All-Star Western #10 (DC Comics, 1972) by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga
Plot Summary
The western comic had all but ridden into the sunset, until the arrival of Jonah Hex gave the genre a new face. It was a scarred, horribly disfigured face, but a much needed one regardless. A tale written by John Albano and drawn by Tony Dezuniga immediately presented the bounty hunter as a cold blooded killer.
Garbed in a worn Confederate Army uniform, Hex was said to be somewhat modified after the literary gunslinger of the movie “Shane” and Clint Eastwood’s “The Man With no Name” in Western movies. His disfigured facial features were a visual representation of Cain and Abel, with a good side and a bad side. The townspeople of Paradise Falls feared that if they got on Hex’s bad side, they wouldn’t live long enough to see his better side. Yet they weren’t afraid of hiring him to rid the town of Big Jim and his raiders, who terrorized townsfolk by grabbing their land to sell to railroad owners.
One by one, Hex gunned down his prey, collecting $100 per head, before eliminating big Jim himself. He then surprised the town’s chief businessman by donating some of his bounty to pay off the property tax owned by a local widow and her son, whom he had encountered earlier.
Unfortunately, the business owners had an even uglier side than Hex, and refused to sell the “savage” a property on the outskirts of town. Meanwhile, the widow he had just aided threatened to kill him for being a bad influence on her son, who wanted to side with Hex. The bounty hunter dissuaded the boy from following him, then rode off to the next destination…alone.
An instant hit with the fans, Jonah Hex quickly overshadowed the other stars of “All Star Western.” The series was renamed “Weird Western Tales” two issues later, with the gunslinger riding front and center as the main attraction.
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