Books like Showcase Presents: Jonah Hex, Vol. 1

Showcase Presents is a line of reprint books published by DC Comics. In order to keep the cost low and the price point right, these 500 page tomes are in black and white. Obviously, most comics are not printed in black and white, but this is the only way to get some of these older comics reprinted and into the hands of readers.Whereas super-hero titles like Superman may suffer somewhat from the lack of color (super-heroes tend to be colorful, as do their villains), comics that depicted more realistic genres like westerns and war, with art that are not full of buff muscle gods and barely covered nymphs, seem to fit this format very well. Many of the artists working in these genres were using black shading, for instance, to create mood and nuance long before Frank Miller made it a popular motif among super-hero artists.This first volume of Showcase Presents: Jonah Hex is such a volume that looks amazing in black and white. There is a wide variety of artists here, from Tony DeZuniga to Luis Dominguez to George Moltieri and others. Each artist gives us a visual imprint that I imagine was blurred somewhat back in the days of four color presses. The reproduction we get here is crisp with fine detail for a period comic. Jonah Hex first appeared in All-Star Western #10, cover dated Feb-Mar 1972. Conceived by DC stalwart writer John Albano and rising artist Tony DeZuniga, Hex quickly became a very popular feature of the book, which became Weird Western Tales with the twelfth issue. By issue #38, Hex was popular enough to be given his own eponymous comic, which lasted for 92 issues.The premise behind Jonah Hex is that he’s a bounty hunter with a sense of justice and morality that sometimes gets the best of him. In these stories, most of which are done-in-ones, Hex comes up against crooked sheriffs, landowners, thieves, and even entire towns. Perhaps the fastest gun in the West, he defeats his foes with cunning, even though he often has to endure a little humiliation first.Hex creator John Albano scripts about half the stories in this volume, followed by Michael Fleischer, who was to become the pre-eminent Hex writer for the next decade. Both writers deliver very solid stories, and Fleischer ups the ante by showing Hex having more of a conscience and having to deal with the moral ambiguities he often has to face. The highlight of the volume has to be the two part story from Weird Western Tales #29 & 30. Fleischer relates the first real hints of Jonah’s past, his time as an officer in the Confederate Army. Due to a guilty conscience over the course the war had taken, and the plight of the freed blacks, Hex decides to turn himself in to a nearby Union army encampment. What follows is a tragic tale of missed opportunities, deception, guilt, and blame, that all comes to a head when the father of one of Hex’s fellow officers decides to bring Jonah to “justice” for deserting the Confederate cause. Mind you, this is ten years after the war was over, but memories are long and Hex has to face not only the grief-induced madness of his accuser, but also his own self-doubt about what he had done. The last portion of this book contains non-Jonah Hex stories from the first ten issues of All-Star Western. I’m not sure why they are included here, and why DC didn’t just print more Hex stories past the last issue in this volume. These extra stories are Outlaw, about the son of a Texas Ranger who goes rogue and has to face his own father hunting him down for the hangman, and a few stories about Billy the Kid. These early ASW issues had pretty good Neal Adams covers, and Gil Kane and Tony DeZuniga provide the art here. As a whole, these are not all that interesting. The outlaw stories are by Bob Kanigher, who is best known for his work on Sgt Rock and other DC war comics, and the Silver Age writer on Wonder Woman. (Also for creating the weirdest villain ever, Egg Fu.) It’s nice to have these rare comics reprinted, but I would have rather seen them in a separate Showcase Presents book. I was never a fan of westerns growing up. I’d rather watch anything but a John Wayne western. I bought my first Jonah Hex comic around the time I was 11 or so, though, and quickly became a fan of the character. Although Hex has endured many changes in style, location, and universe, he’s still one of the best anti-heroes in comics. It’s a shame his recent book, also entitled All-Star Western, was unable to capture a large enough audience, but I’m sure that Jonah will be back in some form or another soon enough. In the meantime, there’s still another volume of Showcase Presents: Jonah Hex for me to read through. This book is highly recommended.