Jonah Hex #8 - DC

Who'd have thought it. The year is 2006 and Western comics are hot. It this the Bizarro world? Seriously though, between the two DC entrees into this genre, Loveless and Jonah Hex, it is clear that they are taking this step seriously. This series started out with some beautiful Luke Ross art. I know. Luke Ross is ok, but, beautiful. Seriously. He was doing the painted art style that other artists are doing now. And it was looking pretty good. Right now he's doing that for some fill in pages on JSA. I hope that's the only reason he's been off of this book for the last two issues. I hope he'll be back. Not only did his art look good, but it really fit the story well. This book is done by Dylan Teague (pgs 1-13) and Val Semeiks (pgs 14-22). Now, I like Val's work, but this Dylan Teague's stuff fits the story a lot better. Add to this, that the story is written by Jimmy Palmiotti & Justin Gray, and we've got a heck of a book. And a western. They're taking a good approach to the book. The stories are uncomplicated, in that you don't have to know a whole lot of the history to enjoy it. And they're pretty much one issue stories. And they're good stories. There really hasn't been a whole lot from any of the stories so far, other than the main character, to tie any of them together. But that's ok. You kind of think of these being simpler times, and these are simpler stories. This particular one has an old aquaintence of Jonah's seeing him in this town that he just brought the heads of 5 bounty's to. He needs Jonah's help because he has this party of "Bedroll Killers" chasing him. Of course there's a twist to the story, but, basically they come to town, Jonah shows some patience and sorts things out. He then wraps up the situation, and in the end is ready to move on to the next town. With all these space drama, and multi-part, multi-crossover, stories going on, it's nice to sit down with something like this, read it, and enjoy it. I don't think it's going to light the sales charts on fire, but it's a nice distraction from everything going on in the rest of the superhero universes.