Working With Vertigo: All-Star Western #26 Review

Editor’s Note: None a’ this is real. It is a twisted spoiler.

I have always had a soft spot for westerns, which is why I’ve always read Jimmy Palmiotti’s and Justin Gray’s Jonah Hex stories. Back in the pre New 52 days, Jonah Hex was a solid, straight-ahead western in the Sergio Leone vein, with real scumbag villains out on the frontier and plenty of gunfire to keep things interesting. There were no supervillains, monsters or alien invaders, and dammit, I liked it that way.

Because I always thought that the worst thing that ever happened to the character was when, back in the 80s, they took away Hex’s Colt, replaced it with a laser pistol, and had him fight space aliens or some Goddamned thing. As a guy who likes westerns, it was an abominable idea on its face, like dropping The Man With No Name onto the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise. It might sound like a good idea, but it’s all fun and games until poor Mr. Sulu is left confusedly looking back and forth from his fencing foil to the giant hole in his chest.

So I should be going apeshit nuts over the recent direction of All-Star Western, which has dropped Hex into the modern DC Universe. And I should be going particularly apeshit over All-Star Western #26, which gives us Jonah Hex, relentless bounty hunter and former Confederate soldier, interacting with Swamp Thing, alien plant life, The House of Mystery and a superhero just to round out the trifecta (Quadrifecta? I don’t know a lot about horse racing. I’m not allowed back at the racetrack since I asked the nice lady at the betting window for a quart of fresh glue).

I should be going apeshit. But Goddamn if this issue isn’t one hell of a lot of fun.