The next adventures of the dark gunslinger Jonah Hex are ahead of us. A delightful cover and the promise of an atmospheric journey to the Wild West. What awaits us inside?
A man in a tattered Confederate uniform walks into a saloon in a ramshackle town on the outskirts of the young United States. There is a revolver on one side and an Indian tomahawk on the other. From under the hat of the Texas cavalry, you can see a face, half of which is cruelly mutilated. All the shady visitors of the saloon rush to flee in horror, because Jonah Hex has appeared before the eyes of the readers!
Jonah Hex? Who is this?
Sincerely? I could even buy this comic for its cover. A gunslinger riding his mount in front of the Confederate flag … For a fan of Western and Wild West history, this artwork is already a reason to have Incredible Tales on your shelf. But who is the title Jonah Hex? A cruelly disfigured bounty hunter, an abandoned son raised by Indians, a soldier on the losing side of the Civil War, and a hero who is hard to call a positive one. This adventurer achieves his goals without choosing between means, and he prefers to deliver his orders, labeled “dead or alive” in the latter form.
Independent volume
Incredible Stories is the tenth volume of the Egmont series devoted to Hex. However, this does not prevent you from reading it completely independently of the previous parts, as each story contained in the collection can be considered a separate novel. If, during the plot, there is a reference to the hero’s previous adventures, special frames are devoted to flashbacks that clarify all doubts. One of the chapters of Talesalso tells about the origins of a gunslinger, which greatly helps readers who have not met this character before. Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti are responsible for the script of comic books about Hex, while the drawings for the stories presented here were created by a whole team of cartoonists with completely different styles. It is worth noting, however, that each of them fits very well with the western, slightly dark atmosphere of the adventures of a disfigured gunslinger.
A new masterpiece of the western
The six stories are somewhat reminiscent of the style that Sergio Leone introduced to cowboy culture with his bloody spaghetti westerns or Quentin Tarantino in new, postmodern versions of these plots. Jonah Hex’s writers put a whole galaxy of colorful characters on his way. Billy Dynamit, a child prematurely deprived of parents and capable of handling explosives, is terrifying; Earl the Butcher, a human-harmed artisan, forced to commit murder; or finally the Gray Ghost, a Confederate commander who did not come to terms with losing the war: these are just a few examples of the villains and heroes that Jonah Hex must defeat, capture, or even save. The aforementioned cartoonists did a great job of pouring all these stories into comic books. Some staffIncredible Tales are so beautiful that I would love to hang them framed on the wall. Perhaps I am talking about an incorrect fan of westerns in any form (after all, my pseudonym is The Polish Cowboy!), But when I try to be fully objective, I say – these illustrations are simply incredibly nice and realistic.
The wisdom of gunslingers
I must mention that not every story in the collection is an empty shooting without much communication. Noteworthy Each bullet tells a story , a philosophical overtones enticing to think the reader can stop for a while. It is a story of a confusing plot, just like the others, full of shots, duels and fights. The difference is that almost every shot of a revolver is accompanied by a short interruption about how each bullet has a specific purpose, a fate written for it, which determines whether it will stick in someone’s body, hit a wall, or change history. Wise, original and poignant, and such elements added to comic books by many readers like the most.
It’s hard to suppress the delight
I haven’t read such a good comic for a long time. Even if I want to criticize Implausible Tales , I just don’t get it. Beautiful drawings perfectly harmonize with the captivating story, which draws from the western canon, adding new plot solutions. The dark adventures of a gunslinger in the cruel Wild West are by far the best I have read from DC Comics and one of the best Egmont publishing decisions I have had the opportunity to meet recently.
