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.
