This Week in Comics #2: Jonah Hex 26

There is something that keeps me coming back to Jonah Hex, besides the fact that I get it in my mailbox monthly. This is something of a surprise to me, given the fact that I've never been one for Westerns and I have always been more attracted to heroes than anti-heroes. When I picked up the first issue more than two years now, I figured I would read the book for a little bit, get bored, and then drop it as some of the other members of the on-line community have done. If I had to put my finger on what I like about the title, I suppose I would have to trace my interest to the fact that nearly each issue has been self-contained, the stories move briskly (and sometimes satisfyingly), and the book is a break from the usual superhero fare that the big two usually bring out. I suppose there is also something attractive about the title character, Jonah Hex, the horribly scarred bounty hunter who operates on a moral code which is motivated by money as much as it is by ethics.

However, I would say that my surprise that I'm still reading Jonah Hex two years after its relaunch is that I'm surprised that I am still reading a book, which I don't think is always very good. Ever since, say, issue #9, the consistency of the title has been hit and miss. Now, some of the issues are very, very good. Take for instance, issue #24, this year's Halloween issue; that issue seamlessly combines the series's standard Western action with the supernatural without it seemingly like an overt gesture to the holiday. However, while some issues have been good, others have been merely OK, and others still (far too many) have been quite dreadful. Many of those bland and putrid stories have relied on a simple formula, which like many, I have found entirely too repetitive. The basic structure of that formula: Jonah Hex saves a rapped woman. There are variations, often minor, such as the woman is German or Mormon, but this isn't really enough to redeem the fact that it gets old and insulting over time. While I do not object to the portrayal of rape, and it certainly seems like a crime that fits the title's savage Western setting, the usage of rape in the title seems overused and frankly it sometimes appears as if writers Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti ran out of ideas around issue #10. In the meantime, sure, they have come up with the occasional new idea, but when in doubt, have Hex save a raped woman and hopefully the rapist is also a man who Hex has a bounty on.

Unfortunately, this week's issue of Jonah Hex falls into the later category in that it is both bad and relies on rape to advance the plot. I suppose Gray and Palmiotti thought they were being clever by playing with the formula. Here instead of rescuing the raped women (neither German nor Mormon), Hex falls victim to them. Hot on the trail of a bunch of horse thieves, Hex stumbles upon a farm house in the middle of nowhere. There he is befriended by Holly, a (seemingly) lone woman who gets him drunk. After passing out from drinking too much liquor, Hex awakes in a barn filled with other men. Holly and her partner Hannah, victimized by men in the past, now have a collection of men in their barn, who they have mutilated by chopping of their lower appendages. Left in tact in the barn while Holly discusses with Hannah what to do with him, Hex is freed by the men (the very horse thieves he's been chasing) who chew through the ropes. Hex then enacts his revenge by capturing the two women and letting the men chew them to death. But Hex is no sentimentalist. The story does not end with the women's murder; the story ends with Hex scooping up the mutilated men, putting them on horses, and ridding into town to collect his bounty.

Certainly, part of the appeal of the Jonah Hex resides in his inhuman lack of sympathy and his almost incalculable desire to collect on his bounties, but this issue goes too far and becomes lurid, nearly pornographic in its appreciation of violence. While I'm certain there are others who could point to other disturbing, and gratuitous examples from other issues, this episode does seem to be the worst of them. This is a new low for the series, and I'm almost dreading the next month's issue which will arrive in the mail whether I want it or not. Will it be good like October's Halloween issue, or will it hit the gutter lows of issue #26? The advance copy promises that it will be about a cop killer of the Old West. Hopefully, that will at least take out the rape element.

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