Jonah Hex #36 - DC

This issue kind of caught me off guard. When I first started reading it, I thought of it as a history lesson . . more than a comic book. And really . . that's what the majority of the book was . . a revisiting or Jonah's life. It was written as if a writer was writing an account of Jonah . . trying to establish if he was hero or villain. But, as the author finds out . . as with the story that was presented as the back-drop for the issue . . Jonah's life was one of contradictions and irony. To really try to pin down any preconceived notions of Jonah was basically an exercise in futility. Just when it seems that you have an ideal or motivation pinned on the man . . it's almost as if he can read the mind of the viewer and purposefully tries to prove the ideas wrong. They talk about the irony of him wearing his confederate greys until he died . . did he do it because of the cross he bore being a confederate soldier . . did he do it to force people to judge him, or to see if they would . . in the end, it doesn't really matter . . . he did what he did because he's Jonah Hex and that's what he does. I really like the way the Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti have been handling this book. He's not really a villain, but then . . he's not really an anti-hero either. To me he seems more like a man just trying to live his life, pay his dues, and pocket a little change along the way. Maybe most of the legend that is Jonah Hex is just that . . legend. The last few issues or so we've been getting some different artists on this book also. This issue was done by Rafe Garres. I really like the way he used his lines and shadow. There's a fantastic panel on page 15 where Jonah is discussing the reasoning behind his apparel. He's standing in a dimly lit room with several men talking to him. He can barely see them except for their outline accentuated by the burning fire in the hearth. At his back is a window. You can't see it, but the moon must be high because it's casting a shadow of the frame onto his back. Anyways, I really enjoyed the issue. Like I said, I thought it was going to be a history lesson at first, but it was just one of those issues that really gets you thinking about things.