A comprehensive review of the 1987 Spectre v2 ongoing series

Our first article about the Spectre v2 ongoing series began with us telling you about the origin of the series and the Spectre's scaled-down powers, but quickly got side-tracked as we began outlining all the great artists who had collaborated on the series. In this second part we're striving to give you an overall summary of this 1987 ongoing series...

[I'm trying my best here to review this series as objectively as possible. It's been a while since I've read 1992's The Spectre v3 (aka: John Ostrander's Spectre) or any 1940s Golden Age stories from his More Fun Comics days. For all intents and purposes, I'm more or less going into this with a 'clean slate'. -J]

The Spectre v2 ongoing series ran for 31 issues and a single 1988 annual (all written by Doug Moench). This series was only offered via Direct Edition — it wasn't sold on newsstands — meaning you either had to have a home subscription or purchase it from your local comic book shop. Being a Direct Edition made it possible for Spectre v2 to bypass the Comics Code Authority (CCA) seal and contain content geared towards a 'mature audience'. This was very much in-step with what was happening with Swamp Thing v2 at the time, Despite being a 'no label' book, DC editorial opted not use profane words, show graphic sex or violence and only be as strong as 1988 prime time television.

This ongoing series also sported the NEW FORMAT seal on the cover — this meant that there were 24 pages of story instead of 22, all of the ads were at the back of the book, the paper stock was better than newsprint (but not as good as Baxter), and new 'computer coloring' was being used. Swamp Thing v2 would also move into this format with issue #60 and Doom Patrol v2 with issue #19.*

Under the editorial direction of Bob Greenberger, Moench initially sets up the Spectre v2 as a supernatural mystery comic; James Corrigan is no longer a cop, he's a private investigator with an office above Madame Xanadu's Greenwich Village parlor. The stories are mainly narrated from Corrigan's point of view and tend to involve a supernatural case/mystery that he's trying to crack (often involving a murder). The Spectre is a discarnate spirit which comes and goes as he pleases, but is usually working towards the same objective as Corrigan. The first three issues establish the tone of this series, and by issue #4 the series really starts to hit it's stride. Reader reaction to a new Spectre ongoing series consisted of a lot of hesitation — readers pointed out that the reason a Spectre series hadn't worked very well in the past is because the character was too powerful (on the verge of being God-like) and thus difficult for the reader to form a relation to. Moench effectively fixed this by scaling down the Spectre's powers and giving him a weakness.

Spectre v2 #3

I honestly don't think that Doug Moench is given enough credit as a writer of supernatural fiction. Moench is best known for co-creating Marvel's Moon Knight, his run on Marvel's Master of Kung-Fu with Paul Gulacy and, most notably, his 1983 to 1986 stint as a writer for Batman and Detective Comics. Most fans don't realize that Moench's 1970s writing resumé includes a huge catalog of work for Warren Publication's Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella horror magazines, as well as a variety of Marvel's black-and-white Curtis Magazine titles (i.e., Dracula Lives!, Haunt of Horror, Vampire Tales, Monsters Unleashed, Tales of the Zombie).

If I didn't know any better, it would seem like Moench's first major goals with this series were to try to conclude a few open-ended story lines. In a two-part story illustrated by Gene Colan and Steve Mitchell, Moench explains what happened to Jim Corrigan post-Crisis up until the beginning of Spectre v2. Moench masterfully sidesteps around the continuity nightmare that is Crisis on Infinite Earths by explaining it as a natural phenomena ["red rains"] that happened to be occurring during the course of the story:

Spectre v2 #5 - Ernie Colon and Steve Mitchell art

Issues #7 and 8 of the Spectre v2 reintroduces Golden Age mystical super-villain Wotan (last seen in 1981's All-Star Squadron) to a current audience in what may be the creepiest Zatanna story I've ever read. Moench keeps a tight continuity in these issues, as the remaining Demon Three members (Abnegazar and Ghast) are still looking for their missing brother and references to Justice League of America #256 - 257 are mentioned. (At this point, Zatanna was predominantly a Justice Leaguer, having last appeared during 1986's Justice League Detroit run.) Moench also resolves the lingering question of what happened to Zatara following the events of Swamp Thing v2 #50:

Spectre v2 #5 - illustrated by Cam Kennedy

Spectre v2 #9 is the first issue that Gray Morrow starts his six issue run (as penciller AND inker) on the series. Issue #9 incited a lot of controversy in the comic book fandom community at the time, not because the Spectre (a spirit) and Madame Xanadu (a human) 'consummate' their relationship [that idea has already 'been done', as seen in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing v2 #34], but because of all the nudity in the issue. (Fun Fact: Madame Xanadu sleeps totally in the nude while wearing ALL of her jewelry. Flaunt it if you've got it, is the message here.) Comic book stores owners were taken by surprise because there was no mention of adult content on the cover of the issue, and they had no forewarning of the nudity within the issue. One rumor is that DC editorial thought the dark green overlays printed over the image would conceal enough to not be an issue — but as evidenced by the finished product, this was not the case whatsoever.

Truth be told, the Morrow-illustrated issues were my favorite issues of the Spectre v2 to read. Morrow's art brings a sense of realism and fits the mood of the series — his Spectre is a very human-looking Spectre (which, y'know, adds to the creepiness factor). It feels a bit like a throw-back to the Golden Age version of the character when the writers were still trying to flesh out his powers.

Spectre v2 #12 - illustrated by Gray Morrow

As mentioned, Morrow's last issue was Spectre v2 #15, which is also the last issue Robert Greenberger is credited as editor. Starting from #16 (and until the last issue of the series) Andy Hefner would now be manning the editorial reins. Issue #15 concluded with the promise of 'A New Beginning' and issue #16 quickly wraps up the lingering Cult of the Blood Red Moon storyline (that's been running since issue #1) with Chris Wozniak and Mark Farmer on art. Corrigan also comes clean to his police department contact about who he really is (this is a bit of a change, since a previously recurring plot device was Corrigan going to great pains to conceal his association with the Spectre).

Issue #18 brings a BIG CHANGE to the character, as Jim Corrigan and the Spectre are no longer two separate entities, but one and the same person who switch back & forth (think: Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde). I'm not 100% sure, but I think the Spectre's powers get augmented, too.

Spectre v2 #19 - Corrigan changing to the Spectre. Mark Badger art.

By issue #20, we're seeing a completely NEW direction in this series: Jim Corrigan decides to run a paranormal detective agency and begins hiring eccentric employees to fill the roster. For a few issues, Spectre v2 goes back to the whole 'detective agency/mystery' aspect, but ultimately gets derailed by a 6 issue story arc that, in my humble opinion, killed interest in this series.

Written by Moench and pencilled by Tom Artis (along with various inkers), the Ghost in the Machine story arc (Spectre v2 #24 - #29) involved the Spectre battling a new meta-human with the power to control... (wait for it)... computers! This was honestly one of those 'what were they thinking' moments that had me scratching my head. Considering issue #23 was an Invasion! tie-in and guest-starred Deadman, Dr Fate, Phantom Stranger and the Demon, it would seem like great things were in store for Spectre v2. Ghost in the Machine featured NO guest stars, didn't really add any new plot development, featured a throw-away villain and took half a year to tell. Depending on who was inking his pencils, I found Artis' art a little too exaggerated/comical for the story... which really gave the whole thing a light-hearted feel. The only noteworthy item about this story arc is that it's the first appearance of Jason Praxis — a character who would later become a member of Booster Gold's Conglomerate in the issues of Justice League Quarterly (circa early 90s). But really, that's not enough of a reason to track these issues down.

The final two issues of the series, #30 and #31, feature a two-part story that kind of just... ends the series. It was actually a very well-written story involving Corrigan's paranormal detective agency and a haunted house/demon possession. The art (Fred Butler and Gonzalo Mayo) was back to being shadowy and sinister, and the story itself was very suspenseful. Moench seems to have put a lot of heart into this 2-parter: a recently introduced character is given the spotlight in these issues and subsequently killed off. Part of me wonders if Moench was blindsided by the cancellation of this series, and was trying to give a new character he created a respectful send off.

The Spectre is (quite possibly) one of my favorite Golden Age comic book characters. Aesthetically speaking, he's easily recognizable in his green-and-white colors and possesses a disquieting demeanor that is just begging to have ghastly stories written about him. Doug Moench, under the guidance of Greenberger (I'm starting to assume), really wrote this character correctly by keeping him closely tied to the other mystical characters of the DCU — essentially continuing what Moore's Swamp Thing v2 had started. Appearances by Phantom Stranger, Madame Xanadu, Zatanna, Zatara, Deadman, Dr. Fate, The Enchantress, and Baron Winters really anchored this book as part of a separate universe within the DCU (which would somewhat end up being the foundation that is Vertigo). Everything from issue #1 to issue #16 was engaging and entertaining to read, and had me guessing which DC mystical character might appear next.

panels from The Spectre v2 #11 (1988). Gray Morrow art.

Keeping all this in mind, Spectre v2 felt like two different series' joined together (with the second series starting at issue #17). I'm assuming it was a change due to Helfer's editorial direction, but Spectre v2 #17 and beyond felt like the emphasis was mainly placed on Corrigan and his budding detective agency while the Spectre's involvement with the rest of the mystical DCU took a back seat. (The exception to this, of course, would be the Invasion! tie-in issue which had an ensemble cast of DC mystical characters.) In the letter column of issue #18, Greenberger directly states to a reader:  "Doug, Chris and Andy are moving the Spectre out of the mystical realm for a while, allowing the character to investigate the new changes that have wrought these last few issues".

To see a series change so drastically while written by the same writer always leaves me a little conflicted. I really enjoyed the first half, and the second half not so much. Moench did a great job of keeping the Spectre away from the rest of the mainstream DCU. Even with the mandatory Millennium and Invasion! cross-overs, he still manages to keep the presence of *other* DCU characters at a minimum (the exception being Batman, but it was for a crossover with Detective Comics #582). Moench inserts a lot of philosophical discussion into the story (this was something readers noticed he did with Master of Kung-Fu as well): Corrigan is often discussing moral issues with the Spectre regarding who deserves to be punished and how badly they should be punished. Is anyone really 'evil'? Or just a victim of circumstance? It's worth noting that nowhere in this series is 'The Voice' (the one that Spectre answers to) ever identified as 'God'. Most stories in this series take up two to three issues and there aren't many stand-alone issues.


Why was Spectre v2 cancelled after issue #31? I have no hard evidence or sales numbers, but I'm going to boldly guess that an editorial change, a new 'direction' halfway through the series, inconsistent art teams (Bart Sears was rumored to be next in line to illustrate the series, drew one issue and then left for something else), and shipping delays (the Invasion! tie-in issue was released 2 months after the event had ended) killed interest in this book.

While I just made this series sound like a dud, let's not forget that Spectre v2 had an incredibly strong opening with a terrific creative team (Moench/Colan/Mitchell/Greenberger) and some beautiful covers illustrated by A-level talent. Additionally, the Spectre is such an interesting character, Who doesn't like the Spectre? The book practically sells itself. At it's peak, this series inspired enough renewed interest in the Spectre to justify DC publishing the 1988 Wrath of the Spectre limited series (reprinting the Michael Fleisher/Jim Aparo Adventure Comics stories and a few brand-new stories originally written in 1974).


How does Spectre v2 hold up today? Well, there's a few moments in this series that, as you read them, really make you think "yep, this was definitely written for an 80s crowd in mind". A few notable examples include:

-a veiled rant about Ronald Reagan (exhibit 'F'):

Spectre v2 #12

-an issue all about crooked cops trafficking cocaine:

-the entire 6 issue Ghost in the Machine story arc is about a meta-human who is attacking humanity via arcades, computers and electronics. Remember when local arcades were still a "thing"? The meta-human's plot involved enslaving all 983, 523 computer users all across the country. Wow... that takes me back, Another cover has the Spectre being attacked by CDs. Remember when Compact Discs were the newfangled thing and your friends would show off their new CD-player and CD collection like it was the most glorious piece of hi-tech equipment to ever exist? Yeah, those were the eighties.

As of this writing, I do not believe that ANY of the Spectre v2 has been reprinted in a collected format by DC comics. Which is a shame — since those first sixteen are definitely worth reading. If nothing else, pick up those Gray Morrow issues (#9 to 15) which can probably still be found for under $4 a piece. Issue #11, which is a Suicide Squad tie-in, is especially worth the effort of seeking.


As we conclude this comprehensive review, I'd like to leave you with what the Spectre looks like under his cowl (courtesy of Gray Morrow):

Spectre v2 #15

-Justin


*Big thanks to Rob Perry for filling in the gaps about the NEW FORMAT edition, rumors about artists meant to draw the book and the shipping delays during the last half of the series.

DC in the 80s interviewed by Ed Catto for Mike Gold's ComicMix

We are elated to announce that ComicMix - a comic book & pop culture website overseen by Mike Gold (yes, THAT Mike Gold) - has taken interest in our humble little 80s-centric webzine and decided to interview myself and executive editor Mark Belkin regarding the origins of this site and our favorite material from DC comics (circa 1980s).

ComicMix is kind of a BIG DEAL to us since it's regular roster of columnists include notable 80s greats such as John Ostrander, Dennis O'Neil, Mindy Newell and Mike Gold himself. Robert Greenberger has also been known to pitch in a review article or three.

Ed Catto, who is also the co-founder of the Bonfire Agency, conducted the interview. Not only is Ed a marketing strategist, he's no slouch when it comes to illustrating, either. Ed graciously allowed us to share two of his recent pieces:

  

Our interview is up at: http://www.comicmix.com/2016/10/17/ed-catto-talking-about-and-with-dc-in-the-80s/



Here's a few other Ed Catto articles/interviews (written for ComicMix) that you may enjoy:

• Ed Catto: That Other British Invasion
• Ed Catto: World’s Finest Anticipation... and Trepidation
• Ed Catto: Paul Kupperberg Looks Up Into the Sky!
• Ed Catto: Paul Gulacy – More than just the Master of Kung Fu
• Ed Catto: Murphy Anderson – A Legend and a Gentleman

A Decade in the Life of Jonah Hex (1985 - 1986)

With a comics career spanning nearly 45 years, multiple cartoon appearances, a feature film, plus a guest-shot on the CW's television show Legends of Tomorrow (April 14th, see local listings), Jonah Hex is the highest-profile character in DC's Western stable. Created by writer John Albano & artist Tony DeZuniga (both of whom wanted to bring the aesthetic of "spaghetti Western" movies to comics), Jonah debuted in 1972's All-Star Western #10 (which was re-titled Weird Western Tales by issue #12) and quickly became a fan favorite. Albano parted ways with his creation after penning only ten issues, leaving him in the very capable hands of Michael Fleisher, who would accompany the scar-faced bounty hunter over to his first self-titled series, Jonah Hex, three years later.

Between 1977 and 1987, Fleisher fleshed out virtually every aspect of the character's life, giving readers details about Jonah's childhood and his wartime experiences, having him settle down and start a family, even revealing his final fate at the dawn of the 20th Century, as well as the possible nightmare to come in the mid-21st Century. In this series of articles, we're going to present you with a "highlight reel" of this ten-year period under Fleisher's tenure, showing you how Jonah Hex went from being a mere four-color cowboy to a legend that would survive the deterioration of the genre that birthed him.

As befits a series built around time travel, we’re going to start off this installment by skipping ahead one month into the future so we can look at the letter column for the second issue of HEX, wherein Michael Fleisher tells us how he got the inspiration to move Jonah into a new environment. Unlike the tale related by Bob Greenberger -- who thinks Andy Helfer may have been the influence behind dropping Hex into a Mad Max-style setting -- Fleisher credits someone else with providing the initial inspiration. Designer Ed Hannigan came into the DC offices one day with a HEX logo hand-painted in violet and hot pink. While he was responsible for creating many great designs for DC over the years, Fleisher wrote that Hannigan "had not been asked to design any such logo and had no expectation whatever of being paid for it. It was electrifying, certainly, but it was totally unsuitable for the then-running Western series Jonah Hex. 'Ed, it's gorgeous,' I said, 'but what the hell is it for?' 'I don't really know,' shrugged Ed. 'But I really like the name 'Hex' and I thought you might be able to use it for something.'" According to Fleisher, he had been dabbling with an idea for "a bleak, war-torn world" before Hannigan walked in what that logo (meaning Helfer’s influence could still be in there somewhere), but it wasn't until seeing that graffiti-style rendering of HEX that all the pieces came together in his head. Hannigan also provided some additional character designs for the new series, which Mark Texeira used as a starting-point for his own work once he was hired on as artist.

We can only estimate that this incident with the logo happened around the same time the axe came down for the Jonah Hex title, and therefore made it easier for all concerned to see this as a viable way to keep the character alive in the DCU, albeit in a future whose exact date had yet to be determined. In fact, a memo written by Greenberger dated May 30, 1985 (which you can find a copy of in 2008’s The DC Vault from Running Press) shows the company was still trying to nail down exactly when this new series was supposed to take place in the post-Crisis timeline just a few months before HEX #1 hit the stands -- many believed it should be set at least 500 years into the future, while Fleisher wanted it a mere 80-100 years ahead. As Greenberger himself said when I asked him about it in 2012, "The editorial edict that we have one [consistent] timeline...was paid more lip service than actual adherence," meaning that Fleisher's eventual decision to have HEX take place in the year 2050 won out over everyone else's concerns.

Another thing Fleisher mentioned in the letter column was that, unlike Jonah’s previous titles, HEX would be a non-Code book, which had heavy implications: back in the 1980s, only titles that bore the Comics Code Authority’s seal of approval could be carried on newsstands, so not submitting a title to them implied that it was for "mature readers only". In reality, DC simply decided to make HEX a direct market-only book and not offer it to newsstands in the first place. As Greenberger put it, "The company didn’t want to pay for a seal that was unnecessary." In hindsight, the decision to keep Jonah’s new title off the newsstands -- where his numbers remained consistently good -- was probably not a smart move. But the biggest irony of HEX not having the seal is that, compared to other non-Code titles published by DC around the same time, Fleisher never took full advantage of the freedom that gave him. It’s not like anyone was holding him back, either: Mark Texeira was quoted on the subject in Back Issue #14 (February 2006), saying DC "sort of left us to our own mini-universe. As long as deadlines were met, they left us alone." Despite this hands-off approach, HEX was indeed part of DCU continuity, even after it had ceased to be, but we shouldn’t discuss the end before we look at the beginning...

The first two pages of HEX #1 (September 1985) ease both Jonah and the reader into this new world. The bounty hunter wakes up in an ordinary-looking saloon, wondering where Emmylou and Brett have gone. Before he has a chance to get over his confusion, El Papagayo barges in and begins shooting -- Jonah dives for cover, shoots the bandito in the gut, and is shocked to see wires and metal spill out of his innards. Jonah also realizes his gun -- which only contained one shot -- is just a lightweight piece of junk. Tossing it aside, he runs out of the saloon and into what he immediately categorizes as "a nightmare":

Stunned into submission, Jonah is dragged off to meet Reinhold Borsten, the man who brought him to this strange place. As to why he did so, Borsten declines to say right off, instead telling his "guest" that he has "long been a devotee of the fighting man and a dedicated student of the art of war." Borsten then shows Jonah various images of battles throughout time, up to and including footage of nuclear holocausts -- the latter proves too much for Hex’s 19th-Century mind, and he goes catatonic. When Jonah recovers, he’s been locked inside a glass tube, which is slowly filling with a paralyzing gas -- he busts out to find he’s in a room filled with similar tubes, all containing soldiers from various eras, along with cases of weaponry. After grabbing some guns (good ones this time, not single-shot phonies like before), Jonah makes a break for it with the guards hot on his tail, and even though he silently admits that all this craziness has him "shakin' in muh boots", he eventually manages to sneak out of the compound. Not that being outside is much better: the surrounding area is nothing but a wasteland, and Jonah has no choice but to trudge across it on foot. Borsten had told Jonah that he was now in Seattle, but Jonah knows that "Seattle’s a far damn cry from the town of Red Dog, whar thet saloon wuz!" While his mind is still trying to puzzle it all out, he comes across a gal in the middle of the desert being assaulted by three thugs. Seeing as how this is a situation he can actually relate to, he throws himself into the fray and rescues the girl. Afterward, she leads him to where she left her motorcycle, and the two of them speed across the wasteland, with the girl, Stiletta, directing him to where her gang is camped out. The Road Reapers are very much cast from the same mold as the denizens of the Mad Max films, and I can only imagine what Hex must be thinking the first time he lays eyes on the giant grasshopper they’re barbecuing:

Stiletta introduces Hex to Falcon, the leader of the Reapers, who apparently thinks of Stiletta as part of his harem -- she defiantly plants a kiss right on Hex’s lips as a thank-you for saving her life, which leaves Falcon fuming and Hex looking confused. All the talk going on about raiding a nearby community for water baffles him as well, but he throws in with them anyhow, even though, in his words, "It don’t smell right." Sure enough, as soon as the raid goes south and the gang scatters to the four winds, Hex hears Falcon spouting off about how he’s going to "ride back here and turn this community into a graveyard!" Now knowing for sure that the Road Reapers are the bad guys (but holding on to the notion that Stiletta isn’t like the rest of them...that must’ve been some kiss), Jonah turns on Falcon, leading to some good ol'-fashioned fisticuffs in the desert. Around the same time, the sky opens up and it begins to rain, but this isn’t a good thing: Stiletta had warned Hex earlier about the "acid storms" that pour down on the wasteland, and he immediately feels it eating through his fine Confederate-gray coat. Luckily, Stiletta also told him about the protective "zone suits" the Road Reapers wear, so after knocking out Falcon, he ditches his own clothes, strips the suit off of Falcon, and leaves the skunk to dissolve as Jonah roars off on his cycle.

In twenty-five pages, we’ve watched Jonah’s past life get torn from him in bits and pieces -- his environment, his weapons, even his uniform -- until all that remains is the man himself, clad in strange clothes and riding a tricked-out chopper. In HEX #2, he runs across three American soldiers that were plucked outta 1968 Vietnam, but were accidentally beamed out to the wasteland instead of Borsten's complex. The captain of the group, a black man named Stanley Harris, takes an immediate dislike to Hex. "I don’t make a practice of shakin' hands with you Southern boys!" he snaps the moment he hears the gunfighter’s drawl. The other two soldiers, Berkowitz and Winslow, try to smooth things over, but they don’t have much time to chit-chat before Borsten's men show up. They manage to wipe out their would-be captors, then commandeer one of the vehicles and head out. As they travel, the soldiers do their best to convince Jonah of what they figured out easily, namely that they’ve all been transported to the future. Hex, of course, ain’t buyin’ it, even after being shown the book Berkowitz coincidentally had on him, which contained an eyewitness account of Jonah disappearing from the Red Dog Saloon in 1875. Despite his disbelief, Hex does offer up information about Borsten’s complex and what he saw there, and the soldiers figure it must hold the key to them all getting back to their proper timeframes. They’re gonna need more firepower before they attempt to break in, however, and Winslow directs them to the remains of a military research base -- seems he grew up in Seattle, and his father worked at that base in the time he came from -- but while the base’s personnel are long-gone, the robotic defenses they left behind nearly wipe Hex and his new pals out. Luckily, Stiletta shows up at the last second to save Jonah's bacon...a rather convenient turn of events that none of them never bother to question.

That night, after they fix up one of the flying machines found at the base, Stiletta leads them to the Needle (the name for Borsten’s complex) and helps them break in. As they make their way down a corridor, a laser grid suddenly fires up, killing Berkowitz and Winslow instantly. Harris immediately accuses Stiletta of betraying them, then shoots her as Hex looks on in shock. “Yuh kill-crazy lunatic!” Jonah hollers, slugging him, but Harris quickly shows the gunfighter the truth: “Stiletta” was actually a robot, sent by Borsten to lure Hex back to the Needle. Harris had seen a flicker of light in her eyes, betraying her machine nature, but Jonah can’t comprehend this any better than the rest of the madness he’s seen. When Borsten’s guards show up, though, he can comprehend that just fine, so he and Harris blast away at them while the pair try to escape. Unfortunately, they get separated, and Jonah ends up escaping the Needle alone.

HEX #3 reveals the reason why Jonah and all those other soldiers got pulled out of their proper times: Borsten is in the reenactment business, using real people from history to fight battles for his wealthy clients to bet on. Jonah Hex was supposed to be his newest attraction, and Borsten had advertised this in advance, which is why he's so eager to get the gunfighter back. In HEX #4, we change up artists a bit: Ron Wagner penciled this tale, while inker Carlos Garzon (who also worked with Texeira on the previous issue) provides some continuity to the art style. A lot of backstory gets filled in this time around, starting not long after Jonah -- who’s just about to drink from a small spring he’s found in the desert -- meets Stiletta once again. He immediately pulls a gun on her, gasping, “You--you ain’t human! Yo’re some kinda machine!” Stiletta has no clue what he’s talking about, but reasons that he must’ve seen a robot that looked like her.

"Honestly, Hex, I can’t imagine how you got to be so ignorant about some things," she says, then begins to show him how to purify the water with a chemical wafer called a Soames -- after the bombs dropped five years earlier, all open sources of water became heavily irradiated, and if he’d swallowed so much as a mouthful without treating it first, it would’ve killed him -- they’re so indispensable that they’ve become the de facto currency in 2050. Her willingness to tell him such things must’ve convinced Jonah that she truly wasn’t going to hurt him, because in-between panels, he ‘fesses up to her about where he’s really from. Stiletta’s surprised, but not shocked, and later on, we find out why: Reinhold Borsten is her father (okay, this kinda explains the robot...). Seems in the year 2042, Borsten was a liaison for NSA assigned to a time-travel project, wherein he stumbled across what was to happen in only three years’ time:

Stealing designs for both the time machine and several other technologies, Borsten figured he’d bypass the nuclear holocaust and set himself up as king of the wasteland (the reenactments are just a hobby, I guess). He didn’t count on a criminal organization known as the Conglomerate gaining a foothold before him, thanks to them controlling the world’s supply of Soames, but he’s working on a way to bring them down using his time-travel tech. Not long after that info-dump, a flying machine tears outta the sky lookin’ to cut down Hex and Stiletta. In the previous issue, Jonah had killed a guy who was peddling mind-altering drugs, and we find out in HEX #5 (which has Texeira back on penciling duty) that he worked for the Conglomerate, who've sent their goons out to search for those responsible. Jonah and Stiletta kick the snot outta them and steal their ride so they can get back to civilization (or at least what passes for it these days). The Conglomerate doesn’t take kindly to this, especially after one of them -- who was looking forward to seeing the gunfight Borsten promised a couple of issues ago -- recognizes Hex in some surveillance footage, and figures Hex must be working for Borsten.

In retaliation, they send out their own "hired gun": a bruiser named Chain with a buzzsaw hand and titanium body armor. After a five-page brawl, Jonah manages to flatten him in a car-crusher, but this doesn’t mean his troubles are over, as some of the Conglomerate’s other goons take him and Stiletta captive at the beginning of HEX #6. Surprisingly, they’re not interested in killing him, and instead the Conglomerate offers Hex a job: destroying Borsten's time machine before he can use his stolen tech to neutralize the radiation in the water table, which would makes Soames worthless and bankrupt the Conglomerate. A few of their men have already infiltrated the Needle’s personnel, but Hex is “a regular one-man army”, so they want the gunfighter to “surrender” to Borsten’s forces in order to gain access to the time machine, and guarantee Hex that they’ll send him back to 1875 before they destroy it. Stiletta wants to help out with taking down her father -- when Borsten escaped to the future, he didn’t bother to warn his family, and Stiletta survived the nukes by sheer luck -- but Jonah refuses, then rides off alone to a spot where Borsten’s men can capture him (though he first puts up a bit of a fight to make it look good).

In HEX #7, the Conglomerate’s inside man shows up to release Jonah from his stasis tube and assist in the plan. Unfortunately, a guard kills the man right afterward, and accidentally triggers the explosives they were going to use to blow up the time machine. This sets off a chain reaction throughout the Needle, and Jonah has to try and get to the time machine alone before the whole place blows sky-high. Little does he know that backup is on the way: Stiletta has ignored Jonah’s wishes and snuck into the Needle, and she soon runs into Harris, who’s been tortured for the last few issues by Borsten and just managed to escape. After an off-screen confab, they realize they’re on the same side and head off to find Hex. They finally meet up with him in the chronal chamber in time to save him from being shot by Borsten. As Hex and Harris prepare to depart, more guards bust in, rescuing their boss and shooting Stiletta -- while Harris vanishes, Jonah jumps off the platform without a second thought to save her, and the time machine is destroyed as more explosions tear the chamber apart. Hex and Stiletta escape the Needle by the skin of their teeth, while Reinhold Borsten is shown being engulfed in flames.

Wagner returned for HEX #8, a fun romp involving a rigged game in a shooting gallery. This issue also features Jonah gaining some new guns -- a pair of .357 Ruger Blackhawks -- but by the end of the story, he’s lost Siletta! From the looks of things, she got kidnapped while he was in town getting supplies, and though he searches high and low for her, he turns up nothing, and by the beginning of the next issue (as illustrated by Texeira again), he’s turned his attention towards getting shit-faced instead. Considering his previous track record with the bottle, this is perfectly understandable, especially when you factor in that Stiletta may have been the only thing in this entire time period keeping Jonah anchored in reality. There’s also the possibility that Jonah’s in love with Stiletta, but aside from lip-locking with the robot version of her in HEX #2, very little evidence exists in the series to suggest that they’re a romantic couple and not just two people that’ve thrown their lot in with each other. Whatever the makeup of their relationship, the gal stays on Jonah’s mind through the next couple of issues, despite distractions like the Stepford Wives-esque community he encounters in HEX #9 and rescuing a well-heeled man’s daughter from a “Sin Killer” cult in HEX #10 (June 1986), the last one penciled by Ron Wagner. The latter is also notable for containing a brief cameo by the Legion of Super-Heroes, though these two pages sadly don’t have any bearing on the plot at all, nor do they effect anything in Legion of Super-Heroes #23 (released the same month) where an abbreviated version of this scene appears:

Despite having no impact upon the story itself, the Legion's presence does signal a turn in the title’s overall content, which will become clear with the next issue.

In our final installment, we have a "Requiem for a Gunfighter" as Fleisher and Hex part ways.

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All content in this article entry written by Susan Hillwig. If you want to attribute any of this work, please credit Susan Hillwig. For more of Susan, check out her One Fangirl's Opinion blog.

A Decade in the Life of Jonah Hex (1984 - 1985)

With a comics career spanning nearly 45 years, multiple cartoon appearances, a feature film, plus a guest-shot on the CW's television show Legends of Tomorrow (April 14th, see local listings), Jonah Hex is the highest-profile character in DC's Western stable. Created by writer John Albano & artist Tony DeZuniga (both of whom wanted to bring the aesthetic of "spaghetti Western" movies to comics), Jonah debuted in 1972's All-Star Western #10 (which was re-titled Weird Western Tales by issue #12) and quickly became a fan favorite. Albano parted ways with his creation after penning only ten issues, leaving him in the very capable hands of Michael Fleisher, who would accompany the scar-faced bounty hunter over to his first self-titled series, Jonah Hex, three years later.

Between 1977 and 1987, Fleisher fleshed out virtually every aspect of the character's life, giving readers details about Jonah's childhood and his wartime experiences, having him settle down and start a family, even revealing his final fate at the dawn of the 20th Century, as well as the possible nightmare to come in the mid-21st Century. In this series of articles, we're going to present you with a "highlight reel" of this ten-year period under Fleisher's tenure, showing you how Jonah Hex went from being a mere four-color cowboy to a legend that would survive the deterioration of the genre that birthed him.

As Jonah Hex #87 (October 1984) opens, Jonah finally tells Adrian Sterling his true feelings, namely how he’s beginning to feel "like some rich girl’s lap dog, goin' out tuh fancy dress-up parties ever' night." He's heading back out West, and though he does offer to bring her along, Adrian's hesitation is about all the answer he needs. Jonah hitches a ride on a freight train headed west, which later gets blown to Hell and gone by some outlaws...a bad move on their part, since Jonah survives to take them out one by one. Jonah hauls their carcasses to the nearest town, where the sheriff shows him the newest wanted poster to come in...and it just so happens to bear Emmylou Hartley’s face! She did indeed assist Brett and the other two gals, Camille and Sandy, with a bank robbery last issue, and though all the women were disguised as men, some people got a glimpse of Emmy’s face when her bandana fell down during a struggle with a bank customer -- Brett shot the man, but the blame has gotten pinned on Emmy.

In Jonah Hex #88, Jonah tries to get to the bottom of this mess, which gets more complicated when another group of train robbers decide to use the wanted poster of Emmy to their advantage: the leader buys a blonde, pigtailed wig and forces one of the younger gang members to wear it, the notion being that any job they pull will be blamed on Emmy’s gang instead. As (mis)fortune would have it, one of the passengers on the first train they decide to rob under this scheme is Adrian, who's so in love with Hex that she's trying to track him down. During the trip, Adrian strikes up a conversation with a former tavern gal named Temple Starr. Unlike Adrian, Temple is running away from a man, not after one, and she shows Adrian the man’s picture in an engraved locket he gave her. In a contrived sequence of events, Adrian asks to try on the locket just as the robbers burst into the passenger car, killing Temple and striking Adrian in the head with the butt of a gun. This results in Adrian losing her memory and (thanks to the engraved locket she was still wearing) later being led to believe that she’s actually Temple Starr! Though Jonah later rounds up the robbers, he never learns of Adrian’s mishap, and aside from a couple of brief scenes in the next issue of an amnesiac Adrian working in a saloon, this is the last we’ll ever see of her. For all we know, she spent the rest of her days waiting tables, unaware that she’d left friends, family, and riches behind in New Orleans.

After the false lead caused by the train robbers, Jonah finally manages to catch sight of Emmy with Brett and his gang. He follows them into the town of Red Dog, where they try to rob the assayer’s office. Not believing that Emmy could be a willing participant in all this, Jonah busts open the back door with the intent of rescuing her, and gets a nasty surprise:

Brett, Emmy, and the others get away clean, and the reader was left to wonder for two months whether or not Jonah survived. It turned out that, while Jonah didn’t lose his life, he did lose Tony DeZuniga, who left the title after this issue. Back in 2006, I was able to ask him via a mutual friend why he'd left, and his reply was simple: his contract with DC had expired, and they decided not to renew it. Though we can’t say for certain why DC made that decision, the most likely reason is that, by this point in time, the company had already determined the title was to be cancelled. As Fleisher had told readers months earlier, overall sales weren’t what they used to be, and with Crisis on Infinite Earths -- DC’s huge 50th anniversary event -- just around the corner, the time had come for sweeping changes across all titles. To paraphrase the old tagline, worlds would live and worlds would die, and Jonah’s world had fallen squarely on the "die" list.

This didn’t mean Fleisher was going to let Jonah go down without a fight. If the direct market didn’t favor Westerns, he’d find a different genre to slip the bounty hunter into. This is where Bob Greenberger comes into the picture: as editor for both Crisis on Infinite Earths and The History of the DC Universe, Greenberger was privy to much of the behind-the-scenes action during the mid-1980s. I spoke with him on the subject in 2012, and he said this portion of our tale actually begins a few years before Jonah’s impending cancellation. "In 1982, when Mad Max: Road Warrior was being brought to the United States after playing to huge box office in Australia a year earlier, several DC execs, including special projects guru Joe Orlando and his editor Andy Helfer, attended a screening. Andy was arguably in favor of licensing it for comics and Orlando, I was told, didn’t think DC should spend the money, just rip it off.” Greenberger believes that Helfer, who was acting as "keeper" for Fleisher in regards to his various projects, brought up the idea of dropping Jonah Hex into a Mad Max kind of setting (Fleisher credits his own viewing of the movie as inspiration, and it’s possible that Orlando, being a longtime friend of Fleisher’s, may have contributed to the idea as well). Also, Fleisher was locked into a four-books-a-month contract at the time -- with Jonah Hex cancelled, another project had to be created to fill that hole -- so he was given the go-ahead to move Jonah to a whole new playing field, "with the out being that we knew he’d come back [to the Old West] so he could be stuffed," Greenberger said.

With the destination set, all they needed to do now was build the road that would get Jonah there. First priority was getting a new artist, and Mark Texeira was chosen for the task -- illustrating Hex’s upcoming adventures would be his first long-term gig, starting with Jonah Hex #89. This issue is less action-packed than usual, and for good reason: Jonah’s got "a king-sized hole" in his chest thanks to Emmy, and he's resting up at the local boardinghouse. It's during this time that Jeremy Ashford comes riding into town, itching to avenge the death of his father, the Gray Ghost, who'd passed away two issues earlier after escaping Hex's wrath. Despite his poor physical shape, Hex saves Jeremy from being shot by a fella gunning for the bounty hunter, an act which later puts Jeremy in a moral quandary: how can he carry out his oath when the man he's sworn to kill saved his life? He eventually decides to face Hex like a man, unmasked. Finding him out on a porch swing, Jeremy sits down across from Jonah and tells him who he is. Jonah says he already knows, as he spied the uniform inside Jeremy’s bag when he saved him from getting shot. Jeremy then draws his gun and holds it inches from Jonah’s face, but the bounty hunter doesn’t flinch, he simply says, "Yuh want muh two cents, boy? Don’t do it!" What follows is probably the most intense scene in a Jonah Hex tale ever:

Jonah's calm demeanor causes Jeremy to lose his nerve and run off. Jonah breathes a sigh of relief, then reveals that he’d been holding a cocked pistol beneath the blanket on his lap the entire time. Moments later, Jeremy, who can’t live with the shame of letting down his father, puts his own pistol to his head and kills himself, bringing an abrupt end to the Gray Ghost saga (though a new version of the character would turn up 25 years later in Jonah Hex v2 #59).

The final three issues of Jonah Hex were drawn by Gray Morrow, who’s probably better known for his work on another DC cowboy -- Greg Saunders, the original Vigilante -- but he’d also done a cover or two in the past for the bounty hunter. It’s uncertain why Texeira didn’t close out the series, though we can speculate that his schedule was possibly full due to work on the new Hex title, so Morrow was brought in to pinch-hit, with Texeira contributing to two of the covers. There’s a feeling in these tales of Fleisher just biding his time until the end, shoehorning scenes that are relevant to the current storyline into scripts he perhaps had laying around. It’s not to say these three issues are bad, they just mostly come off as "business as usual". Jonah Hex #90 revolves around a young woman named Silver Ames, who’s decided to become the fastest gun in the West, and she’s got it in her head that the best way to do it is to kill everyone who’s faster than her. When we meet her, she's just tracked down Jeremiah Hart, the second-fastest gun in the country according to folks. I’m glad to tell you that the colorist finally got it right and made Jeremiah dark-haired again with tan-colored buckskins, but we don’t get to enjoy it for long because Silver shoots Jeremiah in the back when he refuses to draw on her. We later see Mei Ling sobbing over Jeremiah’s dead body, and though it’s a terrible note to leave the poor gal on, this is the last glimpse we'll get of Mei Ling until the 2006-2011 Jonah Hex series.

Meanwhile, Jonah’s recovered well enough that he can go searching for Emmy again. It’s a darn shame he doesn’t know Emmy just escaped from Brett’s clutches, as he could’ve saved himself a lot of grief out on the trail: first Jonah gets caught in a rockslide (which kills his horse), then he gets mauled by a mountain lion (which tears his Confederate coat to shreds). By some miracle, he makes it to a farmhouse, where the owner lends him a horse. This is where Jonah’s luck finally turns good again, as he just misses being hit by a "shootin' star":

Not giving the strange incident a second thought, Jonah heads back to town to get patched up by the doc. A telegram about Hart's murder (from Mei Ling, perhaps?), is waiting for him, and just as he reads it, Silver Ames herself shows up, demanding a shootout. Knowing what she’s capable of, Hex shoots her down before she can finish her three-count. His attitude about it may seem blasé, but who knows how many times he’s gone through this same scenario...and unlike Jeremy, who was reluctant to kill when the time came, it didn’t appear that any amount of talking would make Silver back down. Then we get to Jonah Hex #91, where we're introduced to yet another love interest for Jonah, and they’re not subtle about it either, showing Jonah in a lip-lock right on the cover, which imitates a Neal Adams Superman piece from 1971:

Jonah runs into Carolee while he’s out looking for Emmy (there must be a really fast tailor back in Red Dog, because he’s wearing his Confederate coat again), and she tells him a sob story about wanting to join the rodeo that just came into town. Well, it just so happens Jonah knows one of the guys working that rodeo, and he says he’ll see what he can do about getting her a job. Carolee is so overjoyed by the news that she pulls him down for a roll in the hay right then and there...which wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t seventeen and he wasn’t pushing forty! Jonah is quite aware of how wrong this relationship is, but he doesn’t seem too eager to fight it. However, it does turn out to be a good thing that Jonah’s hanging around the rodeo, as there’s a few former employees that’re fixing to destroy it. While tracking them down, they ambush him, and though Jonah manages to kill one before the rest run off, the dead body vanishes in a beam of light while Jonah’s back is turned -- since he didn’t witness the event, Jonah doesn’t make the connection between this disappearance and the incident at the farmhouse, but the reader may have by now. Back at the rodeo, Jonah decides the best way to smoke these skunks out is to make them think he’s moved on, so he raids the costume tent and -- in one of the most embarrassing moments in Jonah’s career -- disguises himself as a rodeo clown:

As if that wasn’t humiliating enough, he also spies Carolee cozying up to the owner of the rodeo. The only good thing to come out of Jonah’s greasepaint adventure is he catches the bad guys before they can do any more damage. The issue ends with Jonah punching a mirror in a fit of rage, and who can blame him? Think of what’s happened to him in the past year: He got tossed in prison, he went on a major bender and had to go to a temperance farm to dry out, he lost his wife to another man, he burned through three girlfriends (the last one being more than half his age), and then there’s all the usual crap he has to suffer through on a daily basis like getting shot and stabbed and beat up and what-have-you. It’s been a long time since Jonah’s had so much go wrong in his life all at once, and the new life waiting around the corner will be just as rough. When we reach Jonah Hex #92 (dated August 1985), the cover says it all: "GUT-WRENCHING FINAL ISSUE! Will it also be Jonah's last gunfight?" To tell the truth, the overall issue is far from gut-wrenching. The story flips between scenes of Jonah protecting a young orphan girl who witnessed a murder, and scenes of Emmy still on the run from Brett, the latter of which have the pace of a slasher film, as Emmy keeps thinking she’s reached a safe place, only to have Brett turn up and set her running again. It all comes to a head in the last few pages, when Jonah stops in the Red Dog Saloon for a drink, and Emmy runs in and finds him...just as the mysterious beam of light that’s missed him twice before finally hits its target:

And just like that, in the summer of 1985, the very last Western on the comics market came to an end. The heyday of four-color cowboys had long since passed, and it would be decades before publishers would offer up multiple Western-themed titles again (though only a handful compared to the old days). Along with the loss of an entire genre, readers would also be deprived of any knowledge as to what happened to Emmy after Jonah vanished: like Adrian Sterling, there has never been another mention of Emmylou Hartley in all the years since her last appearance. As for Jonah himself, he would be given one last chance at survival, far from the genre that birthed him. In a comics shop full of superheroes, Jonah needed a miracle in order to stand out amongst them. What he got was HEX.

In our next installment, we go back to the future...whether ya like it or not!

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All content in this article entry written by Susan Hillwig. If you want to attribute any of this work, please credit Susan Hillwig. For more of Susan, check out her One Fangirl's Opinion blog.