unknown, father-in-law) : As with Jonah's grandfather, Mei Ling's father was never given a
specific name -- for the record, "baba" is an informal way of saying "father"
in Mandarin -- but at least he got a few on-panel appearances in JH#23 so we
know what he looked like. Apparently a
man of great import among the small Chinese community they lived in, Mei took
it upon himself to try and hire Jonah Hex to avenge the "great evil"
that had visited upon them, namely the slaughter of numerous Chinese railroad
workers by their white bosses. Since Mei
could only offer him $30 for the job, Jonah turned him down, but later
witnessed one of the bosses gunning down Mei in the middle of the street. Little did Mei know that his death would
bring his daughter and the bounty hunter together.
Mei Wong (brother-in-law): First
appearing in Jonah Hex #45, Mei Wong
apparently decided to take a different path in life from the rest of his
family, becoming a farmer on a small plot of land near the town of Feldon's
Gap. The moment he found out about his
sister's plans to marry Jonah, he disowned her, but he must've softened his
position later on, because after Mei Ling left Jonah, he took her and her son
in. He never stopped disapproving of her
decision to marry a murderous Occidental, though, reminding her of it every
chance he got. It's not known what became
of Mei Wong in later years.
Jason Hex (son): First
coming into the world in Jonah Hex
#51, the boy's name wasn't said on-panel until Jonah Hex #78 (where he was said to be nearly two years old). Jason grew up with two clouds hanging over
him: the stigma of being a mixed-race child in the 19th Century, and having a
notorious gunfighter for a father.
Though we have no exact record of what sort of troubles this may have
caused, it did appear to have influenced his decision to move to Mexico. As a grownup Jason said in Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #25, "Mexicans
aren't as opposed to my mixed blood as a lot of folk are up north." By 1899, Jason was working as a tracker and
helping out the Guardia Rural when he ran into his father, who pretended not
know who Jason was. The young man
figured it out immediately, though, and did his best to get the man to open up.
But Jonah apparently agreed with Mei
Ling's decision from long ago, that the boy would be better off not knowing him,
and left before Jason could even tell the man he now had a child of his own.
"Baby Girl Black-Hex" (unnamed daughter): Though her life was terribly brief, she made an enormous impact
upon her parents' lives. It's revealed
in Jonah Hex (vol. 2) #50 that, after
a heated night of passion with Jonah, Tallulah Black realized she was pregnant,
but rather than tell Jonah about it, she rode off and tried to leave her old
life behind her. She took up residence
in the town of Silver Springs, unaware that one of the residents -- a woman
named Abigail -- would eventually be gripped by a religious mania centering
around Tallulah and her unborn child. On
the night Tallulah went into labor, Abigail cut the baby out of her and went on
the run with it. By this point, Jonah
had found Tallulah and learned of his daughter's existence, but by the time he
tracked down Abigail, the baby was already dead (the exact cause was never
revealed, but we do know the baby was still alive when Abigail left Silver
Springs). Placing her in a tiny coffin,
Jonah brought the baby home to Tallulah, then left. The incident caused a rift between the two of
them that didn't heal for many years.
"Lady Hex" (full name unknown, possible descendant): This enigmatic gal is one of only two modern-day contenders for
inclusion in the Hex family tree. First
appearing in Superboy #54 -- and
referred to only as "Hex" throughout the entirety of her brief career
-- she started off as a hot-tempered supermodel featured in a photo shoot
alongside Paris's Left Bank, then revealed a decidedly different side to her
personality in Superboy #55 when, after suffering a severe wound to her face, she
began talking like Jonah Hex and shooting owlhoots with a psionically-charged
pistol. By the time of her last
appearance in Superboy #75, she'd
decided to take up bounty-hunting, but we were no closer to understanding who
she truly was. The only thing we know about the life of "Lady Hex" prior
to her first appearance is that she came on the modeling scene out of nowhere,
and refused representation by any agency.
She had no inkling as to how or why she was channeling
Jonah Hex or where her powers came from, though she suspected that the shadowy
organization known as the Agenda had something to do with both. She also never claimed to be related to Jonah
Hex in any way, but the idea of her being a blood relation to the bounty hunter
is one of the few possible explanations open to us, so that earns her a spot of
this list.
Chastity Hex (possible descendant): Debuting in issue #2 of the 2015 Bizarro miniseries, this little lady actually did some
investigating into whether or not she and Jonah Hex are kin, but couldn't say
for certain. As Chastity herself put it,
"They only let you search so much on Geneology.com before you gotta subscribe." Such doubts didn't stop her from taking up
the family business of bounty-hunting, though, even going so far as to dress
the part by donning twin six-shooters and a Confederate-gray hat (which the
ghost of Jonah Hex approved of when they ran into each other!). As fearless as her forebears and just as
formidable with weaponry, Chastity came to the rescue of Bizarro and his
"worstest friend" Jimmy Olsen throughout the miniseries, eventually
scoring a jetpack and a pair of ray-guns straight from Area 51 by the end of
it. She was last seen heading out to see
the galaxy with a some new alien friends.
Jinny Hex (great-great-granddaughter): At the moment, we know very little about this gal, who recently
premiered in Batman Giant #4,
available only at U.S.-based Walmart retailers, and will soon join the newest Young Justice title coming in January
2019. Both are written by Brian Michael
Bendis, who told the audience at 2018’s New York Comic Con that he inquired
directly to Dan Didio about the branches in Jonah’s family tree: “I know there has been other Hexes in the world,
but is there a lineage? Then he sent me
a panel of a baby.” This implies that
Jinny is also a descendant of Jason Hex, but it hasn’t been stated outright yet
(we’re also fuzzy on how many “greats” are between her and Jonah, since at one
point she was referred to in a news report as his
great-great-great-great-granddaughter...at the moment, we’re going by what was
said Batman Giant #4).
