Jonah Hex: No Way Back - Things I noticed.

Well, there are gonna be some spoilers ahead.

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* I enjoyed the page layouts by DeZuniga. He is getting more abstract and creative as time goes by. However, sometimes I had trouble recognizing characters from page to page (unless I looked at their clothes). Tony's stuff is getting grittier as he gets older, probably because he is inking his own pencils.

In the fight scene with Papagayo I actually had trouble following what was going on. The prior two pages were set up to read top row left page/ bottom row left page/ top row right page/ bottom row right page. These pages appeared to be set up to be read top row left page /top row right page/ bottom row left page/ bottom row right page.  There was one panel in Jonah's fight with Papagayo that I actually couldn't figure out exactly what Jonah's arm was doing. Also, the knife in Jonah's arm vaniched in one panel.

* By my calculations, I would have placed Ginny closer to 56 than 46 (as stated by Jonah).  Let's review what we know:
Jonah was born in 1838 and his mom left when he was ten in 1848. We have no idea how old Ginny was when Jonah was born, but this story gives us some clues in that Jonah seems fairly put out when he learns that Joshua married a girl when she was 14. Could this be a clue to how old Ginny was when she married Woodson? If so, then Ginny is 14 or 15 years older than Jonah (being born in 1823).

If Jonah last saw his mom in 1875, she would have been around 52 at that point. ( I would chalk up her not recognizing Jonah in this story to the pain and the drunken state she was in.)

The last time Jonah fought El Papagayo was 1878. This story obviously takes place after that. Let's toss in a year or two for their meeting in the current series and for some time to lapse and let's place this story in 1880.

1880, Jonah would be about 42 and Ginny would be about 56/57

But I cut Jonah some slack, I can't remember how old my mom is without doing the math in my head.

* Were those some subtle references to Jonah's marriage? "Not now, Not ever again." Nice touch.

* Nice surprise attack. I liked it.

* I did like Jonah's relationship with his mother at the very end.

* So Joshua got married to a 14 year old girl? Was that so unusual back then? (Not sure, just asking) However, I took Jonah's disgust of the situation to be one of dredging up memories of what happened to his ma, making me think Ginny was 14 when SHE got married and Jonah viewed it as a form of abuse.

* I hated the name Dazzleby way back when. It sounded so hokey. I'm glad Justin and Jimmy remembered, but I could have also believed the story that Ginny left Dazzleby and married a third man, just in order to have a better last name for the story.

* A full chest tattoo of the crucifixion? Really? You really want me to buy that one? I'm surprised that you didn't make Joshua look like Robert Mitchum from Night of the Hunter (like in The Sin Killer ). The crazy killer Christian or fake Christian angle is an old one and I'm fairly tired of it now. What else ya got? In over 100 stories we have only gotten one story of a confessed Christian actually doing compassionate things. I guess I could have bought the concept of Joshua being led by the conceptof salvation through works instead of grace (it's any easy trap to fall into), but the full chest tattoo? Sheesh.

* Mike Brown from Oklahoma, we hardly knew ya. Mike, wish ya coulda stuck around some more. Nice nod to the saloon scene in the movie. So who is Mike Brown, in real life? (If you guys ever want to toss me into a Hex story, the last name is Hendrickson. Just sayin' is all)

* "How'd ya get that scar?" Again, another nice nod to Albano and the upcoming film.

* I enjoyed Papagayo recounting every one of their prior meetings. Nice.

* An actual origin of Papagayo? Wow, I just have to say that I liked it, it carried water for me, and I enjoyed it. Good job on that part guys.

* I don't know where you guys planned on this one falling in the Hex timeline, but I place it around 1879 - 1880. See my reasoning above;.

* Kicking a man's arm clean off FTW!

* The name of the town, Heaven's Gate, took on a whole new meaning once the population changed gender.

* Was Eli, Joshua's youngest, retarded or have Turouttes or something? That bit never went anywhere and I can't decide if I'm happy that it didn't. Would have been cheesy for it to mean something.

* Dag. Best dog name ever. Takes 1st place from the previous leader, "Doug"

FINAL RECAP -

Worth it? Yes. Nice format, nice story, some history, some new stuff, some things get changed, beginnings, endings, old wounds opened up and exposed. All in all, a good story.

Thanks guys. Can we have Jose Luis Garcia Lopez do the next one?

Of course, in the future, I'll be doing a complete review/recap of this, not sure when, but eventually.