Jonah Hex and the Shadow of Death #1
"Chapter 1: A Strange Wind Blows"
Writer/Artist: Michael Walsh
Colorist: Toni-Marie Griffin
Publisher: DC Comics
This bitter man he is
Throughout his life the same, he’s battled constantly
This fight he cannot win
A tired man they see no longer cares
The old man then prepares to die regretfully
— Metallica, The Unforgiven
Robbery Interruptus
The Old West. A group of men laying in wait, ready to rob an incoming stagecoach. Instead, they are greeted by a lone man, horribly scarred, approaching on horseback. The man opens fire, takes out all of the bandits save one. A young man who was here for his first job. The boy, startled, opens fire.
Jonah Hex is dead.
The pain of dying. The feeling of blood in his lungs. With a start and a gasp of pain, the scarred man awakens in his bed.
Jonah Hex lives again.
Shades of Yesterday
Jonah Hex and the Shadow of Death #1 starts things off with a bang, then slows down and takes a step back. This is not the Hex that we're used to. He's older—much older. He's died countless times, and returned from each one. He's haunted by visions of dead beings, many of them individuals that he himself sent to the grave.
He wants it all to end, but it's just not possible.
Right off the bat, I can't help but compare this to the classic Clint Eastwood movie Unforgiven. It features an older Hex, tired of the life he led and the violence it wrought. He has moved into a small house just outside of a town called Ashecott. He has an arrangement with the sheriff that allows him to live near the town without causing any trouble. The main time he comes into town is for more booze. Something needs to dull the pain, after all.
We follow Hex into town on one such excursion, where he finds himself on the receiving end of some hero worship in the form of a young boy. Hex brushes the boy off, but a massive brute of a man isn't interested in leaving the old gunfighter alone. Hex may not want any trouble, but this man certainly does.
This visit into town gives us a good idea of where Jonah Hex's head is at. He brushes off the enthusiastic stableboy, lets the brute get in a free hit on him without trying to retaliate, and brushes off the young girl who thinks her daddy has been possessed by something dark and inhuman. Hex is weary and stubborn, wanting more than anything to be alone. But the little girl gnaws at the back of his mind. Even if her daddy isn't possessed by some sort of creature, he's still an abuser. And Jonah Hex can't stand for that.
Back at his house, Hex digs up the floorboards to find his pistols and uniform. It's very John Wick, the way he retrieves his past from a box in the basement. Unlike Mr. Wick, though, Hex does not plan to use his guns—in fact, he destroys them instead. He pledges that he will bring forth no more violence, shed no more blood. As our unseen narrator tells us, though, even if Jonah Hex thinks that he is done with violence, violence is not yet done with him. Before it's all over, blood will be spilled.
That's the truth at the heart of this tale: this is a story of a man who was at his very best when he was shedding blood, and questioning if he's able to stop the cycle of violence—but there's a twist. Instead of just being a grounded tale that plays it straight, here we have elements of the supernatural at play—and it makes the experience a very different one.
The Man With No Name
Michael Walsh handles writing and art duties for this issue, ensuring that the story has a single creative vision. The artwork has a sketchy look to it, with facial features in particular being a bit more exaggerated in nature. Everything has a dirty, grimy kind of look to it—just like you'd expect for an Old West town with dirt roads and only a handful of buildings. Hex's whole body is covered in scars, not just the iconic face that you expect—although that face is even more horrible to look at than you'd expect. Many Jonah Hex tales make his face more of an affectation rather than a horrible-to-look-at scar, so the heavier emphasis on how horrible he looks here helps sell the many disgusted or horrified reactions he gets when someone looks upon his face.
The supernatural elements are at play both in the artwork, as images of clearly dead figures begin appearing multiple times and in various panels. The glimpses of the spider-like creature haunting the girl from town, and the horrible image of her stepfather's skin lying there like a snake would shed its skin, show us what bizarre and unnatural beings have come to Ashecott and challenge Hex. The story plays them almost as jump scares in a horror movie, even though the only one they successfully startle is Hex himself. After the initial scene of the would-be robbery that leads to Hex's death and resurrection, the plot slows way down. This slower, but still not slow, pace allows us time to get to know other individuals in town and how they will come to affect Hex. Without the time to get to know the girl and the stableboy, Hex's internal struggle wouldn't come across half as effectively.
Toni-Marie Griffin's colors add so much to the look and feel here. The flatter palette used adds to the lived-in, dirty look and feel, while the use of brighter shades of color punctuates certain moments in the story. The initial scenes with the stagecoach robbers are lit with an almost eerie green glow, with purple shades of shadow and the red of blood being the other bits that break the house artist's style. The heavy use of browns and shadows gives the town and its people the kind of character you expect from an old Western, and the specters of the dead that follow Hex around are shaded in ways that ensure they appear unnatural or "wrong" and stand out from their surroundings.
Creeping Death
Jonah Hex and the Shadow of Death #1 is an atmospheric take on everyone's favorite scarred gunslinger that mixes elements of the supernatural with its tale of a deathless man who wants to stop killing, even if it's the only thing he's good at. It effectively paints a portrait of a tired old man who wants nothing more than to live out his days in peace. The story's slow pace helps to build an atmosphere of dread, while the art and colors work together to make this issue stand out as a unique offering. Jonah Hex may be deathless, but as the supernatural forces at work in the town of Ashecott show, things could always be worse.