Jonah Hex: Why Comics to Film was a bad, bad idea
“With deadly accuracy…Jonah Hex’s blazing guns quickly bring down two of the startled raiders…” (next frame) “…while the third streaks away in terror…” (next frame) “…but, like an excited animal who has caught the scent of blood, the crafty gunfighter pursues his quarry…”
All-Star Western #10, March 1971
All-Star Western #10, the first appearance of Jonah Hex, was a pleasant surprise for me as a comic book fan. John Albano was the writer and when I read this – I was hooked.
I had been reading comics since I was a kid, gathering copies of “Avengers” and “Spider-Man” from the local A&P in mass quantities.
But a western?
Yes, this is a real old-school style western, with a John Wayne style star – Jonah Hex…this was interesting.
Hex is a gunslinging, knife throwing bounty hunter, turning in bad guys for a $100 a head.
That’s Jonah Hex.
There were no Superpowers, no Joker or Lex Luthor, none of the usual staple in comics – just Billy the Kid on steroids.
Jonah Hex had a brief cameo in “Crisis on Infinite Earths,” but I had paid little attention to his disfigured mug. It was a series in 1985 simply called “Hex” that I found super cheap – out of the quarter bin — that led me to seek out the old original All-Star issues.
The Mark Texeira artwork and Klaus Janson inks on “Hex” were surprisingly awesome in this Mad Max, apocalyptic series.
His disfigured face evolved slightly and, one could argue, served as an influential precursor to redesigning the Two-Face deformity which was accurately portrayed in “Dark Knight.”
Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t exactly track down every Hex comic as DC was slinging titles left and right. Most were crap.
I was a fan of the artist Tim Truman’s work on “Hawkworld,” but his Jonah Hex, which was drawn well, couldn’t salvage the pathetic stories and the recycling of the old All-Star Western material without an ounce of creativity. (IMO)
Now, why reflect on Jonah Hex?
A Jonah Hex film.
DC’s efforts in films has been a joke.
If you don’t spoon feed Hollywood execs Batman or Superman, they screw it up.
“Catwoman” is the number one, prime example. They cast Halle Berry as a black Catwoman in a town of ONLY white characters. Now, while that’s a nominal problem to the pathetic film and acting, it proves these DC/Warner Brothers execs are morons.
So, fast forward to 2010 and after failed attempts to get Wonder Woman, Flash and other characters to the big screen, they hire hacks to spend $80 million on explosions and high priced Hollywood talent.
So let’s review:
DC hires an animator from Pixar (Jimmy Hayward) whose only previous film as director was “Horton Hears a Who”, to direct a script written by the writers of “Crank” and will star big name stars who don’t want to be there (Josh Brolin and John Malkovich).
It actually only gets worse because it’s a western, the lead actor is behind layers of make-up to construct his hideous countenance and most of the marketing is simply “Come see Megan Fox!”
The theaters will not face a stampede with that amazing strategy, in fact, “Jonah Hex” will grace the lists of “Worse Films of 2010” – my prediction.
Maybe I’m wrong, but the numbers don’t usually lie: only $1.95 million on the first day.
DC’s Jonah Hex will be a “Legend of Tomorrow”
