Though
I’ve been reading Mark Waid’s Justice
League Unlimited since the first issue, I hadn’t planned on picking up the Justice League: Dark Tomorrow Special. I’d already been skipping the other JLU
spinoffs because they didn’t seem necessary to understand the main story, but
when I took a peek at a preview for the Special,
I saw our favorite bounty hunter would be present, and I am morally obligated
as Jonah Hex’s P.R. agent to but virtually every appearance I can get my hands
on, so…yeah, I bought it.
Up
until reading this comic, I’d been a little miffed at Waid. He told us way back in February that he’d figured out how to work Hex into JLU, yet the three dang issues the
character appeared in so far had amounted to background filler and one line of
dialogue. Sorry, sir, I need more Hex
than that to be happy, please and thank you.
And
now I got freakin’ more. I got ol’ Jonah
shootin’ folks in the head, and I don’t care that they’re just faceless
demon-shadow -thingies, it was still fun to see Jonah cut loose. I also got some spot-on characterization when
he straight-up told the Leaguers “No” in regards to joining their little
excursion into time and space (even though he did in the end, the initial
resistance is what counts), followed by him stating bluntly that he is not a
hero. So yay yay happy me!
I
also got a mystery in the form of a new character referred to as Legend…or at
least the appearance is new. According
to Legend themselves, they are a time traveler, and telling the Leaguers who
they truly are under that armor and full-face helmet could supposedly lead to a
paradox. Luckily, nearly all the
narration boxes in the issue come directly from Legend, and there are clues to
be found there, with the biggest two coming at the bottom of the page revealing
the time-lost folks who’ve been enlisted to help:
Legend privately admitting that they and Hex have a shared history jumped out at me like a neon sign. Though Jonah’s been
racking up some serious frequent-flyer miles in the past decade or so, his
interactions with future-folk are still limited enough that I can pretty much
make a list of who this Legend person may be, using the other clues scattered
throughout to narrow the list further, starting with the “Don’t blame a girl
for wishing” line Legend lets slip in regards to Marilyn Moonlight. Throughout the issue, Legend is referred to
with they/them pronouns, meaning they’re not even letting on what their gender
is, so this internal dialogue implies that Legend is a woman (and possibly LGBTQ+,
as it also implies an attraction to the newest cowpoke in DC’s Western stable).
Presuming our target is indeed female,
that knocks quite a few people out of the running…and though Hex refers to
Legend as “him” at one point, I doubt the bounty hunter can wrap his brain
around the concept of gender-neutral pronouns, so I’m dismissing that.
Other
clues are more vague but still potentially helpful: Legend’s manner of speaking
(casual, the occasional swear or bit of snark), their statement about having
experience with “ragtag” teams, their confession to Airwave that they know
“more than a little bit” about failure and redemption, their throwaway line
about Hex being “another satisfied customer” when the bounty hunter praises the
powerful ammo he got from Legend’s timeship, the Waverider (yep, they just made the ship from Legends of Tomorrow canon), not to mention how incredibly
well-versed they are in regards to DCU history, all the way up to the Legion of
Super-Heroes. Whoever they are, they’ve
been bopping around the timestream for a good long while.
Speaking of the timestream, I want to
make clear that I have no idea when
in time ol’ Jonah got snatched up, much less what is still canon when it comes
to his future-folk interactions. Since
Mark Waid is doing the writing, that says to me anything is possible, therefore
I’m not discounting any character/storyline that may’ve been erased by
retcons. I’m also presuming that Waid
isn’t crafting this Hex/Legend connection out of whole cloth (that’d be
cheating, sir!), so all these guesses are based on documented interactions over
the past 50+ years of Hex history.
Okay,
ground rules are established. Let’s look
over the list, in no particular order…
BATWOMAN: After
bopping around with the new version of the Outsiders (aka the low-key Planetary sequel) for nearly a year, the
idea of Kate Kane becoming a time traveler somewhere down the line doesn’t seem
far-fetched. And I daresay the term
“ragtag” does fit those Outsiders well, plus Kate does have a “failure and
redemption” thing in her past. There is
also that fact that, from a certain angle, Legend’s helmet does come to two
points at the back…not full-on bat ears, but it’s something I noticed. As
for her Hex run-in, it’s a little tenuous, seeing as how ol’ Jonah was a ghost
at the time, but I’m counting it.
JINNY HEX:
Speaking of Outsiders, the same issue
where Batwoman ran into a ghostly Hex is the same where his
many-times-great-granddaughter Jinny got introduced to the group, making that
the second “ragtag” team she’s a part of (the first being Young Justice, of
course). I’d say being kin to the man
qualifies as having “literal” history with him, and then there’s the matter of
that trunk she inherited…Lord knows, there might’ve been a time-travel device
buried inside! When you add in the
notion implied near the end of the Outsiders
run -- that Jinny Hex may be a Century Baby, making her potentially long-lived
-- the odds of her being Legend go up.
CHASTITY HEX OR “LADY HEX”:
On the subject of descendants, I’m putting these two on the board as
longshots. Neither have been seen or
mentioned outside of the respective titles that introduced them (the Bizarro miniseries and Superboy, respectively), but knowing
Mark Waid’s penchant for obscure characters, I’m not discounting the
possibility of one of them turning up. I
put higher odds on Chastity due to her heading off to space in her last
appearance, plus her penchant for jetpacks and rayguns, but overall, I’d still
be shocked if Legend was one of them.
HARLEY QUINN:
Another longshot, as Legend’s dialogue doesn’t sound like how Harley talks
whatsoever, but she recently went on a multiversal jaunt throughout DCU
history, so maybe this is a much older Harley who’s a little more sane (like I
said, it’s a longshot). There’s also the
fact that, when she met Jonah Hex during the Dark Nights: Death Metal event (a Black Lantern Hex, but it still
counts!), the two of ‘em had a bit of a talk about doing more to fight for good
than for evil, and to me that falls under the “failure and redemption”
category.
HAWKGIRL: This
one is a bit of a cheat, as I’m thinking specifically about her past life as
Cinnamon, who has definitely met Hex,
plus it’d be a nice callback to her being on the original Legends of Tomorrow team. I
also think the idea of having someone who’s lived so many lives also ending up
as a time traveler is interesting. And
remember those two points on the helmet that I said could be bat ears? They could also very well be a suggestion of
the “wings” that both Hawks tend to have on their masks.
STILETTA:
Of all the people I’m listing, this is the one I’m rooting hardest for. I am not a big fan of the “Future Hex” era as
envisioned by Michael Fleisher, but over the past 20 years, I’ve come to
appreciate its potential. I want to see
Mark Waid take the idea and do this own spin on it. Have Stiletta unearth her father’s time travel
equipment and improve on it, then she puts it to good use by helping people in
her own era and across time (that’s how the “another satisfied customer” line
could fit in). There’s the question of whether
or not that would put HEX back into the DCU’s main timeline or remain an
alternate future, but if it’s the former, it’d be a heck of a premise to build
on: stop the nuclear holocaust of 2045 from happening (hard to believe what sounded
like a far-off date in 1985 is just around the corner!).
***LAST-MINUTE ENTRY***: I
can’t believe this one slipped my mind! In
the Justice League/Wonder Woman Giants
released through Walmart back in 2018, Jonah got mixed up in an adventure involving
Wonder Woman, Cheetah, Etta Candy, and an alien princess named Sibella. The story is way too complicated to explain
here -- suffice it to say it involves time travel shenanigans and alien fights
to the death -- but it’s unusual in that nearly everyone Hex deals with is
female (there’s also a military officer named Kate, but I think she’s just made
up for the story…sorry, Wonder Woman lore is out of my area). Anyways, I put even near-zero odds on Legend
being Wondy, because while I’m no expert on the Amazon, she does have a
particular way of talking, and it doesn’t match Legend’s dialogue one bit. However, I could see Cheetah talking like
that (and once again, those points on the helmet could be possible cat ears). A presumably-reformed Cheetah would also fit
the “failure and redemption” angle, the Legion of Doom qualifies as “ragtag”,
and I bet dollars to dumplings that, even reformed, she’d take advantage of
time travel to do a little business (hence “another satisfied customer”). Etta Candy is also possible, but I seriously
doubt it’d be Sibella, as she doesn’t exist outside of this story as far as I’m
aware. Her people do have some serious
time travel tech, though…
So
that’s what I’ve got. If you can think
of anyone else who might fit the parameters we know so far, let me know in the
comments and I’ll add them to the list (I'm also adding a "Legends" tag so you can easily look up any posts dealing with them, as well as any past/future Legends of Tomorrow posts).
I’m hoping we don’t have to wait too long for the reveal (maybe it’ll come
during this DC K.O. event they
mention at the end?), but in the meantime, let’s keep our eyes peeled for clues…and
more Jonah Hex!
