JONAH HEX #59
Writer: Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti
Artist: Jordi Bernet

“Ah’ll be back in a bit… And if there ain’t a clean glass when ah git back, there won’t be a saloon neither.” – Jonah Hex

Sometimes I really fear that this book will suffer the same fate as Howard The Duck and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. It’s a fun read and its regular done-in-one-issue storytelling makes it one of the most accessible books around, but it has the anchor of a godawful film adaptation that might stop people from giving it a try.

Jonah Hex is, at its core, a classic spaghetti western: bad ass main character looking out for himself, nasty villains, gray morality and lots of blood and bullets. You can almost hear the Ennio Morricone soundtrack while reading it. I really don’t know how a filmmaker can screw that up, especially when the biggest video game of 2009, Red Dead Redemption, was….a spaghetti western.

The latest issue has Hex seeking a bounty alive when the bounty’s brother wants him dead, all the while Hex is being stalked by a masked vigilante from his Confederate past. You’d think that a masked and costumed character would look out of place in the gritty Hex world, but Bernet’s art and design makes him look more like a frightening Klansman pulp character than someone you’d see the Justice Society fighting.

Bernet’s art deserves some applause here. He hits the perfect balance between gritty realism and comic book action. His actions sequences are top notch, as illustrated by one in this issue where Hex fights an armed mob single-handedly in a dust storm, wielding only an axe. Bad ass.

Seriously, folks. Do what I do and pretend the movie doesn’t exist. Give the comic a shot. It’s incredibly easy to jump into, the art is great, the dialogue is fun and with the success of games like Red Dead. there couldn’t be a better time to be a cowboy.

MIKE’S RATING: 4/5

—————————————

R.E.B.E.L.S. #20
Writer: Tony Bedard
Artist: Claude St. Aubin

“You cannot match wits with me. You don’t have the bandwidth.”– Brainiac

I love this book, but it really needs a different title, like “L.E.G.I.O.N.,” as the protagonists really haven’t been “rebels” since the opening Starro arc ended five issues ago. I can’t help but wonder if the title has stopped people from giving it a try.

When I try to describe this book to people, I usually explain the “hero” of the title, Vril Dox, by describing him as Benjamin Linus of ‘Lost’ as the C.E.O. of Blackwater in space. He’s the sort of guy who will save your planet from invasion, as long as your check clears.

And like Ben Linus, Dox has daddy issues.

Dox’s father just happens to be intergalactic tyrant and mass murderer, Brainiac. Dox had managed to lock his father up on their homeworld of Colu, only to have him escape when Dox’s own son, Lyrl (styling himself “Brainiac 3”), attacked the planet with a massively powerful A.I. Star to steal the planet’s data core and kill his father in the process. Only the Greek gods have a more dysfunctional family.

Now that all hell has broken loose, Dox has unleashed his old employee, Lobo, on the planet as a last ditch gamble to take out both the schemes of his father and son. Now I’ve never been a huge Lobo fan, but the way he’s used here is a lot of fun, as his violent, irrational id is put up against Lyrl’s helplessly logical doomsday machine. All I know is, if someone sent Lobo after me, I’d run. Even if I were a doomsday machine.

The issue also has what may be the greatest deus ex machina I’ve ever seen in comics, as the chronically curious Brainiac cannot help but download the quarantined sections of Dox’s brain, unleashing all of his son’s walled-off adolescent fears, pain and insecurities into his brain. Teen angst as a weapon of mass destruction. Weapons grade sadness.

I really like what Bedard is doing with this title, and I can’t wait to see how the long hinted-at conflict between Dox’s profit-based law enforcement and the more altruistic Green Lantern Corps pans out.

If you’ve been looking for a book where you can really root for the “bad guy,” please give R.E.B.E.L.S. a look.

MIKE’S RATING: 4/5

Popularity: 2% [?]